In February, a column in the Economist registered the resentment spilling over San Franciscan streets, erupting outside IT-industry awards nights and in front of the Google buses. The anonymous “Schumpeter” columnist was bemused that glamorous tech companies had joined Wall Street as villains for the Left and become blamed for gentrification.

To some extent, “Schumpeter” assured readers, this was a wacky San Francisco thing. The city “has more than its fair share of professional protesters — including those who think they have the right to live in one of the world’s most desirable places even if they can’t rub two pennies together.”

Meanwhile, “most people outside San Francisco still look on its tech firms with admiration, not disgust.” But those beyond the Bay Area ought to pay attention, “Schumpeter” went on, because this was a harbinger of things to come — namely, the “triumph of meritocracy.” The tech industry exemplified and increased “the relationship between IQ, education and reward.”