2. The New Complexity: Technology as Obfuscation
When I first wrote about complexity, I warned that our systems were generating more information, more noise, and more policy “solutions” than anyone could meaningfully absorb. That warning now feels quaint in the age of AI, blockchain, and real-time algorithmic governance. Consider the use of predictive policing software in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles. Sold as tools for optimizing scarce police resources, these systems have been shown to reproduce—and in some cases amplify—exist- ing racial and spatial biases. Yet because the logic of the algorithm is opaque, residents have no recourse, and policymakers no clear accountability. The technology becomes a black box, a form of epistemological theft: power without transparency. Or take the housing market, where institutional investors backed by AI-driven analytics have transformed the landscape of single-family home- ownership. Companies like Invitation Homes and Blackstone-owned enti- ties use machine learning models to determine which neighborhoods are ripe for acquisition, driving up prices and pushing out potential first-time homebuyers. In places like Atlanta, Phoenix, and Charlotte, entire zip codes have seen corporate ownership of housing soar above 20%. This is not just a theft of shelter—it is the conversion of a basic need into an opaque asset class, managed by algorithms and headquartered in tax havens. Technology has not made government more transparent or accountable; it has made the inequities it produces harder to detect, trace, and resist. The new frontier of theft is technical abstraction: code becomes policy, platforms become regulators, and public deliberation is replaced by dashboards.
3. Populism as Symptom, Not Solution
The resurgence of populism—most notably the enduring appeal of Donald Trump and the hardening of red-state identity politics—is often treated as a cause of America’s dysfunction. But it is better understood as a symptom. As Theft at the Public Till argued decades ago, the problem is
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