It Falls Upon the Left to Defeat Fascism Once Again

Neofascism is on the rise and the neoliberal establishment is a big part of the problem and very much the opposite of the solution.

By C.J. Polychroniou

May 12, 2026

Source: Common Dreams

Protesters at a rally against President Donald Trump at United Nations Plaza in San Francisco stand in the rain, holding a large banner reading "Whip Fascism - We Won't Go Backwards". A sign held up in the background reads "Our Liberation Must Be Intersectional As Fuck". (Photo: Pax Ahimsa Gethen)

The world is at a precipice, facing existential threats while fascism is on the rise. Yet we lack the proper governance structures to address global challenges, and it also seems that it falls upon the left to defeat fascism once again. So argues political scientist/political economist, author and journalist C. J. Polychroniou in the interview that follows with the French-Greek journalist Alexandra Boutri.

Alexandra Boutri: We live in a time of great uncertainty and profound disillusionment. We see a global escalation of violence and a lack of accountability. Even Israel’s genocide goes unpunished, which speaks volumes of the hypocrisy of western governments with regard to human rights and international law. There is a global wave of democratic backsliding, massive amounts of inequality by design, and extreme power concentration. Am I painting too bleak of a picture for the current state of the world?

C. J. Polychroniou: No, you are not exaggerating the current state of the world. The truth is that it is far worse than that. We are witnessing the resurgence of naked imperialism and the emergence of a new world of spheres of influence and, concomitantly, the death of international peacemaking institutions. The continued existence of nuclear weapons, which today are far more powerful than ever before, poses an existential threat to humanity while at the same time human beings are on a collision course with the natural world. To be sure, not only do we live in an era of polycrisis but in one in which developments are occurring at an increasingly rapid pace. We need polysolutions, yet neither the mechanisms are in place nor is there any detectable willingness on the part of current world leaders to pull humanity back from the precipice.

Political hypocrisy per se is not the major issue here. Pathological hypocrisy is a constant in the behavior of western governments. What I find most disconcerting is the sharp decline of rational thinking in contemporary society. Misinformation is spreading faster than facts and trust in science has virtually collapsed, especially in the United States. For example, scientific studies have concluded that climate change is mainly caused by human activity and scientists have documented the dangerous disruptions in nature. Yet you have the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, calling climate change “con job” and “scam.” Trust in healthcare and public institutions has also declined in recent years, and it is not a coincidence that these trends occur with the political ascendancy of right-wing extremism. Fascism is organized mass irrationality and leaders like Trump have been doing their best to design a society sustained by ignorance while at the same time normalizing cruelty and destruction. So, yes, we live in a world of increasing uncertainty, profound confusion, and maybe even civilizational decline. We are in the midst of a whirlpool of events and developments that are eroding our ability to manage human affairs in a way that is conducive to the attainment of a good and just world order. That being said, the world is not coming to an end any time soon, and we actually know that there are solutions for the world’s biggest problems. But paradigm shifts in political, social, and moral thinking are urgently needed for a sustainable future.

Alexandra Boutri: Is the nation-state at the present historical juncture a hindrance to the realization of a sustainable future for humanity?

C. J. Polychroniou: The general consensus among scholars about the nation-state is that it was a consequence of modernity and that it represents a progressive development in the course of human political history. It was an invention designed to unify people, the state, and the country. The Peace of Westphalia (1648), which marked the end of the Thirty Years’ War in Europe, established a new system of political order based upon the idea of co-existing sovereign states. Subsequently, the norm of Westphalian sovereignty became central to international law and world order. It shifted the balance of power, but it did not end conflicts. The nation-state sparked nationalism across Europe, and war over resources, driven by capitalist modes of production, remained predominant in the modern world. In fact, nationalism and capitalism have worked in tandem to make war a permanent feature of the modern world system. In any case, whatever benefits have accrued over the centuries because of the emergence of the nation-state (social solidarity, human rights, and democracy), it has become increasingly clear that the nation-state is not capable of managing, on its own, the globalized forces. And collective institutions in general have suffered a severe blow from the wrecking ball of neoliberalism. The climate crisis is a case in point.

Actions taken so far to combat climate change are insufficient. Moreover, while local and national climate policy efforts are important, the new energy infrastructure needed for establishing a zero emissions global economy must be global in scope. Economist Robert Pollin, who has done extensive work on building a green economy, has made a compelling case for the necessity of implementing a Global Green New Deal (GGND). Pollin has described in fine detail the impact of a GGND on economic growth and how it can be financed. But we are nowhere near to achieving such a goal. The problem is political in nature, not economic. Are nation-states capable of the type of international collaboration needed to secure a global green transition in order to save the planet? Are capitalist nation-states even able to sacrifice short-term interests for long-term benefits?

