
Capitalism and neoliberalism aren’t the same beast. Capitalism, while inherently exploitative, involves the state in maintaining just enough structure to keep the system running—regulating markets, managing public goods and ensuring the workforce remains productive. Freedom, under capitalism, is the pursuit of self-interest within the confines of exploitation and responsibility is tied to generating wealth for the system. Neoliberalism takes this a lot further, dismantling the state’s role, privatizing public goods as much as possible and framing life as an endless competition. Freedom becomes the ability to outcompete others and responsibility shifts to surviving alone in a system designed to extract and discard. It’s capitalism at its rawest, shedding even the pretense of shared responsibility.
Hello designers. I hear it all the time—stories of frustration, of grappling with the gap between what you thought design could be and what it’s actually become. Design students and graduates tell me how hard it is to find projects that mean something, work that doesn’t just keep the lights on but feels like it’s bending the needle toward something better.
This article started as something I wrote back in 2023, but I’ve sharpened it since. Take it as a lens, a way to cut through the smoke and mirrors of performative impact and slick branding. If you’ve ever had the creeping sense that the organization you’re working for, despite all its lofty claims, isn’t on the side of progress, this one’s for you. Feedback is welcome, as always—read on, and see if the patterns I’ve described sound familiar.
Reframing design’s holy trinity
Even the most commonly used principles of design thinking—desirability, feasibility and viability—aren’t immune to this distortion. Under neoliberalism, desirability gets reduced to market demand, feasibility becomes a question of scalability and viability shrinks down to profitability. These principles, in their neoliberal form, act as a Trojan horse, smuggling capitalist logic into your work under the guise of objectivity.
But these principles don’t have to stay trapped in that narrow frame. Desirability can mean designing for real human needs instead of consumer trends. Feasibility can focus on what supports communities and ecosystems, not just what’s easy to implement. Viability can shift from maximizing profit to ensuring equity and resilience. Reframing these principles is a way to push back—not by tearing the system down, but by bending its rules to serve people and the planet. I wrote more about it here: Desirability, Feasibility and Viability
Design as sensemaking: Look deeper, ask better questions
To resist neoliberalism’s grip, you need to start seeing it for what it is: an ideology that shapes not only the problems you’re solving but the very way you define success. This begins with asking better questions. Who really benefits from this project? Whose needs are being ignored? What happens when this design scales? These aren’t the kinds of questions you’ll find on a project brief, but they’re the ones that matter most.
It also requires stepping out of the noise. Neoliberalism thrives on distraction—notifications, metrics, dashboards—all designed to make you reactive instead of reflective. When you step back and engage in sensemaking, you start to see the connections neoliberalism tries to obscure. You see the power dynamics, the silences, the bigger picture.
The myth of impact: Language as a weapon for mystification
Neoliberalism doesn’t just thrive on systems—it thrives on stories. It uses language like a scalpel, cutting away complexity and dressing up exploitation in the glossy veneer of progress. Sandra Lucbert calls this the creation of automated blocks of meaning—phrases like “impact,” “sharing economy” and “decentralization” that feel powerful but are hollowed out from overuse. These words are the neural pathways of neoliberalism’s propaganda machine, making systems of extraction look like acts of liberation.
For designers, this is dangerous ground. Words like “community” and “collaboration” don’t just describe work—they define its scope, shape its outcomes and quietly rewrite its purpose. Lucbert would say we’re trapped in discursive normalization, where power structures get buried beneath feel-good language. It’s not a conspiracy; it’s a system so smooth, so ubiquitous that the words feel inevitable. “Impact” becomes shorthand for profit, “revolutionary” for scalable and “sharing” for commodified. It’s a linguistic trap designed to keep you designing within the boundaries of the status quo while thinking you’re pushing against it.
This isn’t just semantics. Lucbert’s critique points to performative language—words that act as tools, bending perception to serve systems of power. When a design pitch calls a platform “revolutionary,” the word itself becomes a kind of spell, concealing the fact that the platform is just another way to monetize housing or transportation. It’s symbolic violence through language, where the real power—capital, data and control—sits comfortably hidden behind a narrative of empowerment.
For designers, the task isn’t just to create—it’s to decode. Cut through the fog of semantic saturation and ask: Who benefits from this story? What power dynamics are being left unsaid? Whose risks are being erased? Lucbert might call this linguistic reappropriation—taking the words back, breaking the narrative scripts and insisting on clarity where mystification thrives.
Neoliberalism thrives on making systems seem natural, inevitable and even benevolent. Design, at its best, is a tool to disrupt that naturalization. It’s not just about crafting objects, interfaces or experiences—it’s about crafting meaning and refusing to let that meaning be co-opted. The question is whether you’ll use your language to build illusions or to reveal the systems that hide beneath them. As Lucbert’s work reminds us, language is never neutral and neither is design.
10 clues your design environment serves neoliberal masters
1. “Social science doesn’t matter here.”
You’ll hear it dismissed with a smirk—“too academic,” “too woke,” or “not actionable.” This isn’t just ignorance; it’s a calculated move to keep systemic inequality and power dynamics off the table. By sidelining social science, organizations turn design into an echo chamber of safe, surface-level ideas. If the messy, human realities of inequality aren’t in the conversation, the work is already rigged to maintain the status quo.
