Rewriting the plan of the world: Peter Thiel’s messianic rhetoric and the end of progressive neoliberalism

Abstract

ABSTRACT Following the 2007–8 financial crisis, far-Right conservatives advanced a reactionary political turn, seeking to replace the prevailing political order, what Nancy Fraser calls “progressive neoliberalism,” with an overtly exclusionary and rapacious form of capitalism. This article investigates how entrepreneur Peter Thiel sought to shape this transition, adopting a messianic rhetoric to return capitalism to its essential principles. Employing Giorgio Agamben’s study of Saint Paul, I argue that Thiel employed a Pauline stance to realize a plērōma, or fullness, of capitalism, preserving the profit motive while jettisoning neoliberalism’s deployment of progressivism. In this analysis, I build upon rhetorical scholars’ exploration of contemporary neoliberal discourse, framing the billionaire rhetor as a uniquely agentive figure in twenty-first-century capitalism and positing neoliberalism as an eminently versatile rhetorical logic capable of operationalizing arguments from across the political spectrum.