I'm in sympathy and open to your hypothesis. But I do think we have to tighten up on what we mean re 'conspiracy'.

In a long career spanning the commercial, media, academic and gov worlds my experience in all was that there was hardly a day went by when people weren't trying to cover something up. The Beeb and gov were worst. Academia came out best. Gov coverups had the worst/greatest impact.

But just about all of the covering up was passive: people trying to bumble along and cover their asses often stupidly after daft mistakes or incompetence or accidents. Mostly, it seemed to me, people were just people-pleasing, trying to curry favour with bosses or funders. People around often know at the time that there's something fishy going on. But it has to be said, people (even world leaders) are simply not bright enough to do all the things we imagine they do.

Genuine conspiracy is active: a deliberate gathering of people to plan and carry out covert, dishonest, criminal acts, usually for the direct benefit of the conspirators and this perceived interests. When the conspirators get their plans to work they have mostly devastating effects.these people know that they are doing wrong before they start, yet still go ahead clearly decided on unlawful/unethical/unprofessional activities. They rarely get caught and brought before a court.

I am certain that there are many of these genuine conspiracies. We recognise them after the fact and, in anger at being so badly duped, mistakenly attribute their profound heinousness to 'magical' evil, overwhelming powers.