NEOCAMERALISMVSOPENPLANNING
Two digital models of the future: the state as a private corporation — and the state as an open planning system accountable to its citizens
Neocameralism is the concept of the American programmer and essayist Curtis Yarvin (pen name Mencius Moldbug), founder of the "neo-reactionary" current. Its key texts are the blog Unqualified Reservations (2007–2013) and the idea of "Patchwork": a world divided into sovereign gov-corps, each run by a chief executive accountable to shareholders rather than voters.
Both models start from the same observation: the classical state is badly governed — slow, opaque, driven by distorted incentives. Both propose rebuilding governance on technology, measurable indicators and hard accountability for results. From there the paths diverge radically, because the two models answer the central question differently: who sets the goals, and who owns the result. Neocameralism is a far-right technocratic autocracy that turns the state into a private corporation; open planning is a left-democratic digital synthesis of plan and market, where technology serves society rather than the owners of capital.
Key differences between the systems
Criterion
Neocameralism (C. Yarvin)
Open Planning 2.0
Three forks where the models diverge
Who sets the goals
For Yarvin — the owner: the CEO and the shareholders. For us — the citizens, through a democratic layer. The technological apparatus is the same in both cases; what differs is who does the goal-setting.
Who owns the infrastructure
For Yarvin — the private owner of the gov-corp. For us — society. This answer decides who collects the rent from digital platforms, data and infrastructure.
Which way transparency points
In Yarvin’s model monitoring points downward: the corporation sees the residents. In ours transparency points upward: citizens see budgets, KPIs and contractors.
The key ideological contradiction
Neo-feudalism
In neocameralism, automation and digitalization lead to "neo-feudalism", where disenfranchised masses depend on the will of a board of directors and the efficiency of algorithms. Technology does not reduce the asymmetry of power — it entrenches it: whoever holds the capital holds sovereignty.
Humanization of labor
In the open planning system, blockchain and the automation of routine are used as instruments for humanizing labor. The surplus from digitalization is deliberately directed toward medicine, education and care, protecting society from the dictate of a techno-administrative class.
What the models share — and why demarcation is mandatory
An honest comparison has to admit it: the two models share a common foundation, and that is exactly why they are easy to confuse.
Both start from the premise that today’s state is badly governed and that governance can be redesigned from scratch.
Both take measurable indicators, accountability for results and digital accounting tools seriously.
Both rely on a technological apparatus that is ideologically neutral in itself: a smart contract serves a shareholder just as well as a citizens’ assembly.
Hence the main conclusion: without a democratic goal-setting layer and public ownership, digital planning is technically indistinguishable from a gov-corp. Transparency, KPIs and smart contracts protect against nothing on their own — the only protection is who controls them.
Conclusion
Neocameralism and open planning use a similar technological toolkit and arrive at opposite political outcomes. The difference is not in the algorithms but in who runs them and in whose interest. That is why, in our model, democratic goal-setting is not a decorative add-on but a load-bearing structure: remove it and you get exactly what Yarvin describes.
The very same smart contract can be a shareholder’s instrument or a citizen’s instrument. Everything turns on one question: who sets the goal, and who owns the result.