The Shadow of Technocracy

How Centralized Control is Reshaping Global Finance - a Series

In an era where central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are being piloted in over 114 countries and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics steer trillions in investments, a quiet revolution in financial governance is underway.

Critics trace this to a century-old technocratic ideology that prioritizes expert-led control over democratic processes, potentially accelerating market centralization and volatility. As global assets under ESG management are projected to soar to $33.9 trillion by 2026—representing 21.5% of total assets—this shift signals a directional momentum toward consolidated power in finance, with profound implications for investors and economies alike.

Historical Roots: From 1930s Ideals to Elite Influence

The push for technocratic governance in economics isn’t a recent phenomenon but stems from the 1930s Technocracy Movement at Columbia University, where engineers and scientists advocated replacing capitalism with a resource-based system managed by experts.

This “science of social engineering” emphasized control over energy and resources rather than price mechanisms, laying ideological groundwork for modern centralized finance. Influential figures like the Rockefeller family amplified this through funding global institutions, including partial financing of the UN headquarters and co-founding the Trilateral Commission in 1973.

The Commission aimed to revive technocracy, envisioning a “new international economic order” that would transfer resources into a global trust administered by elites, anticipating fiat currency collapses.

By the late 1960s, the Club of Rome—formed on Rockefeller property—furthered this agenda with computer models warning of overpopulation and resource scarcity, framing humanity as the planet’s “cancer.”

Critics argue this manufactured a climate narrative to justify control, culminating in the 1992 UN Earth Summit and Agenda 21, the precursor to today’s Agenda 2030. These historical threads reveal a consistent trend: powerful oligarchs leveraging crises to centralize economic decision-making, influencing everything from commodity prices to monetary policy.

Ideological Evolution: Sustainable Development and Stakeholder Capitalism

Fast-forward to 2025, and these roots manifest in the UN’s Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), described by detractors as a blueprint for inventorying and controlling global resources, land, and human behavior. Progress remains sluggish, with only 18-35% of targets on track, prompting calls for accelerated action in food systems, energy, and digital transformation—areas critics see as levers for technocratic oversight. The agenda’s “Orwellian doublespeak,” where transparency equates to eroded privacy, underscores fears of totalitarian undertones.

Complementing this is the World Economic Forum’s promotion of stakeholder capitalism, which integrates corporate and governmental control without democratic input. ESG frameworks, developed since 2004 through UN-WEF collaborations, enforce ideologies on businesses, dictating access to capital based on environmental, social, and governance compliance. While proponents highlight ESG’s role in risk reduction and revenue growth, backlash mounts amid regulatory rollbacks and litigation, with some markets questioning its financial viability. This evolution points to a market trend where financial power bypasses elections, imposing behavioral norms and reshaping investment flows.

The Endgame: Control Mechanisms and Market Momentum

The ultimate objective, per critical analyses, is a global technocracy supplanting liberal democracy through an “Omniwar” on humanity, weaponizing food, energy, and money under climate pretexts.

Enabling technologies like AI, digital IDs, and CBDCs make this feasible, promising real-time surveillance and coercion. By 2031, CBDC payments could surge to 7.8 billion globally, intensifying competition for bank deposits and altering monetary dynamics. Critics warn of a “digital concentration camp,” echoing the WEF’s “own nothing and be happy” maxim as a intent for central ownership.

Yet, amid these trends, resistance grows: technocracy faces scrutiny for undermining democracy, with calls to rethink central bank independence. Looking ahead, markets may bifurcate—ESG-driven in Europe and Asia, while U.S. rollbacks foster alternatives like decentralized finance.