2. “Sustainability is a personal responsibility.”
Sustainability here gets reframed as your fault. Reduce your footprint, fly less, eat differently. The real villains—corporations, industries, and global power structures—slip out of view while you’re left obsessing over reusable straws. It’s a neat trick, really: collective problems are recast as personal failings, and systemic solutions are quietly erased. If the conversation starts and ends with individual actions, you’re in a theater of guilt, not change.
3. “We’re changing the world!”
Mission statements hum with big claims: “game-changing,” “world-changing,” “revolutionary.” But scratch the surface, and you’ll find a whole lot of branding and not much else. This language doesn’t describe impact—it performs it. The work might feel urgent and inspiring, but if the outcomes can’t be measured beyond PR buzz, the revolution is purely cosmetic.
4. “Build your personal brand.”
They’ll tell you to make yourself stand out, craft your narrative, and shine brighter than your peers. But here’s the catch: this isn’t empowerment; it’s competition sold as self-expression. The language of personal branding keeps you locked in a game of one-upmanship while collective action is left to die in the corner. It’s the ultimate hustle trap, where individuality is weaponized to keep you too busy to notice the system itself.
5. “We’re addressing complex challenges.”
Every project briefing loves the word “complex.” It sounds intellectual, weighty. But more often than not, complexity is just a cover for vagueness. The solutions are shiny and technical—an app here, a platform there—but the real roots of the problem, the power structures and systemic forces, remain untouched. If complexity never leads to discomfort, it’s not complexity—it’s a distraction.
6. “Accountability is baked into the process.”
The pitch will sound solid: user-centered, feedback-driven, grounded in data. But look closely. Are there actual users, or just personas cooked up in a brainstorming session? Are feedback loops real, or just rituals for show? Neoliberalism loves to perform accountability without ever meaningfully practicing it. If accountability feels cosmetic, it probably is.
7. “We’re building communities.”
You’ll hear the word “community” thrown around like confetti—everyone wants one. But is it really a community, or just a user base being courted to boost engagement metrics? Neoliberalism excels at turning relationships into transactions while selling the idea of belonging. If “community” feels more like a marketing funnel than a shared purpose, it’s not connection—it’s commodification.
8. “Sharing is caring.”
The “sharing economy” has a friendly ring to it, doesn’t it? But Uber, Airbnb, and their ilk aren’t sharing—they’re selling. This language is designed to obscure the extractive machinery beneath the surface, where risks are offloaded onto individuals while profits flow upward. It’s not sharing; it’s a sanitized hustle, dressed up in words that make it sound generous.
9. “We’re making the world more accessible.”
“Accessibility” and “inclusion” are buzzwords that make organizations look progressive, but who defines what these terms mean? Often, they’re used to make markets larger and profits higher, not to break down systemic barriers. If accessibility is just another line item in a pitch deck, it’s not about justice—it’s about market expansion.
10. “We’re solving problems.”
Not every problem needs solving, but neoliberalism loves the idea that everything can be fixed with the right solution. It flattens systemic issues into bite-sized challenges, tailor-made for quick fixes and scalable outputs. If the work doesn’t address the roots—power, inequality, or exploitation—it’s not solving anything. It’s sidestepping the problem while selling you the illusion of progress.
Designing beyond the facade
Design shapes the systems we live in, for better or worse. Neoliberalism doesn’t just thrive on systems—it thrives on the stories those systems tell, the language they embed and the invisible rules they normalize. The words, frameworks, and representations in your work environment aren’t neutral; they quietly dictate what gets attention and what stays hidden in the shadows. They’re not just describing the landscape—you’re navigating them, whether you realize it or not.
Start asking the hard questions: What’s hidden here? What’s been naturalized to the point of invisibility? What assumptions are baked into this brief, this meeting, this project? Most of your stakeholders won’t even realize how much they’ve internalized these narratives. They’re not villains—they’re just lost in the fog of systems designed to obscure their own mechanics. Move carefully, move strategically, but don’t lose your footing. Remember, organizations are shaped by power relations and poking at those power structures is uncomfortable—for everyone.
But cut through the narrative smog. Redefine the tired notions of impact, collaboration and success into something that actually means something. Find the cracks where the system falters, the allies who see what you see and the opportunities to push back in ways that matter.
Design isn’t neutral—it’s a tool to shape meaning, to frame futures and to disrupt what’s been rendered invisible. The systems might seem unshakable, but every structure begins to shift when someone presses on the right fault line. The future may feel like a machine churning forward, but it’s more malleable than it seems. If design shapes the future, let’s design one that doesn’t just look better but actually is better. The question isn’t whether you can work within the system—it’s whether you can see clearly enough to push its limits and leave it cracked open behind you.
NOTE
Sandra Lucbert is one of the most inspiring and incisive thinkers when it comes to understanding how language operates as a tool of power and mystification. Her works, such as Personne ne sort les fusils (2020) and Le ministère des contes publics (2021), offer profound critiques of the structures that shape our social and economic realities.
Her insights have been instrumental in informing this exploration of how neoliberalism’s narratives infiltrate our design work. If you’re interested in unpacking the hidden forces behind the words we use and the systems they reinforce, her analysis is essential reading.