My own view is that the nation-state is indeed a hindrance to a sustainable future for humanity, but that doesn’t mean that the global governance structures needed to ensure that human civilization will endure despite the many existential threats it faces will inevitably happen. Such an outcome requires imagination, courage, and bold action. But it is not inconceivable that an alternative world order may emerge at some point in the future. After all, as sociologist Andreas Wimmer has convincingly shown, the creation of nation-states was mainly the result of external circumstances (geopolitical factors) rather than internal processes (ethnic homogeneity or nationalism). The climate crisis might very well become at a certain juncture a turning point for the emergence of new global governance structures. Hopefully, it won’t be too late by then.

Alexandra Boutri: Where does the Left stand on the question of universalism and the nation-state?

C. J. Polychroniou: This is a very complicated issue, especially since the Left is not monolithic. Generally speaking, however, the traditional Left has always held internationalist principles and viewed the nation-state as a modern phenomenon tied to the emergence of the capitalist mode of production. That was pretty much Marx’s own view on the subject. Lenin also argued that Marxism cannot be reconciled with nationalism. Communists and revolutionary socialists opposed World War I as an imperialist war. But most socialist parties and trade unions abandoned the internationalist vision and backed their respective governments. On the other hand, communists defended their own countries during World War II. This is because they came to view World War II as a “people’s war” against fascism. Communists fought heroically in World War II but also against fascism everywhere. The International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War represented a remarkable expression of international solidarity, a response of anti-fascists to the emergence of a new tyranny.

In the contemporary period, a significant segment of the Left has been critical, even dismissal, of the nation-state but has also championed self-determination. Yet the question of how to circumvent the nation-state remains. The neoliberal hyper-globalization wave of the 1990s that envisioned the world becoming a global village transcended the boundaries of nation-states, but the new rules were made possible only through enforcement from the capitalist state itself. In fact, there was/is a symbiotic relationship between capitalist states and neoliberal globalization.

The Left is obligated to advance an alternative vision of a world order beyond capitalism and the nation-state. It must envision and fight for a world where the rights of labor reign supreme and the means of production are collectively owned by workers. There can be no socialism without collective ownership and democratic management of the means of production. The former USSR took a major step in the direction of collective ownership but a bureaucratic elite controlled the state and drained life out of society. Socialism in the twentieth-first century must be democratic, put average people at the center of society, and give priority to sustainability. And the rise of the socialist state must be of such socio-cultural nature that it inaugurates an authentic cosmopolitan horizon.

Alexandra Boutri: Today, the Left is in disarray while the far right is surging all over the world. Hard-right parties are most popular in many parts of Europe, although there is a ray of hope for reversing the trend on account of Viktor Orbán’s crushing defeat in last month’s Hungarian election. Why is the western left weak and disoriented when the problems caused to society by the policies of neoliberal capitalism are so destructive?

C. J. Polychroniou: There are no definite answers to that question. Moreover, the problematic of the political condition of the left in western societies is not new. The weakening of the western left has been long in the making. The traditional left undergoes a major ideological and political crisis with the collapse of communism in eastern Europe. Yet its decline had started as early as the mid-1970s and the 1980s. Take for instance the case of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). From the beginning of the 1960s to the end of the 1970s, the PCI was the largest communist party in western Europe, gaining a historic 34.4% of the vote in the 1976 parliamentary elections. Under the leadership of Enrico Berlinguer, the PCI had distanced itself from the Soviet Union and promoted “Eurocommunism,” an attempt on the part of certain western communist party leaders to reconcile parliamentary democracy with the transition to socialism and overcome the constrains of the Cold War. To further enhance the image of the PCI as a non-revolutionary party, Berlinguer also introduced the compromesso storico (the historic compromise), a proposal of an agreement between the Communist and Christian Democratic parties, for reforming the economy along capitalist lines and proclaimed his support for NATO.

Obviously, the leadership of the PCI felt that breaking away from the tradition of revolutionary socialism was the surest and safest path to power. But the experiment failed miserably. By the time of Berlinguer’s death, in 1984, the PCI was already losing support among the industrial working class and was officially dissolved in 1991 and then transformed into the Democratic Party of the Left. From the 1990s onward, left parties and conservative parties in western Europe became virtually indistinguishable. This is a key factor in explaining the decline of the western left. But this doesn’t mean that if the left had not become reformist and still clung to forms of socialism associated with the Soviet experience or with revolutionary Marxism that it would have become a hegemonic political power in advanced capitalist societies. Clearly, the western left needs to challenge capitalist social relations and hegemony but must also offer to the masses a convincing vision for an alternative socioeconomic order. It has yet to do so.

