The Ministry for the Future

99

We’re here today to discuss whether any of the so-called totalizing solutions to our current problems will serve to do the job.

No.

I suppose I have to ask, do you mean no to the question or no to the topic.

No to the question. There is no single solution adequate to the task.

And so what can we expect to see?

Failure.

But assuming success, just for discussion’s sake, what shape might that take?

The shape of failure.

Expand on that please? A success made of failures?

Yes. A cobbling-together from less-than-satisfactory parts. A slurry, a bricolage. An unholy mess.

Will this in itself create problems?

Of course.

Such as?

Such as the way like-minded people working to solve the same problem will engage in continuous civil war with each other over methods, thus destroying their chances of success.

Why does that happen, do you think?

The narcissism of small differences.

That’s an odd name.

It’s Freud’s name. Means more regard for yourself than for your allies or the problems you both face.

Well, but sometimes the differences aren’t so small, right?

The front is broad.

But don’t you think there’s a real difference in for instance how people regard the market?

There’s no such thing as the market.

Really! I’m surprised to hear you say this, what can you mean?

There’s no more of a real market behind what we now call the market than there is gold behind what we call money. Old words obscure new situations.

You think this happens often?

Yes.

Give us another example.

Revolutions don’t involve guillotines anymore. Alas.

You think revolutions are less visible now?

Exactly. Invisible revolutions, technical revolutions, legal revolutions. Quite possibly one could claim the benefits of a revolution without having to go through one.

But doesn’t already-existing power resist revolutionary changes?

Of course, but they fail! Because who holds power? No one knows anymore. Political power is itself one of those fossil words, behind which lies an unknown.

I would have thought oligarchies were pretty known.

Oligarchic power is the usual answer given, but if it exists at all, it’s so concentrated that it’s weak.

How so? I must say you amaze me.

Brittle. Fragile. Susceptible to decapitation. By which I mean not the guillotine type of decapitation, but the systemic kind, the removal from power of a small elite. Their situation is very unstable and tenuous. It’s highly possible to shift capital away from them, either legally or extra-judicially.

Just capital?

Everything relies on capital! Please don’t be stupid. Who has capital, how it gets distributed, that’s always our question.

And how does it get distributed?

People decide how it gets distributed by way of laws. So change could happen by changing the laws, as I’ve been saying all along. Or you could just shift some account numbers, as happened in Switzerland.

Ah yes. The banks. That reminds me of a fine story. Do you remember what the bank robber Willie Sutton said when a reporter asked him why he did what he did?

I do! Good of you to ask. And good of that reporter too.

The reporter said, Why do you rob banks?

And Sutton replied, Because that’s where the money is.