Cynicism is seductive and can blind us to the enduring fact that democracy remains our only channel for reformation. It is the one idea to have emerged from the long story of human oppression that insists upon a people’s inalienable right to rule themselves. Democracy may be under siege, but we cannot allow its many injuries to deflect us from allegiance to its promise. It is precisely in recognition of this dilemma that Piketty refuses to concede defeat, arguing that even “abnormal” dynamics of accumulation have been—and can again be—mitigated by democratic institutions that produce durable and effective countermeasures: “If we are to regain control of capital, we must bet everything on democracy.…”

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 1644