Liquefaction of the State and the State of Business
This is what we have in front of our astonished eyes: the definitive implementation of a transnational corporation, a fine example of the ubiquity and efficiency of market globalization, dedicated to the purchase and sale of ideology, not just producing fabulous profits but also, fundamentally, creating a business model that should already be featured as a case study in the Harvard Business Review.
This model sustains itself in liquefaction or, more precisely, the hemolysis of political institutions (in other words, of the normative conventions that regulate relations between the different parts of society) and their substitution by a series of “business units” or command centers, and a parallel and autonomous execution in charge of developing strategic lines of work for the conservation of power, and which are definitely articulated only in the figure of the capo di tutti capi.
These business units, made up of an easily replicable structure, thanks to portable functionaries (generally linked to the military estate) occupy themselves with creating a few high profile social programs that (paradoxically) leave the financial and political operations that sustain them in absolute darkness while assuring the widest possible opacity. While the spectator’s attention is distracted and overwhelmed by the good intentions of the managers of these business units, the extraordinary profits derived from trading public goods remain hidden at the far edge of the stage. Those of good conscience give out sighs of relief, while they consume the different episodes of the “fight against poverty” that parade in front of their astonished eyes, their critical conscience dulled by the illusion of the definitive vindication of the excluded.
This monstrous corporation, which at first glance can be decoded as the epiphany of Latin American populism (a great contribution to 20th century politics by our Americas), is now revealed as being more than that: this TGL (Transnational of the Global Left, Inc.) has been installed under the premise that, erasing the borders between public and private funds (due to the effect of the increase of state control over private activity and over society in general), the fortunes of the countries where it operates can be managed as the corporate and personal patrimony of those who have been elected to public office. But just as the Devil’s great ability is to convince us he doesn’t exist, the TGL’s is to become rich by means of the idea of eradicating profit, to extract capital gain from the idea of revolution, converting the latter into the most sophisticated product of global capitalism.
Flocks of flying suitcases full of dollars cross the skies of this continent’s large homeland following the seasonal migration of electoral cycles; prêt a porter constituent assemblies and virtual constitutions that are “customized” according to the user’s taste; a flabby left that celebrates with well-aged whiskey and its intelligence given over to praising the Supreme Being: those are the heralds of this latest incarnation of moribund imperialism.
{ Colette Capriles, El Nacional, 27 December 2007 }
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