We must also recognize the fact that advanced capitalist societies are complex, multilayered systems, divided into several different classes. Class matters as much as ever, even if neoliberalism has reshaped the working class internationally. Moreover, while there is a widening social class divide, the class of the exploited remains fragmented. There is indeed a difference between a class “in itself” and a class “for itself.” In that regard, there can be no denying that the left has changed the way people think about exploitation, human rights, freedom, and personal identity, and has indeed “a great story to share about alternatives to capitalism.” But for various reasons, which include major structural factors, the ideological battle over capitalism and alternative worldviews has yet to be won. As Frederick Jameson once remarked, it appears that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”

Alexandra Boutri: What does the end of Viktor Orbán’s reign in Hungary mean for Trump and the far right in the US and globally?

C. J. Polychroniou: I do not wish to downplay the significance of this development but, at the same time, it is politically naive to think that it will have an impact on the way the Trump administration behaves. It is true of course that Hungary under Orbán provided inspiration for the MAGA movement and the far right across Europe. In fact, Orbán’s anti-immigrant ideology and immigration policy became the norms across Europe. But I would argue that Trump is far more dangerous than Orbán ever was. Orbán never denied election results, nor did he engage in acts of state-led violence. Orbán eroded the rule of law in Hungary and, for that, Trump thought he was a “fantastic man” and once even praised him as the “great leader” of Turkey. But Trump has already caused far more damage to US society than Orban caused to Hungary with his political shenanigans, and Hungary’s new prime minister is not a liberal. Nor do I think that Orbán’s defeat will have any impact on the political fortunes of the far right elsewhere. In Germany, the far right AfD has become the country’s strongest party. In France, Marine Le Pen’s far-right The National Rally (RN) is “already the biggest single opposition party in parliament” and its rise to power seems unstoppable.

Neofascism is on the rise, and the conservative/liberal/neoliberal establishment does not know what it will take to defeat it. It won’t even address the very structural factors that gave rise to the far right. So far, the establishment in both France and Germany has confined itself to labeling RN and AfD respectively as “extremist” entities as if that will deter voters from casting a ballot for those parties. As far as I can see, it falls upon the left to defeat the rising tide of fascism once again.

This article was originally published by Common Dreams; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.Email

C.J. Polychroniou

C.J. Polychroniou is a political scientist/political economist, author, and journalist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. Currently, his main research interests are in U.S. politics and the political economy of the United States, European economic integration, globalization, climate change and environmental economics, and the deconstruction of neoliberalism’s politico-economic project. He has published scores of books and over one thousand articles which have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news websites. His latest books are Optimism Over Despair: Noam Chomsky On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change (2017); Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (with Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin as primary authors, 2020); The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Radical Change (an anthology of interviews with Noam Chomsky, 2021); and Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists (2021).

‘The Creep State Is Watching’: Guerilla Art Project Takes on Big Tech’s Power Grab​

“These people and these companies need to continue to be exposed for all of the harm that they’re causing and the real power that they have over our government and those governed,” one organizer said.


Posters of Elon Musk and Bill Gates are seen in Seattle.
(Photo via Creep State)

Olivia Rosane
May 05, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

On their way to attend the Met Gala on Monday night, guests might have spotted a different image of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos than the one he tried to project by chairing the annual fundraiser: a poster featuring his bulbous head, looming over them out of the darkness, attached to a muscular spider-shaped body. Above it, a mysterious message: “The Creep State is watching.”

What does it mean?

The Creep State is an anonymous guerilla art and protest project that debuted in Austin, Texas during South by Southwest earlier this year. It is designed to draw people’s attention to the threat posed by Big Tech billionaires and their increasing influence over both the US government and the daily lives of everyone who interacts with their products.

“These individuals are a danger to all of us,” a DC-based organizer said.

What Is the Creep State?

The Creep State image of Jeff Bezos is shown. (Photo via Creep State)

The idea for the Creep State came from the desire to raise awareness about certain Silicon Valley oligarchs and their anti-democratic actions and aspirations. Participants in the project who spoke to Common Dreams asked to remain anonymous in keeping with the guerilla-style tactics of their effort.

“There’s what is really a very small group of men who control these algorithms, who control the software, the hardware, and.. they are trying to initially infiltrate our government and eventually replace our government,” a Seattle-based organizer explained. “They’ve all been pretty clear about, you know, some version of, you know, a company town run by a CEO king.”

