Adam Curtis, writing for the BBC:
The present day system of power - that has replaced the old patronising authority - is a new kind of limitation. It treats human beings themselves as very simple machines. Instead of telling them what to do, as the old power used to, the new system increasingly uses computers to read data about what human beings want or feel. And then fulfils those needs.
Curtis spends this entire piece looking at the origins of institutional mistrust, but I have to say the end result is a little disappointing. Do people conspire to personal gain? Sure they do. They always have, and they always will.
The real question is whether the rest of civil society deals with it effectively: rooting out egregious cases, dealing fairly with perpetrators and innocents. Curtis claims not, but he conclusion of his piece undoes his argument for me.