Awareness Creep: How the Four Factions Woke Up to the War

May 24, 2026

Over a period of roughly 25 years, the global ruling class, what is sometimes called the Transnational Capitalist Class slowly awakened to the realization they were not partners in a globalized utopia, but combatants in a protracted stalemate.

This invisible lens of Awareness Creep happened gradually over the course of a series of events, some unfortunate and others seemingly benign.

Here is a comprehensive breakdown of how Awareness Creep unfolded and evolved over the last twenty-five years, mapping out how the standard pursuit of profit gradually transformed into a hyper-conscious war for global dominance.

Phase 1: The 2000s – Blind Prosperity & Simple Competition

During this era, the factions were largely blind to their fundamental incompatibilities. They were unified by the neoliberal “rules based order” established by Western financial elites. They operated under the assumption that a rising global tide would lift all boats and there appeared no alternative model on the near horizon, after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet empire.

The Catalyst(s) that changed this myopic optimism was the expansion of the internet and the entry of China into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001.

At that time, Silicon Valley was viewed by Davos as a group of startups geeks, creating useful consumer tools, but essentially harmless. The State Capitalists (primarily China) were viewed by Davos as a massive, cheap mega-factory that would eventually liberalize and adopt Western corporate norms. Likewise, Western ruling elites viewed Russia as a defeated, chaotic former adversary that needed to be integrated into the Western-led global order as a junior partner.

This was known as the “modernization thesis,” popularized by Seymour Lipset, briefly stated, "the more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy.”

The National Imperialists, currently dominated by the Trump/Netanyahu coalition, viewed Silicon Valley as a speculative dot-com bubble and Davos as a talking heads think tank with no real influence. The Awareness Level of what was coming was Zero. Factions interacted through standard market competition. There was no concept of existential warfare; everyone assumed they could maximize profits simultaneously.

Phase 2: The 2010s – Friction & the Creep into Politics

The 2008 financial crash and the subsequent decade exposed structural cracks. The factions realized that the rules of the global economy were actively favoring some at the expense of others.

The Catalyst that broke the illusion was the Eurozone crisis, the rise of populist political movements (Brexit, Trump), and the consolidation of Big Tech monopolies that mushroomed virtually overnight. Silicon Valley grew so massive that it began swallowing legacy industries. They realized they needed political shields, transforming into the largest lobbying forces in Washington and Brussels. Its original mandate changed from “We build products; we don't do politics,” to serious lobby groups such as the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG) and Technet.

The Imperialists realized that Davos-backed climate initiatives and Silicon Valley data monopolies were actively threatening their bottom lines. They pivoted their capital toward funding nationalist political movements to stall global treaties. As the post–Cold War globalization consensus fractured, some sectors of capital and political actors increasingly converged around sovereignty-oriented and nationalist movements because they saw parts of the emerging global order as threatening their long-term interests.

State Capitalists realized that Western tech platforms were Trojan horses for Western cultural and political influence. China built the “Great Firewall” and began aggressively subverting the Davos banking network. China wanted the economic benefits of the internet and globalization, but not the loss of political control that the CCP believed could accompany unrestricted information flows. The Great Firewall became a way to pursue economic integration while maintaining centralized authority.

The Awareness Level became Tactical.

Different power networks and institutions gradually realized that their interests were diverging within the global order built after the Cold War. Factions realized their rivals were actively working against them. They weaponized domestic political systems, Super PACs, and regulatory bodies to protect their respective market shares. Davos wanted more integration and international coordination.

Imperialists and national-security, sovereignty-oriented actors became concerned about supply chains, industrial decline, technology dependence and strategic competition. The hard power WashingtonTel Aviv Consensus became increasingly at odds with the Davos globalists.

Phase 3: The 2020s to Present – Hyper-Consciousness & the Open War

The pandemic created the ultimate pressure cooker. By legally freezing the physical economy, global authorities inadvertently allowed Silicon Valley to cannibalize the middle and working classes. The resulting working-class fury fueled a populist firestorm that culminated in the return of Donald Trump.

During the pandemic, Silicon Valley used its digital network monopoly to stage a massive economic coup over the physical world.

Davos-aligned governments enforced physical lockdowns through Davos adjacent functionaries who acted like the pandemic PR men. This act effectively criminalized the physical economy (Mom-and-Pop retail, local restaurants, independent gyms) while leaving the digital economy untouched.

The Great Wealth Transfer: As physical competitors were legally forced to close, billions of consumer dollars were funnelled directly into digital infrastructure. Jeff Bezos’s Amazon became the world’s sole supply chain lifeline; Zoom replaced the office; Netflix replaced entertainment. Silicon Valley billionaires added trillions to their net worth in months, extracting wealth directly from a frozen working class.

The Imperialists suffered the most. They watched their real estate and retail empires collapse overnight. The Imperialists—the faction whose power is anchored in physical territory, tangible assets, and national sovereignty—suffered a near-total sectoral rout during the pandemic. Fossil fuel giants were gutted by a historic demand collapse, with global revenue losses projected at $1.8 trillion and some long-term forecasts warning of a terminal decline erasing $25 trillion in future profits; the market capitalizations of Shell and BP halved within days. Physical retail and commercial real estate faced an extinction-level event: U.S. retail bankruptcies hit a decade high, regional mall occupancy dropped 13 percent, and urban retail rents plunged by over 30 percent. Only the defense-industrial sub-sector, sheltered by government contracts, absorbed the shock without catastrophic damage. For the Imperialists, the pandemic was not a setback—it was a strategic defeat that accelerated the transfer of wealth from their physical empires directly into Silicon Valley’s digital infrastructure.

