The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West
By Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska.
Crown Currency, 2025.
Hardcover, 320 pages, $30.
Reviewed by Alex Rosado.
In their recently released book, The Technological Republic, Palantir’s Alex Karp and Nicholas Zamiska deliver a blistering takedown and wake-up call to the brightest yet most complacent minds in Silicon Valley. Their advice is a symphony of economic blame, social dissection, and abstract discussion that is convincing enough to force a reckoning of America’s national purpose in the software century.
Since the 2000s, there has been a tectonic shift towards consumer fads—and away from U.S. government collaboration. The explosion in dating apps, niche social media, and online shopping sites has proven profitable, but of minimal value to the national foundation of ingenuity and exceptionalism. The commercialization of convenience siphoned our most talented engineers and convinced them that building disruptions and distractions, instead of nurturing joint-development efforts with the government, was a worthy trade-off.
Karp and Zamiska rightly view this change as misplaced faith and negligence. The wave of digital preoccupation has fractured America’s national and cultural cohesion and betrays the Valley’s defense-oriented origins. After all, technologists cannot secure and cultivate “the permanent things” if fleeting trends divert their energy.
Software designed and used for national improvement, Karp deems, gives legitimacy and authority to the American democratic project. For all the quibbles or blaring alarms on artificial intelligence and weaponry, the obsession with companies like Zynga, Groupon, and eToys must not overshadow critical technology, which is instrumentally and intrinsically valuable for domestic growth.
The inroads of distaste for foreign policy goals are growing as well. As Karp notes, even elite firms like Google have rejected and rebelled against offered defense contracts. For a company that adopted the slogan “do the right thing,” it’s incredible to see them and similar pioneers identify correct courses of action but constrain themselves when asked to help navigate the world’s imperfections. Once the first-in-line to innovate, Silicon Valley has placed deliberation on moral relativity over fuelling national excellence. In turn, America is forced to fight its internal and external threats with one hand tied behind its back.
Thus, one of Karp’s many missions in this techno-manifesto is persuading readers that deliverables aren’t enough. Protecting enduring values requires constant calibration and oversight of our country’s soft assets. The alternative? A fixation on short-term gains that invites long-term defeat. Karp agrees, “It was a culture, one that cohered around a shared objective, that won the last world war. And it will be a culture that wins, or prevents, the next one.”
Throughout their treatise, Karp and Zamiska frame interdisciplinary studies as key to why defense technology and our mutual values matter. Karp and Zamiska are fantastic storytellers, weaving narratives that connect seemingly unrelated topics, such as the dancing motions of honeybees, British art programming, and improvisational comedy manuals, to their thesis. Karp’s argument concerns and is expressed through every facet of society, and the inclusions breathe philosophy and nuance into an environment dominated by cold calculus and binary outcomes. A narrow focus on technology alone is limiting, but our appreciation and exposure to the humanities can enlighten our reasoning.
If we want to “remake the world, not tinker at the margins,” as the co-authors remark, America requires a bold declaration for civic and liberal arts education. As Michael Lucchese contends in his review of this book, Karp and Zamiska urge our society to “give more serious thought about the meaning of the good life and how we can pursue it together.” This country was set into motion by Founders who were statesmen, scientists, theologians, businessmen, and lawyers, among other roles, bound by the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. Conversely, institutions like Harvard funnel almost 50% of their graduates into finance or consulting jobs, leaving their current students unsatisfied with the educational and social landscape.
Our country’s political character demands the diversification of interests for competition and survival. Yet, citizens shouldn’t spread so thin that it induces factionalism or a revision of our history, as is unfortunately too common today. The liberal arts reawaken a moral seriousness in its people and ask if what is possible with their general or specialized knowledge is desirable. It is this ethical imagination and vigilance that Karp and Zamiska encourage us to take on to heal the West.
America’s next steps hinge on how effectively we can wield outside theories, stories, and ideas to better our crafts. To put it simply, selling goods does not equate to serving the public good. Rather, it is heightened responsibility and ownership that will resonate with broader societal needs and rejuvenate national identity.
Their plan for an uplifting civic and technological education is layered. We, as a society, must re-embrace mythologies to motivate forgiveness and solidarity while forging new narratives to meet the demands of a changing era. We should recognize the risks of post-nationalism and the agnosticism it brings to our culture. Finally, we must train our future leaders in fortitude and independent thought, using technology as a partner, not a replacement, to dismantle the old order and enrich the new.
As Karp and Zamiska conclude, “The reconstruction of a technological republic, in the United States and elsewhere, will require a re-embrace of collective experience, of shared purpose and identity, of civic rituals that are capable of binding us together.”
Ultimately, The Technological Republic is a judgment of top-down resource allocation and bottom-up appraisal. Karp and Zamiska penned this work as an antidote to convenience, atomization, and complacency so that Americans would “take the risk of defining who we are or aspire to be.” The task now lies with us to forge the republic we wish to rebuild, in speech and in service.
Alex Rosado is a political, cultural, and consumer freedom writer for Young Voices, writing in his personal capacity. Follow him on X @Alexprosado.
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