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Beyond the 'Isms': The Journey
of Shah Abid Shahriyar
By Shah Abid Shahriyar Updated Edition: Includes analysis of billionaires, dynasties, and hidden wealth.
Preface
This book is both a memoir and a manifesto. It tells the story of how my life, from studying politics and computer science to building artificial intelligence models, has shaped my relentless questioning: Who truly pulls the strings of society? Capitalism, socialism, and liberalism are not final answers. They are hosts — ideas that serve for a time, before being replaced. In these pages, I attempt to go beyond them, towards a new way of seeing the world. This updated edition includes a deeper reflection on the rise of billionaires, dynasties, and hidden concentrations of wealth that shape our world today.
Part I: Origins of a Questioner
Chapter 1: The Early Spark
Every intellectual journey begins with a question, and mine began with politics. At A Level, I believed that studying political theory would provide me with the tools to unlock the hidden structures of society. I wanted to know why governments acted the way they did, why wars erupted, why some nations thrived while others struggled, and most importantly, who really pulled the strings. Political theory, at first, seemed promising. I encountered the giants: Thomas Hobbes, who warned of life in a state of nature as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (Hobbes, 1651, p. 89); John Locke, who described life, liberty and property as natural rights (Locke, 1689); and Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, who believed humans could only be free by submitting to the “general will” (Rousseau, 1762). These ideas sparked my imagination — but as I sat through classes, I began to feel an unease. The subject, as taught, felt abstract. Political systems were presented as if they could be reduced neatly to constitutions, parties, and elections. Yet, outside the classroom, the world was far more complicated. In my teenage debates, I often wrestled with Hobbes’s idea of the Leviathan. Hobbes argued that without an overarching sovereign, humans would descend into violent anarchy, and therefore the surrender of individual liberty to authority was a rational necessity (Hobbes, 1651). I wondered: was the Leviathan still the state, or had it morphed into corporations, global finance, and even algorithms that dictated what people saw online? Around me, the world was shifting. Political parties seemed less like ideological movements and more like brands, competing for attention while being heavily funded by wealthy donors and interest groups (Crouch, 2004). My peers spoke of politics as if it were a sport: Labour versus Conservative, left versus right. Yet I could not shake the feeling that beneath this spectacle, there was a deeper, concealed layer — a place where decisions were made not for the public good, but for those who could afford influence. This realisation hit me hard. Politics at A Level promised insight but often delivered simplification. I wanted truth, not theory; reality, not rhetoric. Slowly, I grew disillusioned. At the same time, I had developed a passion for logic and problem-solving. Computers fascinated me. Unlike political rhetoric, computer code was unforgivingly clear: it either worked or it didn’t. There were no illusions, no ideological spin. The more I explored computing, the more I saw it as a way of thinking — a framework for making sense of complexity. It was then that I made a decision that would shape the rest of my life: I would leave politics behind, at least formally, and pursue computer science at Birmingham City University. I did not yet realise it, but the questions that had driven me to politics — questions about power, justice, and freedom
not only because I worked hard, but because I had discovered a way of seeing the world that resonated deeply with me. Computing taught me that systems — no matter how complex — could be broken down, understood, and redesigned (Knuth, 1997). This led naturally into teaching. For two years, I worked as a student lecturer, guiding others through the same concepts I had wrestled with myself. Teaching was not merely a job; it was an education in itself. To teach well, I discovered, was to simplify complexity without distortion. I watched students grapple with algorithms and logic, and I recognised my own earlier struggles in their questions. It reminded me that learning is not linear, but recursive: we circle ideas again and again, each time gaining a deeper understanding (Papert, 1980). Teaching also sharpened my appreciation of knowledge as a collective process. Unlike politics, where debate often seemed about victory and rhetoric, computing education was collaborative. Students worked together, sharing insights and debugging one another’s code. I began to wonder whether society itself could learn from such collaboration — whether the same patience and shared problem- solving could be applied to our political and social systems. And yet, despite the clarity of code, I could not silence the bigger question. Who writes the code of society? Who defines the rules, enforces them, and decides what outcomes matter? Computers, for all their precision, still reflected human choices — choices about design, priorities, and power. I realised that computing, while different from politics, was not separate from it. It was another window into the question that had haunted me since my earliest encounters with political theory: who really pulls the strings?
