Defenders of the modern state often claim that it's needed to protect us-from terrorists, invaders, bullies, and rapacious corporations. Economist John Kenneth Galbraith, for instance, famously argued that the state was a source of "countervailing power" that kept other social institutions in check. But what if those "countervailing" institution-corporations, government agencies and domesticated labor unions-in practice collude more than they "countervail" each other? And what if network communications technology and digital platforms now enable us to take on all those dinosaur hierarchies as...