Acid liberalism: Silicon Valley's enlightened technocrats, and the legalization of psychedelics.
The International journal on drug policy December 1, 2022 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2022.103890 via PubMed
Summary
The paper explores the relationship between Silicon Valley's engagement with psychedelics and neoliberal values, contrasting traditional progressive associations with these substances. It finds that high-profile tech entrepreneurs attribute unconventional mystical meanings to psychedelics, which align with anti-democratic and individualist philosophies. This perspective is supported by a venture capital community that benefits from promoting disruptive beliefs, potentially leading to monopolization in the psychedelic market and increased inequality in the U.S.
Study at a glance
| Population | Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs and the venture capital community |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Psychedelics in Silicon Valley are associated with anti-democratic and individualist beliefs, influencing legalization policies and market dynamics. |
Abstract
The history of psychedelia within the New Left counterculture often implies a cultural alignment between psychedelics and progressive values or the promise of radical communitarian social reform. In contrast to these potentials, this paper examines Silicon Valley's engagement with psychedelics, a community which has demonstrated considerable financial and personal interests in these drugs despite promoting and advancing consistently neoliberal ends. This article studies Silicon Valley's culture of psychedelic drug use through extensive analysis of published interviews by tech industrialists, news reports, and recent studies on the tech industry's proliferation of mystical and utopian rhetoric. This work finds that psychedelics and their associated practices are given unconventional mystical meanings by some high-profile tech entrepreneurs, and that these meanings are integrated into belief systems and philosophies which are explicitly anti-democratic, individualist, and essentialist. It is argued that these mystical ideas are supported by a venture capital community which profits from the expression of disruptive utopian beliefs. These beliefs, when held by the extremely wealthy, have effects on legalization policy and the ways which psychedelics are commercialized within a legal marketplace. As Silicon Valley has put considerable resources into funding research and advocacy for psychedelics, I argue that the legalization of psychedelics will likely be operationalized to generate a near-monopoly on the market and promote further inequality in the United States that is reflective of both neoliberalism, and the essentialist beliefs of Silicon Valley functionaries.