References
Dijkstra, E.W. (1972) The Humble Programmer. Communications of the ACM, 15(10), pp. 859–866.
Knuth, D.E. (1997) The Art of Computer Programming. 3rd edn. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Papert, S. (1980) Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. New York: Basic Books.
Part I: Origins of a Questioner
Chapter 3: Technology and the World
After completing my studies in computer science and my years as a student lecturer, I turned my attention to building artificial intelligence models. At first, it felt like a continuation of what I had already learned: applying logic, mathematics, and systems thinking to real-world challenges. Yet the deeper I went, the clearer it became that technology was not neutral. Every model reflected human priorities, political contexts, and economic interests (Winner, 1980). Artificial intelligence, for all its promise of efficiency, raised profound questions about power. Who benefits from automation? Who controls the data? Who sets the objectives of algorithms? I realised that models were never created in isolation: they were embedded in systems of business, governance, and society. The same machine learning techniques that could optimise resources or predict outcomes could also be used to monitor behaviour, track individuals, or enforce rules. Technology, in this sense, was political (Feenberg, 1991). As I built AI models, I often reflected on how assumptions were coded into them. Data is never pure; it carries the biases of the contexts in which it is collected (Barocas and Selbst, 2016). Every training set excludes certain realities, and every optimisation objective privileges some outcomes over others. This reminded me of politics, where complex human societies are reduced to electoral numbers, slogans, and party manifestos. Just as political frameworks simplify human life, so too does technology when it reduces behaviour to data points. Over time, I began to see artificial intelligence as a new kind of Leviathan. Hobbes had imagined the sovereign as a visible authority, but in the twenty-first century, power increasingly operates
it taken new forms? As I built artificial intelligence models and watched how technology influenced behaviour, I began to see capitalism itself as a kind of Leviathan. It is a system that claims to provide order through markets, yet often dictates priorities without asking for explicit consent. The logic of competition, growth, and profit acts as a sovereign authority in people’s lives, shaping how they work, consume, and even think. The roots of this system are found in the works of classical economists. Adam Smith (1776) argued that individuals pursuing their own self-interest, guided by the “invisible hand,” would unintentionally produce outcomes beneficial to society. This vision of markets as self-regulating inspired generations of thinkers and policymakers. Yet in practice, markets are rarely free. Monopolies form, corporations accumulate power, and wealth concentrates in the hands of the few (Piketty, 2014). David Ricardo (1817) introduced the theory of comparative advantage, suggesting that nations should specialise in the goods they produce most efficiently. While compelling in theory, in practice it locked poorer nations into patterns of dependency, exporting raw materials while importing manufactured goods. The balance of power remained unequal, reinforcing hierarchies rather than dismantling them. In the twentieth century, capitalism was defended by thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. Hayek (1944) warned that central planning would lead inevitably to tyranny, while Friedman (1962) insisted that economic freedom was the foundation of political freedom. Their arguments shaped policies of deregulation and privatisation across the world. Yet, as crises such as the 2008 financial crash demonstrated, unregulated markets often create instability rather than stability (Stiglitz, 2010). Reflecting on these ideas, I debated with myself. Was Hobbes’s Leviathan still the state, enforcing laws and authority? Or had capitalism itself become the new sovereign, dictating the rhythms of everyday life? When corporations influence politics through donations, when consumer data
drives decision-making, when profit takes precedence over human dignity, is this not a Leviathan of markets and money? Capitalism thrives not only on economic structures but also on cultural narratives. It convinces people that success equals wealth, that consumption equals happiness, and that freedom means choice in the marketplace. These narratives, repeated daily, function as a kind of consent. People obey the Leviathan of capitalism not because they are forced, but because they are persuaded that there is no alternative (Fisher, 2009). Yet I could not deny capitalism’s dynamism. It has spurred innovation, lifted millions out of poverty, and driven global progress. Its defenders are right to point out these achievements. But its failures — inequality, exploitation, environmental destruction — are equally undeniable. The Leviathan of capitalism provides order, but often at the cost of justice. In my own debates, I reached a paradox: capitalism both liberates and constrains. It unleashes creativity, yet enforces conformity. It generates wealth, yet entrenches inequality. It claims to offer freedom, yet ensnares people in systems of debt, labour, and consumption. Like Hobbes’s Leviathan, it is both protector and oppressor. And like Hobbes’s vision, it raises the question: how much freedom are we willing to sacrifice for the order it provides?
