curiously, the reactionary economist von hayek provides a nice model for thinking about bushworld.
for hayek, monopolies are irrational by definition because they eliminate feedback (which enables a ratinoal assessment of performance) as they eliminate competitors. the result was that monopolies tended to substitute internal political considerations for information about performance--they tend to see the space in which they operate as they would prefer it to be, that is as shaped by the desires of the folk who run the apparatus. this is substituted for any rational assessment of the world outside the organization. this slippage----from dealing with complexity in the environment into dealing with the environment across a simplified image of it which is driven more by affect than friction----is the simplest thing in the world--so simple that the process would go unnoticed----that this substitution had happened would be demonstrated via results---but there is no reason to assume that results would necessarily trigger a rational response. the simplified image of the world could be defended--after all there would be considerable affect channeled through it (the illusion of mastery of a complex environment would follow from its [imaginary] erasure)
so it seems to be in bushworld. except in this case, you have this organizational problem repeated at the level of politics (rooted in a flight from complexity, a flight from change, into a simplistic view of the world rooted in types of categories and belief proper to christianity). not only that, but you have this bizarre fetishism of power, the assumption outlined most consistently by cheney that holding power makes one rational. which is just as idiotic as its free-market correlate (that money makes actors rational)--but it is simple, and simple has its appeal, apparently.
i dont think that it is asking too much that a regime within a democracy operate internally in a manner that reflects the pluralistic character of the system itself, and not revert to a mode more associated with a single-party system in its internal organization.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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