The project’s designers wanted to convey that “these specific individuals have very nefarious and creepy goals, and they are personally creeps,”—hence, the “creep state” framing.

“Whatever you do, see, hear, touch, say, feel, believe, dream, the Creep State is watching.”

Currently, the project consists of a physical and digital element.

Volunteers wheatpaste posters of seven Silicon Valley kingpins—Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, and Marc Andreessen, drawn in cartoon style as B-movie monsters—in major US cities. To date, the images have been displayed in Austin, Seattle, DC, Palo Alto, the area around the Met Gala in New York, and Los Angeles, with more to come.

The posters include a QR code that leads to a website, including a video highlighting how these moguls’ companies and products are already monitoring people’s daily activities, from surveillance pricing to sleep tracking.

“Whatever you do, see, hear, touch, say, feel, believe, dream, the Creep State is watching,” the video declares, before concluding: “We’re fighting back.”


“These people and these companies need to continue to be exposed for all of the harm that they’re causing and the real power that they have over our government and those governed,” the DC-based organizer said.

‘People Versus the Machines

The Creep State image of Sam Altman is shown. (Photo via Creep State)

While there have been many different campaigns and critiques calling out Big Tech and the rise of AI in recent years, the creators of the Creep State took an artistic approach partly to grab people’s attention, to make something that “quite literally visually shocked people out of the normal way that they think about and talk about these guys,” as the Seattle-based organizer put it.

They added that they wanted a viewer’s first response upon seeing the art to be, “Woah!”

So far, it seems to be working.

When the art went up in Seattle ahead of the No Kings protest on March 28, “people walking by stopped and took pictures and were like, ‘Whoa, what is this about? Oh my God, is that Jeff Bezos? Whoa, is that Bill Gates?’” the Seattle organizer said.

A member of the team who put the posters up in DC on April 18 similarly recalled: “We had a young woman come up to us and ask us about the Creep State and said she was glad we were exposing these guys. She said she was from [Prince George’s] County in Maryland and was part of the movement to stop data centers there.”

“Fundamentally the question that we face is will we allow one or a few of these corporations to literally remake our society?”

The project’s designers see themselves as operating within a tradition of guerilla art against the powerful from Banksy, Favianna Rodriguez, and Shepard Fairey’s OBEY posters to student protests against Slobodan Milošević in Serbia in the 1990s and the FeesMustFall campaign in South Africa in the 2010s. However, the project—which made a point of working with actual human creators, including a screenwriter, comic book artist, and graphic designer—takes on extra resonance in an age in which AI slop clogs up social media feeds and threatens to put creative workers out of a job.

“This is very much a people versus the machines kind of thing,” the Seattle-based organizer said. “Are we going to be a society where human creativity and human inspiration and human thinking are valued, or are we going to be a world where.. we’re all plugged into a screen?”

Bipartisan Appeal

The Creep State image of Peter Thiel is shown. (Photo via Creep State)

As the project uses an artistic approach to hook people who might otherwise ignore its messaging, it also crafts that messaging in an attempt to appeal to people who might not always agree politically.

The name “Creep State” was chosen in part for its similarity to “deep state,” which is often used on the political right to describe hidden actors undemocratically controlling the federal government. Some of the headlines highlighted in the introductory video were also selected to appeal to right-leaning viewers. (“Prayer apps: is AI playing God?” one reads.)

“Our assessment here is that we may have, and we very much do have, some very deep disagreements in a variety of ways with the right wing. But there is a very real grassroots right-wing opposition to the Silicon Valley takeover of our economy and our democracy. And we want to make sure that this is a campaign that different types of folks can see themselves reflected in,” the Seattle-based organizer said.

“Once they’re burrowed in, it’s going to be very difficult to root them out.”

Indeed, the rise of AI and the hyperscale data centers it relies on seems to have, at least so far, bypassed the usual culture war divides. As communities across the country have mobilized against the data center buildout, “you’ve got DSA people linking arms with, you know, like ultra-MAGA folks,” the Seattle organizer added.

The numbers reflect this, with around 50% of both Republicans and Democrats now saying they are more concerned than excited about AI and 55% of the politicians opposing data centers, which are often located in red states, being Republicans.

The embrace of AI and its Silicon Valley pushers may be one wedge between President Donald Trump and some of his supporters, as 75% of 2024 Trump voters think that AI should be regulated while the president himself has thrown his weight behind a plan to prohibit states from regulating AI at all.

Indeed, even as the Creep State’s developers reach out to Trump voters, they are clear that the Trump administration itself has escalated the Big Tech takeover of the US government, upping the urgency of their project.