References
Fisher, M. (2009) Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Winchester: Zero Books. Friedman, M. (1962) Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hayek, F.A. (1944) The Road to Serfdom. London: Routledge. Hobbes, T. (1651) Leviathan. London: Andrew Crooke. Piketty, T. (2014) Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Yet socialism has never been a single, unified vision. Rosa Luxemburg offered a sharp challenge not only to capitalism but also to authoritarian forms of socialism. She argued that true socialism could only arise from democracy and mass participation, warning that suppressing freedom in the name of socialism would destroy the very ideals it claimed to uphold (Luxemburg, 1919). Antonio Gramsci developed another critical insight. Writing from prison in the 1930s, he argued that ruling classes maintain power not only through economics or force, but through cultural hegemony — the ability to shape values, norms, and beliefs so that people consent to their own subordination (Gramsci, 1971). For me, this idea was transformative. It explained how ideologies could survive even when their economic promises failed: people internalise the worldview of those in power. Other socialist thinkers pursued different paths. Eduard Bernstein proposed a revisionist approach, arguing that socialism need not come through violent revolution but through gradual reform, achieved by democratic means (Bernstein, 1899). This perspective shaped much of modern social democracy, with its focus on welfare states, labour protections, and redistribution. In the twenty-first century, critics like David Harvey have updated Marxist analysis to examine neoliberalism, arguing that since the 1970s capitalism has increasingly prioritised financial markets, privatisation, and deregulation, producing new crises of inequality and instability (Harvey, 2005; 2010). His work reminded me that socialism remains not only a historical debate but a living critique of contemporary capitalism. In my reflections, socialism was both inspiring and troubling. Inspiring, because it demanded that society take equality and solidarity seriously. Troubling, because history had shown how socialist experiments could collapse into authoritarianism, suppressing the very freedoms they sought to defend. The Soviet Union and other regimes stood as warnings that noble ideals could be corrupted by power.
As I debated with myself, I found that socialism forced me to ask uncomfortable but essential questions: What do we owe one another? Can freedom exist without equality? And is justice possible in a world where power and wealth are so unevenly distributed? These questions did not provide easy answers, but they kept my search alive. In the tension between socialism and capitalism, I began to see not a binary choice but a deeper mystery: perhaps both were temporary stages, scaffolding in society’s ongoing attempt to understand itself.
References
Bernstein, E. (1899) Evolutionary Socialism. Stuttgart: J.H.W. Dietz. Engels, F. (1845) The Condition of the Working Class in England. Leipzig: Otto Wigand. Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers. Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harvey, D. (2010) The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises of Capitalism. London: Profile Books. Luxemburg, R. (1919) The Russian Revolution. Berlin: Spartacus League. Marx, K. (1867) Capital: Volume I. Hamburg: Otto Meissner Verlag.
Part II: The World of 'Isms'
Chapter 6: Liberalism and the Politics of Freedom
Liberalism presented itself to me as the ideology of freedom. From its earliest roots in the Enlightenment, liberalism has been concerned with protecting the rights of individuals against tyranny. For many, it represents the most humane of the great 'isms' — a belief in liberty, dignity, and the capacity of individuals to shape their own lives.
