Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World Highlight

Though the regime didn’t last long, the Trump meeting was a culmination of the Palo Alto System. For the first time, the regional industry was more than emergent; it represented the world’s highest concentration of value. No other meeting could gather anywhere near the same bulk of capital—not agriculture, not real estate, not manufacturing, not transportation, not munitions. Silicon Valley claimed its place at the center of the capitalist world, and its leaders pledged allegiance, not to Trump the man—obviously a clown—not to the White House or even to America. They pledged their allegiance to the impersonal historical forces that Trump represented, which happened to be the same ones raising them to their present heights. They pledged allegiance to themselves, and they pledged allegiance to Peter Thiel most of all. If anyone was in touch with the Coherent Extrapolated Volition of the capitalist class, he was.