Even before Trump was elected a second time around, Silicon Valley enabled his rise. Bezos sunk The Washington Post’s endorsement of his rival Kamala Harris, while Musk donated more than a quarter billion to back Trump’s campaign. His Vice President JD Vance is a protege of Thiel, who has backed Trump since 2016.

Trump has repaid these Big Tech executives handsomely with access, money, and his deregulatory push. The DC-based organizer said they were partly inspired to get involved with the Creep State project after witnessing the havoc wreaked by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which cut funding for essential grants and may lead to the deaths of over 14 million through the shuttering of the US Agency for International Development. At the same time, tech billionaires have increased their profits by contracting with the government, enabling deportations via Immigration and Customs Enforcement and both surveillance and targeting via the Pentagon.

Yet the Seattle-based organizer said that some Trump supporters “are beginning to realize… that these guys don’t care about Trump. Trump is a vehicle for them. And, you know, once they’re burrowed in, it’s going to be very difficult to root them out.”

‘We’re Fighting Back’

The Creep State image of Mark Zuckerberg is shown. (Photo via Creep State)

Ultimately the goal of the Creep State project is to plug everyone who sees and responds to the art—whatever their politics—into the growing movement to push back against the Big Tech power grab.

“The more we can expose these actors, it can inspire people to… organize against them, demand… oversight and regulations over AI and the influence that these individuals have on their politics,” the DC-based organizer said.

People who scan the QR code can be funneled into future wheatpasting sessions (which are all volunteer efforts) or local fights related to tech policy. One hope the organizers have is that communities across the country who are fighting data center construction or Flock camera expansion could order posters from the site that would have their QR codes adjusted to direct viewers to the local struggle.

“If we can plug people into some of those fights with organizations and for them to get more deeply involved, we’d love to do that,” the DC organizer said.

The Seattle organizer concluded, “Fundamentally the question that we face is will we allow one or a few of these corporations to literally remake our society?”

They continued: “We’re all living through this polycrisis. The climate is collapsing, the economy is in tatters, we’re at war abroad. There’s something new and crazy every day, and it’s hard to break through to people. So the hope is that this art specifically, in this way of highlighting both the like political creepiness and the personal creepiness of these guys, can maybe shock some people who otherwise are just trying to get through their day into, ‘I need to do something.’”

A Four-Word Response for Those Upset With Jeff Bezos for Any Number of Reasons: ‘Tax the Damn Rich’

Sen. Bernie Sanders noted that the billionaire spent $10 million on the Met Gala, $120 million on a penthouse, and $500 million on a yacht while “planning to throw 600,000 Amazon workers out on the streets and replace them with robots.”


Protesters gather blocks away from where the Met Gala is being held in Manhattan on May 4, 2026 in New York City.
(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Brad Reed
May 05, 2026

COMMON DREAMS

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in recent weeks has come under fire for a wide variety of reasons, including his involvement with the 2026 Met Gala and his plans to build a robot workforce.

A Monday report from The Hollywood Reporter noted that Bezos, despite being a lead sponsor of this year’s Met Gala, did not make an appearance at the event’s red carpet as he had in past years.

Bezos’ sponsorship of the Gala has been hit with heavy criticism in recent weeks, as many activists slammed the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art for taking the tech mogul’s money despite his company’s labor practices and reported involvement in helping US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, other critics “accused the billionaire of buying influence with the major event and speculation swirled that some stars may boycott the event due to his involvement.”

In addition to not appearing at the Met Gala red carpet, Bezos is reportedly trying to lower his profile by selling his $500 million luxury yacht.

The New York Post reported on Monday that Bezos has decided that the 417-foot vessel has become “too recognizable,” and is also a headache to maintain, costing an estimated $30 million per year to operate.

‘Worst Conceivable Representative’: Inequality Opponents Condemn Bezos Sponsorship of Met Gala

“It’s a thin line between celebrating glamor and artwashing extreme wealth,” said the Tax Justice Network.


A person puts up “Boycott the Bezos Met Gala” posters in New York City on April 15, 2026.
(Photo by Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
May 04, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

As celebrities prepared to attend the 2026 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on Monday, a coalition of nearly three dozen civil society groups warned that with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—currently the fourth-richest person on Earth—chairing the annual fundraiser, the gala risks “artwashing the harms of extreme wealth.”

Groups including Greenpeace International, Patriotic Millionaires, and War on Want signed a letter organized by the Tax the Superrich Alliance, calling on the museum and Vogue magazine, which hosts the event, not to honor Bezos and warning that the billionaire is using the two cultural institutions as tools “to launder his public image.”

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a celebrated collection of art spanning centuries, many of it made “in defiance of power—work that exposed injustice, gave voice to the silenced, and held the powerful to account,” reads the letter.

