The Internet has erupted in condemnation of Palantir’s manifesto. Understandably so. It is the open declaration of a private company to take over government systems and dictate policy. It is the admission by a concrete group that they have enough power to state their claim openly. I have been arguing through different forms of analysis what I consider to be one of the main drivers of events in the U.S. and, by extension, much of the world in recent years. A new class of people has arrived at the upper echelons of system power through the development of new digital technologies that have allowed them to amass massive wealth and, through the implementation of that technology, considerable influence. The way we work, communicate, consume, travel, and even rest is now mediated through their technologies. Not only does that allow the owners of those technologies to extract a rent and monitor our behavior, but also to influence it.…