the weight of money. Elections are fought not only with ideas but with advertising budgets, donors, and corporate influence. The liberal promise of equal citizenship is undermined by the unequal distribution of wealth and power. The rule of law, a central pillar of liberal societies, is also not as neutral as it appears. Laws are created by governments and enforced by police and judges, institutions that inevitably reflect political choices. In my own reflections, I noticed how some expressions of freedom are restricted while others are celebrated. For example, raising the Palestinian flag is sometimes banned or discouraged, while the Ukrainian flag is widely displayed in public spaces. Such inconsistencies reveal that the law does not simply protect freedom — it often defines which freedoms are acceptable and which are not. Liberalism, then, is a paradox. It offers a powerful vision of freedom and dignity, yet its practice is entangled with money, power, and selective enforcement. It tells us that liberty is the highest good, yet it struggles to resolve the tensions between individual rights and collective responsibility, between equality and privilege. Like the other 'isms', it provides a map, but one that often misrepresents the territory. As I debated with myself, I realised that liberalism had to be taken seriously, not as a perfect truth but as a historical stage. It expanded freedom, challenged tyranny, and gave us tools to resist oppression. Yet its flaws remind us that freedom cannot be reduced to markets, elections, or laws. True liberty requires not only rights on paper but justice in practice — a justice that liberalism has often promised but failed to deliver.
References
Berlin, I. (1958) Two Concepts of Liberty. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Crouch, C. (2004) Post-Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Locke, J. (1689) Two Treatises of Government. London: Awnsham Churchill. Mill, J.S. (1859) On Liberty. London: John W. Parker and Son.
Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rousseau, J-J. (1762) The Social Contract. Geneva: Marc-Michel Rey.
Part II: The World of 'Isms'
Chapter 7: The Isms as Hosts
After wrestling with capitalism, socialism, and liberalism, I began to notice a pattern. Each ideology claimed to provide the key to organising society, yet each contained contradictions. Capitalism promised freedom through markets, but often delivered inequality and domination. Socialism promised equality and solidarity, but in practice sometimes led to authoritarianism. Liberalism promised liberty and dignity, yet allowed money and power to distort its ideals. None provided a final answer. This realisation led me to think of ideologies as “hosts.” Like vessels, they carry society’s hopes, fears, and ambitions, but they are not permanent. They are temporary containers, narratives that help people make sense of their world for a time. When circumstances change — when economies shift, when technologies evolve, when crises erupt — the host no longer fits, and society moves towards a new one. Antonio Gramsci’s idea of cultural hegemony helped me to see why these hosts are so powerful (Gramsci, 1971). Ruling groups maintain dominance not only by controlling resources but by shaping the stories people believe. Capitalism endures not only because it generates wealth but because it convinces people that there is no alternative (Fisher, 2009). Socialism inspired workers not only because of its critique of exploitation but because it offered a vision of justice. Liberalism persists because the idea of freedom is emotionally irresistible, even when it is unevenly applied. Yet hosts can become traps. Ideologies, once useful, can outlive their
Chapter 8: The Limits of Old Maps
As I looked out at the current state of world politics, I became increasingly convinced that the old maps — capitalism, socialism, and liberalism — were no longer sufficient to explain the world we live in. These ideologies still dominate our language and debates, but they fail to capture the complexity of global power in the twenty-first century. Consider the rise of populism. From Donald Trump in the United States to Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, from Brexit in the United Kingdom to nationalist movements in Europe, political leaders have gained power not by offering coherent ideological programmes, but by mobilising anger, fear, and identity (Mounk, 2018). These movements borrow selectively from capitalism, socialism, and liberalism, but they do not fit neatly into any of them. They represent a politics of disruption, exploiting the weaknesses of old ideologies rather than offering a new one. Globalisation, too, has revealed the limits of old maps. Capitalism assumed the nation-state as its framework, yet today corporations operate across borders, often with more power than governments. Technology companies control platforms used by billions of people, shaping public discourse and private behaviour in ways unimaginable to earlier theorists (Srnicek, 2017). Traditional liberal ideals of sovereignty and democracy struggle to contain such forces. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed these contradictions further. Governments invoked extraordinary powers, restricting freedoms in the name of public health. Liberal societies, proud of their commitment to individual liberty, imposed lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and surveillance measures. Capitalist systems revealed their fragility, with supply chains collapsing and inequalities widening. Socialist ideals of collective welfare briefly returned in emergency spending and social support, but often without lasting reform (Tooze, 2021). The pandemic was not simply a health crisis — it was a stress test of