But the tech mogul chosen to chair the gala “has made his loyalties clear” since President Donald Trump first took office in 2017 and during the Republican’s second term, said the groups, pointing to Bezos’ purchase of The Washington Post, the mass firing of hundreds of the newspaper’s reporters this year, and his remaking of the publication’s opinion section into one focusing on “free markets.”

He “gutted” the Post “while reportedly pouring $75 million into a film promoting Melania Trump,” reads the letter, referring to the Amazon-produced documentary film Melania.

“A 2% wealth tax on just three necklaces previously worn by celebrities to the Met Gala’s red carpet could fully fund New York City’s home energy assistance program, helping 1 million households heat and cool their homes.”

“He is not just a bystander to Trump’s administration,” wrote the organizations. “He is one of its enablers. This is not philanthropy. This effectively is influence bought and paid for by Bezos’ pocket change—and the Met Gala is his latest purchase.”

The groups added that in addition to aligning himself with the White House through his ownership of the Post, Bezos and Amazon—a government contractor where he is still the largest individual shareholder—is working with Trump to “make possible a concentration of power that not only threatens lives in the US but across the world as well.”

“While so many of these policies aren’t new, they have been exacerbated under Trump and with the help of people like Bezos—from families torn apart by ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids reportedly enabled by Amazon’s own technology, to a White House emboldened to threaten and carry out military action against sovereign nations without consequence—including to ‘destroy a whole civilization’ in Iran—with no accountability,” reads the letter.

The Tax Justice Network, one of the signatories, emphasized that just a fraction of the money that goes to the $100,000-per ticket Met Gala could alleviate the economic inequality that’s grown worse under the Trump administration.

“A 2% wealth tax on just three necklaces previously worn by celebrities to the Met Gala’s red carpet could fully fund New York City’s home energy assistance program, helping 1 million households heat and cool their homes,” said the Tax Justice Network, citing its analysis released Monday.

Bezos is among the billionaires who have contributed donations to Trump’s pet projects—a luxury ballroom and a 250-foot-tall arch in Washington, DC—while the president has tried to cut the home energy assistance program, said the group.

“There’s a thin line between celebrating glamorous fashion and artwashing extreme wealth, and that line gets bulldozed when your poster boy is an ICE-profiteering billionaire bankrolling Trump’s vanity projects and a top spender on anti-worker lobbying,” said Alex Cobham, chief executive at the Tax Justice Network.

In the first two hours of the Met Gala, Cobham added, “Bezos’s wealth will grow by the equivalent of 130,000 hours of a teacher’s labor... This extreme distortion throws economies out of whack. Our economies are supposed to let people earn the wealth they need to lead secure and comfortable lives, but most countries’ tax rules make it easier for the superrich to collect wealth than for the rest of us to earn it.”

“In Bezos’ case, it’s easy to see how that undertaxed collected wealth goes towards lobbying further against workers’ rights and pay, while his company Amazon remains one of the biggest recipients of US subsidies,” said Cobham.

According to the Tax Justice Network’s analysis, Bezos accumulated $3.8 million every house from 2023-25, when his total wealth grew by more than $100 billion.

“If Bezos were to continue to accumulate wealth at this rate,” said the group, “he would accumulate $7.6 million in the first two hours of the Met Gala event, which is the equivalent of 110 NYC Public Schools teachers’ starting salaries”—$68,902.

Those organizing the gala can and must “stop celebrating those destroying our countries and humanity itself,” reads the letter sent by the Tax the Superrich Alliance, by not honoring Bezos and backing the fair taxation of the wealthiest households and corporations.

“End the oligarchy,” reads the letter. “Tax the super rich. Now.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a proponent of taxing the rich to pay for crucial public programs and services, planned to skip the Met Gala in a break with tradition. Last month Mamdani announced plans for a tax on second homes valued at $5 million or more in New York City.

Celebrities who are reportedly planning to skip the event include Palestinian-American model Bella Hadid, who has spoken out against ICE and in favor of Palestinian rights, and actress Zendaya.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Tuesday argued that Bezos’ lavish spending and his plan to build an army of robots to replace human workers was symbolic of American capitalism in 2026.

“The reality of American life today,” Sanders wrote in a social media post. “Jeff Bezos, worth $290 billion, spent: $10 million on the Met Gala, $120 million on a penthouse, $500 million on a yacht. Meanwhile, he’s planning to throw 600,000 Amazon workers out on the streets and replace them with robots. Unacceptable.”