The destruction of the working class and the strict mandates imposed by Davos-aligned institutions created a boiling pot of public resentment. The working class felt abandoned by Davos bureaucrats (who mandated lockdowns and vaccines) and exploited by Silicon Valley (which profited from their isolation). This resentment manifested as the anti-vaccine movement, a fierce distrust of mainstream media, and a rejection of global institutions.

The Imperialists and populist leaders saw this massive, angry voter base and weaponized it. They funded the MAGA movement and parallel right-populist movements globally, shifting the narrative from a health crisis to a war between “corrupt global elites” and “ordinary citizens.” Trump promised to “drain the swamp” and take on the deep state.

The re-election of Donald Trump and the rise of nationalist leaders globally acted as the definitive hammer that broke the global ruling class into four separate war rooms. Trump was the political vehicle the Imperialists used to smash the system. His ascent shattered the illusion of a unified global elite, forcing Davos into a defensive position, dragging a predatory Silicon Valley into the political mud, and signaling to State Capitalists that the old global alliance was officially dead.

Davos is Isolated: The return of an “America First” agenda stripped Davos of its primary enforcer—the U.S. government. Davos could no longer rely on American military or financial backing to enforce global climate accords or free-trade treaties. They were forced to retreat into the European Union, turning to aggressive tech regulation (antitrust laws and AI containment) as their only remaining shield. They recognized that borderless algorithms and decentralized crypto networks could strip states of their tax bases and regulatory power, and shifted from passive oversight to active legal warfare against tech founders.

Silicon Valley is Forced to Pick a Side: Tech billionaires realized they could no longer sit on the sidelines as borderless tech utopians. With the rise of tariffs and national security mandates, Silicon Valley had to pivot. Figures like Elon Musk and major venture capitalists openly allied with the MAGA/Imperialist faction to secure domestic deregulation, while others double-downed on government defense contracts (like Palantir and Anduril) to fight State Capitalists abroad. Leaders published manifestos openly declaring war on the regulatory state (Davos) and traditional physical infrastructure (Imperialists).

State Capitalists Seized the Fracture: Seeing the Western alliance shatter into three competing internal factions (Davos vs. Silicon Valley vs. Imperialists), State Capitalists (China, Russia, and the BRICS+ alliance) realized the global rules-based order was dead. They aggressively accelerated their de-dollarization plans, secured physical resource pipelines, and braced for a world defined entirely by protectionist trade wars. They began explicitly dismantling global trade agreements to build insulated, parallel economies. Alternatively, the Trump administration exited from 66 international organizations, conventions, and treaty-related bodies on January 7, 2026.

The Awareness Level has become Absolute.

Major networks of power increasingly began modelling one another as strategic competitors rather than as participants in a shared globalization project. Every faction now maps out the other three as explicit adversaries. Corporate boardrooms, state intelligence briefs, and geopolitical war rooms are actively designed around countering the moves of the other three blocks.

This has created a volatile unstable global order. Even the boundaries between the factions are unstable because they are all essentially part of the transnational capitalist class and they are dependent on each other, as well as competing with each other. It’s a messy divorce where the estranged parties keep living in the same house because no one can afford to move out. This is dangerous in high stakes economic warfare.

Competition increasingly centers on control of the infrastructure through which power flows — payments, data, AI systems, supply chains, semiconductors, energy networks, and communications systems.

There is factional overlap and hybrid actors and unclear divisions. These fluid coalitions continuously are recalculating who is partner, rival, or dependency. China may have clear state boundaries but it also has a strong billionaire class with divergent interests from the state. State capitalists like Russia share its aversion to western imperialism, but at the same time have their own model of state capitalism and their own often conflicting interests.

An illustration taking front and centre stage: The Davos faction, led by Mark Carney, have become keenly aware of the factional warfare. The Awareness Creep prompted Carney to remark “we are in the midst of a rupture not a transition” at the World Economic Forum in January 20, 2026. The playing field is no longer hidden; the four factions are now feuding in full view of the world.

This article is a chapter in an ongoing series I’m working on. It’s a work in progress, organized as it will eventually appear in my upcoming book, The Capitalist Civil War. Some of the articles are commentary on current developments to test the thesis in real time.

INTRODUCTION: The Great Divide: Why We’re Fighting the Wrong War

CHAPTER 1: Morbid Symptoms: The Origins of the Capitalist Civil War

CHAPTER 2: The Four Factions of the Transnational Capitalist Class

(COMMENTARY) Davos Faction Floats the United States of Europe

CHAPTER 3: Modus Operandi: Who are the Transnational Capitalist Class?

CHAPTER 4: Globespeak: The Four Dialects of the Transnational Capitalist Class

(COMMENTARY) Carney Does Europe: A Marriage Made in Heaven

CHAPTER 5: The Chinese Capitalist Party

(COMMENTARY) Trump Hurries to Beijing for Emergency De-Risking

CHAPTER 6: Silicon Valley: Cult, Club, Cabal, or Class?

(COMMENTARY) The Quadripolar World Order at the Beijing Summit

CHAPTER 7: How Mark Carney Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Variable Geometry