For intellectuals of a certain bent, no game is more absorbing than discovering the “real” power behind the throne. Who is pulling the strings? What class interests does the regime serve? Who is “really” in charge? Such questions inspire learned disquisitions as well as conspiracy theories.

So far, the favourite target when it comes to the Trump administration is the tech industry. Ian Bremmer, the head of the Eurasia Group, a political consultancy, talks about the “technipolar moment” and the “frightening fusion of tech power and state power”. Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser, laments the influence of “technofuedal globalists bent on turning Americans into digital serfs”. The opening session of an Aspen Institute Italia conference on the future of capitalism in Milan on May 16 (at which I spoke) addressed the subject of “Techno Capitalism: America’s New Gilded Age.”

Washington Post