Warren Gunnels, Sanders’ staff director, similarly made the case that Bezos’ spending spree was yet another argument for raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

“Jeff Bezos, who paid $10 million for the Met Gala,” Gunnels wrote, “got $62 billion richer since [President Donald] Trump was elected and spent $500 million on a yacht to sail to his $55 million wedding in Venice to give his wife a $5 million ring because his tax rate is less than 1%. Four words: Tax the damn rich.”

Labor unions, which have long clashed with Bezos over Amazon’s aggressive union-busting tactics, held their own rival “Ball Without Billionaires” on Monday evening to protest the Bezos-funded Met Gala.

As reported by Democracy Now!, the gala featured “Amazon, Whole Foods, Washington Post, Starbucks, and Uber workers” who “walked the runway in looks by immigrant designers.”

April Verrett, president of the Service Employees International Union, said the Ball Without Billionaires was “not just about fashion” but “about power” and “telling the truth that people who sew and care and drive and cook and clean and secure and those that create are the ones who make everything possible.”

Workers at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, who earlier this year voted to unionize, registered their own disapproval of this year’s Met Gala, posting a message on Instagram informing followers that “91% of hourly Met staff in our unit earn less than a living wage.”

‘Worst Conceivable Representative’: Inequality Opponents Condemn Bezos Sponsorship of Met Gala

“It’s a thin line between celebrating glamor and artwashing extreme wealth,” said the Tax Justice Network.

What an Overlooked Oil Protocol Reveals About Managing Resource Decline: An Interview With Richard Heinberg

By Richard Heinberg, Manuel Casal Lodeiro 

May 4, 2026

Source: 15/15/15

Image credit: Jan Zakelj (via Pexels) / Public Domain

This is the first article in a three-part series featuring an interview with Richard Heinberg by Manuel Casal Lodeiro of Instituto Resiliencia, originally published in the Spanish magazine 15/15\15.

---

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of Richard Heinberg’s The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Wars, Terrorism and Economic Collapse (2006). This book was based on the protocol designed by geologist Colin Campbell and later improved by Kjell Aleklett, also known as the Uppsala or Rimini Protocol. The protocol aimed to design a system to reduce oil extraction rates in oil-producing nations to match the global oil depletion rate, which was roughly 3 percent per year at that time.

We wanted to talk with Heinberg about the current state of oil geopolitics from a protocol point of view and the protocol’s present-day validity.

15/15\15: Twenty years have passed since the publication of your book, Richard. It’s obvious that wars and other kinds of conflicts over oil and energy, far from being avoided, are accelerating. Sometimes they may have more explicit energy motivations, but Ukraine, Greenland, Venezuela, Iran… it seems like instead of implementing a plan to avoid resource wars, somebody has made plans to promote those wars, of course, for self-interest. Do you share this view and agree that heed hasn’t been taken of your book?

Richard Heinberg: Of course! I was not surprised that the protocol was not adopted. It was a plan that could be implemented only by nations that prioritized long-term sustainability above short-term profit. And today we have political and economic systems that pursue short-term gain in almost every instance.

15/15\15: So, long-term political vision is the key. Without it, can nothing be done? Without it we are doomed?

R.H.: “Doomed” is a strong word. I think it’s safe to say that the path ahead will be strewn with more casualties—human and non-human.

15/15\15: While it is still in the increase phase of any non-renewable resource’s extraction (that is, while in the left or ascending side of Hubbert’s curve), the free market seems to have no problem. But during the decline phase, capitalism is of no use, and there must be regulation and plans to manage this decline to avoid serious problems. Is this idea the background of the protocol?

R.H.: Yes, you put that very well. However, even in the decline phase of resource extraction, capitalism has ways of finding a profit for the few, even if that means the immiseration of the many.

The best solution for the decline phase of the fossil fuel era is to ration what’s left. That way, we avoid fighting, unfairness, and life-threatening fuel shortages. The best energy rationing scheme I’ve seen is Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs), which I discussed in the book.

Israel refinery at Haifa was struck by an Iranian retaliation missile on March 19th. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

15/15\15: As far as we know, there is only one country, Portugal, which, at least at the parliamentary level (without executive power), has passed the protocol which your work proposed, but with no effects in practice. Do you know of any other State or private entity which has adopted it? One that has put it into practice?

R.H.: Oakland, California and a few other municipalities in the U.S. and elsewhere passed resolutions endorsing it in principle but made no practical effort to implement it. That’s understandable: the protocol is intended for implementation at the national scale.

15/15\15: I guess it’s easier for the local scale to plan for resilience. Can you mention some examples of cities you know of that have resilience plans in place?

