Two days ago, the old city government reaffirmed its desire to reduce (and professionalize) its colossal public administration. As I am actively searching for a job, my parent's got very excited and advised I write emails to ministries reminding them I have the credentials they might need. I resisted, because I find the whole ordeal - very sad.
Political statements such as these are a book example of what isomorphism will do to societies that have not attained the level of cultural and political development needed to foster democracy. For the past eight years, it's been mostly deliberation and endorsement, with regular torrent of comments sanctioned by independent thinkers, analysts and other commentators. As a result, a matter of simple action is transformed into a pseudo-science full of conflict - much like a reality show. This provides for an unprecedented level of political disenchantment to those with a minimal self-respect and further fuels the academic thinking of political desacralization and death of democracy.
The view that laws need to correspond to civilizational development of a society is not hard science. On that axis, while West might be hurrying up too fast into the future (and breaking away from the past), the old city has been, inadvertently or not, encapsulated by its past. Justice be told, westerners have found a model to transfer wealth from generation to generation, but a predominant mode of thinking has been far removed from the institutions of old.
Not the case in the old city. There is an astonishing blend of archaic and contemporary here, a place where hereditary thinking and modern institutions meet without any subtlety. People are born into jobs, and given that the biggest employer in the country is the government - people are born into public offices. Less than a year ago, a young boy, freshly graduated from a shady school, has been appointed as a head of a specialized public institution. For the obvious reasons, this completely defeats the virtue of democracy. No need for high philosophy and analysis here.
The public administration is impregnated with princes such as these. The basic justification served is that it is difficult to wash out the communist leftovers (institutionalized thinking) and facilitate the needed curbing due to market limitations. The 'noblese oblige' here is that firing people from the public administration cannot be met by a market big enough to provide jobs.
During the communist era, the old city alone housed more than 10 factories. Now, none of these are operational. Throughout the country, businesses and factories operated by the communist government were privatized in the most shady manner. The official view of the government still upheld is that the paradigm shift in market organization rendered the operation of previously state-owned-and-run businesses and factories - obsolete. This view has been accepted by western partners.
Some inconsistencies are critical to note here. The old city market is now organized under a pure neo-liberal principle, where state-intervention and intrusion is a blasphemy. Regardless, the state remains the biggest employer, giving this model a startling pseudo-socialist prefix. How is this possible? And more importantly, why?
An even bigger inconsistency creeps in the privatization, and consequent shut-down, of previously solvent factories. Old city is ripe with illustrative examples. Rich with mineral water springs, old city housed a carbonated mineral water factory that is now dead. Sure, the factory previously employed too many workers to be solvent in a liberalized market. But the paradigm shift did not erase the demand for its product. Rather than adjust and still serve the national demand, the factory is dead now. The country now imports impressive number of bottles of carbonated mineral water from our neighbors, persistently adding to the ever-increasing (and already sky-high) trade-deficit. Same is to be said of a textile factory, shoe manufacture and many other.
The above example serves only to point that the expectation of a working economy that would facilitate a smaller public administration is common-sensical. Further, while the 'noblese oblige' principle is commanding, it did not prevent the government to shut down dozens of businesses in the early stages of the transition-era. Instead, it left a decade-long legacy that, beside maintaining a state apparatus impressive in size, also burdened the budget with a social programme incoherent with a neo-liberal model. In the economic sense, this legacy was purely non-utilitarian. Budget deficit is not desirable on political level, too. But the government enabled nevertheless.
It is very easy to cushion an Orwellian argument here. In 1984, Orwell talks of the danger of poverty - a government induced state that fosters servile and obedient electorate. It is essentially an elevated Hobbesian argument, where people in the state of fear do not experience or develop mental faculties and culture.
Naturally, keeping the market limited and maintaining a large state apparatus does foster political servility. People need to eat. Empty bellies understand no nuances, nor are they subject to the requirements of an elevated spirit. Families fed by public administration, feed the political colossus with their votes. A job for a family of votes. As it is simple and effective in practice, it is common-sensical in the attempt of its apprehension.
Naturally, keeping the market limited and maintaining a large state apparatus does foster political servility. People need to eat. Empty bellies understand no nuances, nor are they subject to the requirements of an elevated spirit. Families fed by public administration, feed the political colossus with their votes. A job for a family of votes. As it is simple and effective in practice, it is common-sensical in the attempt of its apprehension.
Except some get a tidy bit more than bread while at it.