ideology, showing how quickly old frameworks buckled under new pressures. Geopolitics also illustrates the inadequacy of old maps. The war in Ukraine has revived language of democracy versus autocracy, freedom versus tyranny — echoes of the Cold War. Yet the reality is more complicated. Energy markets, supply chains, and information wars blur the lines. Western governments present themselves as defenders of liberal democracy, but their selective support for some causes and silence on others — such as Palestine — reveals the inconsistency of their commitments (Achcar, 2023). Freedom, it seems, is defended when convenient, and denied when inconvenient. Meanwhile, climate change looms as the defining crisis of our age. Capitalism, with its endless pursuit of growth, struggles to address ecological limits. Socialism has often failed to prioritise the environment. Liberalism, focused on rights and liberties, has difficulty grappling with long-term planetary survival. None of the old ideologies offer adequate answers to a crisis that is global, systemic, and existential (Klein, 2014). Reflecting on these realities, I came to see that the old maps were not only outdated but dangerous. They encourage us to debate within categories that no longer fit the terrain. We argue about capitalism versus socialism, left versus right, freedom versus equality, while new forms of power — digital platforms, financial networks, ecological breakdowns — shape the world in ways these frameworks cannot describe. The task, then, is not to abandon political thought but to recognise its limits. Just as medieval maps placed monsters at the edges of the known world, our ideological maps mark the boundaries of what we can imagine. But the world has moved beyond those borders. If we are to understand who really pulls the strings today, we must create new maps — maps that reflect the realities of global power, technological systems, and planetary crises. Only then can we hope to navigate the future.
they are accountable to shareholders and advertisers. The rules of public debate are being rewritten not by democratic institutions but by opaque systems of code. Governments have begun to respond with laws, though often imperfectly. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2018 sought to give citizens greater control over their personal data, placing obligations on companies to ensure privacy and transparency. In the United States, debates over Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act highlight tensions between free expression and corporate responsibility. In the UK, the Online Safety Bill aims to regulate harmful online content, but critics warn that it could endanger free speech (House of Commons, 2022). These legal frameworks reveal a central paradox: states attempt to regulate systems that have already outgrown their borders. Corporations, too, have become systems of power beyond the nation-state. Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft command resources greater than the GDP of many countries. Amazon’s control of global logistics and cloud computing, Google’s dominance of search and online advertising, and Apple’s ecosystem of devices and services make them indispensable to modern life (Culpepper and Thelen, 2020). These are not merely companies within markets; they are architects of the markets themselves. They design ecosystems in which others must participate, exercising sovereignty that rivals governments. Financial systems provide another striking example. High-frequency trading algorithms move billions in fractions of a second, shaping global markets in ways that no human regulator can monitor (MacKenzie, 2018). Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum challenge the authority of central banks, creating new forms of value and speculation. The collapse of FTX in 2022 illustrated both the potential and the dangers of these new systems: vast fortunes were created and destroyed in days, with little oversight or accountability. Global politics itself has become systematised. Climate change negotiations
such as the Paris Agreement (2015) rely on complex mechanisms of reporting, carbon markets, and verification systems. Trade agreements such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) create webs of rules that shape economies across continents. Security alliances like NATO coordinate military and intelligence systems at a scale that goes beyond the control of any single nation. These examples convinced me that the old ideological maps — capitalism, socialism, liberalism — can no longer explain power in the twenty-first century. The real sovereigns are not only states but systems: technological platforms, financial networks, corporate ecosystems, and transnational treaties. Power today is exercised less through speeches in parliaments than through the silent logic of algorithms and contracts. The challenge is not only to recognise these systems but to ask: who designs them, who benefits from them, and who is excluded? Without answers to these questions, democracy risks becoming hollow, reduced to ritual while the true levers of power remain hidden in code, law, and corporate strategy.
References
Culpepper, P.D. and Thelen, K. (2020) 'Are We All Amazon Primed? Consumers and the Politics of Platform Power', Comparative Political Studies, 53(2), pp. 288–318. House of Commons (2022) Online Safety Bill. London: UK Parliament. Howard, P.N., Ganesh, B., Liotsiou, D., Kelly, J. and Francois, C. (2018) The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012–2018. Oxford: Oxford Internet Institute. MacKenzie, D. (2018) 'Material Signals: A Historical Sociology of High- Frequency Trading', American Journal of Sociology, 123(6), pp. 1635–1683. Vaidhyanathan, S. (2018) Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