R.H.: There are many cities with resilience plans, including Manchester, UK; Rotterdam, Netherlands; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Singapore, as well as New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans in the U.S. However, it could be argued that many of these resilience plans focus on just one or two potential threats, such as sea-level rise, and fail to account for the multidimensional polycrisis. These plans are better than nothing, though. You have to start somewhere.

15/15\15: A very noteworthy characteristic of the plan was that there was no absolute need for an international agreement: a single actor who signed it and applied it would immediately have benefited. Can you explain this, and why do you think Portugal didn’t put it into practice? I don’t know if you were in direct contact with the Portuguese political forces which put it forward.

R.H.: For oil-producing nations, implementing the protocol would ensure the continued reliable availability of oil resources, though at continually reduced rates. This would make long-range planning possible. Otherwise, the tendency is to plan for the future as though the economic benefits of oil are permanent, so falling production comes as a surprise, without preparation. In fact, of course, oil is a depleting resource, and its economic benefits are temporary.

For oil-importing nations, the protocol again offers a roadmap for planning. Importing nations would be wise to start rationing fuel, as several countries are already doing in response to fuel shortages resulting from the U.S./Israel/Iran war and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz.

As to Portugal’s reluctance to implement the plan, it probably stemmed from a desire to compete economically with other countries and achieve growth by burning more oil.

15/15\15: Is it too late now for this protocol, or do you think instead that it’s more urgent than ever? Do you think it should be updated in some respects? Campbell left us a few years ago, but I don’t know if Aleklett or anyone else, activists or academic institutions, have been working to improve it.

R.H.: I’m not aware of any ongoing efforts to improve the protocol, though I’m sure improvements are possible. One criticism I’ve heard is that if the protocol were adopted, the rate of decline in oil use would not be sufficient to prevent catastrophic climate change. I agree with that criticism. However, the protocol’s decline rate would be a significant improvement over the current global trend of rising oil consumption.

There is an ongoing effort to secure international support for a Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative that addresses carbon emissions, equity, and renewable energy. However, I’m unsure whether the proposed treaty includes a clear, simple framework for a staged reduction in fossil fuel extraction and for rationing of the amounts still produced. The organization’s website is vague on that point. But that’s the point on which clarity is most needed. I believe the Treaty would be greatly strengthened if the Oil Depletion Protocol were included in its terms.

15/15\15: Which actions have you taken personally to promote its signing and implementation during these twenty years?

R.H.: I must admit that my efforts along those lines stalled around 2010. I continue to refer to the protocol in my writings, but I am not a successful political activist.

15/15\15: Should the protocol be widened to include other energy commodities or minerals critical for the so-called Energy Transition?

R.H.: Yes, the protocol should be seen as a template that can be applied to all non-renewable resources—even sand, which is essential for concrete and semiconductors. Certain grades of sand are becoming depleted and should be rationed. The protocol suggests a policy mechanism for that.

15/15\15: Regarding this, the International Energy Agency has been recommending for some time that the OECD hoards those minerals. This is just the opposite to what your book advocates for, isn’t it? That kind of attitude, in the end, is the same as that we are witnessing now with Trump’s imperialistic policy, don’t you think? And the EU seems to be heading the same way, militarizing with the excuse of Russia, but with its greedy eyes on Africa’s resources: uranium and other minerals, hydrogen production, etc. That’s to say, international institutions are just doing the opposite of what should be done to avoid wars, and thus making them unavoidable?

R.H.: Yes, and again it’s our economic and political systems that are at fault. The people making decisions, whether in the corporate or the political sphere, pursue current growth but place little or no value on humanity’s long-term well-being. The decision makers assume that by getting richer now, we will create opportunities for our descendants—primarily in the form of new technologies. But if resource depletion, pollution, and destruction of nature continue on their current track, our descendants face a grim future even if they have access to wondrous technologies. In fact, most of the technologies we are developing will fail under the circumstances that are unfolding.

When the “get rich now” strategy meets limits, the tendency of leaders is to hoard, which creates more inequality and shortages. The solution is to share equitably via rationing while reducing population and overall consumption.

This article was originally published by 15/15/15; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.Email

Richard Heinberg

Richard is Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute, and is regarded as one of the world’s foremost advocates for a shift away from our current reliance on fossil fuels. He is the author of fourteen books, including some of the seminal works on society’s current energy and environmental sustainability crisis. He has authored hundreds of essays and articles that have appeared in such journals as Nature and The Wall Street Journal; delivered hundreds of lectures on energy and climate issues to audiences on six continents; and has been quoted and interviewed countless times for print, television, and radio. His monthly MuseLetter has been in publication since 1992. Full bio at postcarbon.org.