[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/sir-market.html[/postlink]
SIR MARKET, when he faints, does not faint alone. A bomb exploded at the Stock Exchange in Jakarta in the middle of September 2000.Broken glass, holes in the walls, more than ten dead. There was no long wailing for the dead and wounded. Stronger were the cries, "My God ! Sir Market has been hit".
Businessman, ministers, high official, political activist, IMF and World Bank technocrats were all at once stricken with anxiety: well, for half a day or so. The next morning there they were looking for newspapers and scanning TV screen, scrutinising the graphics from minute to minute: figures plummeting in all portfolios, stock prices falling, the rupiah value shaky. We were in the midst of our dark-told prophecy. Sir Market was in a critical condition.
We were afraid, because for the past three decades Sir Market has been enthroned as an invulnerable and unseen power. If there is a magical hand steering the direction society will take, it is his. If there is a force able to give sign about comi8ng changes and movements of wealth and power, it is he. And it is he who stimulates the economy to grow. He, it seems, who makes history. The state, the administration, bureaucracy--all of them, all those nets will never defeat him. In Indonesia people even measure how good or bad the Cabinet is by it "acceptability to the Market"
But a bomb explodes at the Stock Exchange and we can have different story. That murderous explosion showed that Sir Market--with all his magical power--also needs protection. This protection means nothing unless it arises from something closely connected with bureaucracy: Sir Market needs something with effective organisation, a wide reach, a well-structured way of working, and in a position unaffected by Sir Market himself.,in order to rid us of the curse of bombs, so that terrorist can be caught, documents not be wiped, and so that computers will be secure.The list could be long: a bomb disposal squad, intelligence, armed battalions, security and prison administrators, a bench of attorneys, a group of judges, and maybe a firing squad too. They all have to be put some place where they are not merely commodities.
For Sir Market needs safe space. Eventually, he needs what could be called the bureaucratisation of violence.He cannot survive in an arena of unpredictable destructive violence, like the bomb in the Stock Market. The pirates in the South China Sea who loot the shipping trade, bank robbers in the cities--this type of violence is all the more frightening and destructive because one of its core features is uncertainty.
Indeed, Sir Market is killed at dancing within uncertainty. The Stock Market lives because some stock prices rise, and some fall. Transactions take place because of this. Without fluctuation, speculation cannot move and people are unable to earn more profit. In other words,every day can bring supri9ses. I remember Mark Twain's joke about stocks. October, he said, is a risky month for playing the stock market. This is true too of May, July, September, March,April, November, August, February, June, December, January..................
But within this constant uncertainty people nonetheless still wish to diminish risk. Unpredictable violence must be made to enter the calculation.And so bureaucracy flourishes.
North Italy, 1176. In Legnano, a troop of German warriors living as bandits came to attack and loot the town. But unlike other places,in Legnano the attackers were actually beaten by the citizens who armed themselves and when on the alert. It was the voluntary action.
Then times changed. Defence forces such as this were no longer enough. Citizen-forces like the one at Legnano can only be effective if there is discipline, and if there are ties arising from a sense of common ownership. Yet when trade flourishes, the primary ties within the body of society break apart: there are the poor and the rich, there are bosses and those selling labour. Cities become enfeebled through internal conflict.
And so people are forced to hire the labour of others for their defence, contracts, are made, and the condotierri (from the word condotta for contract) are born. Such contracted forces eventually demand not only individual skill, but also management. The bureaucratisation of violence is bomb, together with those who hold the monopoly of violence: and behold--professional armed forces appear.
Yet at the same time, a society needs, the equipment that organises a state: there are tax offices, courts, those who make rules and regulations; and the power of the guardians of balance.Those who hold the monopoly of violence must yet be able to acquiesce to the citizens who pay taxe sand the costs of that bureaucracy. Guns must have lords.
Therefore, Sir Market should not touch these elements. Commercialisation must stop right here. The army must not be mobilised by those offering the highest wages. A terrible fate will strike a city when Sir Market infiltrates this far, and a state no longer behaves as a state but rather as a kind of black market: the generals offer military service to interested parties wishing to use violence--maybe someone who wants to collect a debt, maybe a casino or brothel owner, maybe an importer of narcotics, or maybe some public figure who bears a grudge.
And in the end, the poor will be unprotected. Precisely like the drivers who killed by the bomb blast at the Stock Market in Jakarta that day:just a few hours after the television had been switched off, the victims were no longer mentioned.
SIR MARKET, when he faints, does not faint alone. A bomb exploded at the Stock Exchange in Jakarta in the middle of September 2000.Broken glass, holes in the walls, more than ten dead. There was no long wailing for the dead and wounded. Stronger were the cries, "My God ! Sir Market has been hit".
Businessman, ministers, high official, political activist, IMF and World Bank technocrats were all at once stricken with anxiety: well, for half a day or so. The next morning there they were looking for newspapers and scanning TV screen, scrutinising the graphics from minute to minute: figures plummeting in all portfolios, stock prices falling, the rupiah value shaky. We were in the midst of our dark-told prophecy. Sir Market was in a critical condition.
We were afraid, because for the past three decades Sir Market has been enthroned as an invulnerable and unseen power. If there is a magical hand steering the direction society will take, it is his. If there is a force able to give sign about comi8ng changes and movements of wealth and power, it is he. And it is he who stimulates the economy to grow. He, it seems, who makes history. The state, the administration, bureaucracy--all of them, all those nets will never defeat him. In Indonesia people even measure how good or bad the Cabinet is by it "acceptability to the Market"
But a bomb explodes at the Stock Exchange and we can have different story. That murderous explosion showed that Sir Market--with all his magical power--also needs protection. This protection means nothing unless it arises from something closely connected with bureaucracy: Sir Market needs something with effective organisation, a wide reach, a well-structured way of working, and in a position unaffected by Sir Market himself.,in order to rid us of the curse of bombs, so that terrorist can be caught, documents not be wiped, and so that computers will be secure.The list could be long: a bomb disposal squad, intelligence, armed battalions, security and prison administrators, a bench of attorneys, a group of judges, and maybe a firing squad too. They all have to be put some place where they are not merely commodities.
For Sir Market needs safe space. Eventually, he needs what could be called the bureaucratisation of violence.He cannot survive in an arena of unpredictable destructive violence, like the bomb in the Stock Market. The pirates in the South China Sea who loot the shipping trade, bank robbers in the cities--this type of violence is all the more frightening and destructive because one of its core features is uncertainty.
Indeed, Sir Market is killed at dancing within uncertainty. The Stock Market lives because some stock prices rise, and some fall. Transactions take place because of this. Without fluctuation, speculation cannot move and people are unable to earn more profit. In other words,every day can bring supri9ses. I remember Mark Twain's joke about stocks. October, he said, is a risky month for playing the stock market. This is true too of May, July, September, March,April, November, August, February, June, December, January..................
But within this constant uncertainty people nonetheless still wish to diminish risk. Unpredictable violence must be made to enter the calculation.And so bureaucracy flourishes.
North Italy, 1176. In Legnano, a troop of German warriors living as bandits came to attack and loot the town. But unlike other places,in Legnano the attackers were actually beaten by the citizens who armed themselves and when on the alert. It was the voluntary action.
Then times changed. Defence forces such as this were no longer enough. Citizen-forces like the one at Legnano can only be effective if there is discipline, and if there are ties arising from a sense of common ownership. Yet when trade flourishes, the primary ties within the body of society break apart: there are the poor and the rich, there are bosses and those selling labour. Cities become enfeebled through internal conflict.
And so people are forced to hire the labour of others for their defence, contracts, are made, and the condotierri (from the word condotta for contract) are born. Such contracted forces eventually demand not only individual skill, but also management. The bureaucratisation of violence is bomb, together with those who hold the monopoly of violence: and behold--professional armed forces appear.
Yet at the same time, a society needs, the equipment that organises a state: there are tax offices, courts, those who make rules and regulations; and the power of the guardians of balance.Those who hold the monopoly of violence must yet be able to acquiesce to the citizens who pay taxe sand the costs of that bureaucracy. Guns must have lords.
Therefore, Sir Market should not touch these elements. Commercialisation must stop right here. The army must not be mobilised by those offering the highest wages. A terrible fate will strike a city when Sir Market infiltrates this far, and a state no longer behaves as a state but rather as a kind of black market: the generals offer military service to interested parties wishing to use violence--maybe someone who wants to collect a debt, maybe a casino or brothel owner, maybe an importer of narcotics, or maybe some public figure who bears a grudge.
And in the end, the poor will be unprotected. Precisely like the drivers who killed by the bomb blast at the Stock Market in Jakarta that day:just a few hours after the television had been switched off, the victims were no longer mentioned.