Technocracy - Is this the future?

[camouflage]

It's not just about individuals, although the third image above does resemble a lizard, but the whole, now rotting, financial system we live under.

yes, and these are some individuals that further the cause of and live by that system.

 

[butchersapron]

Interesting piece:

The Rise of Egypt’s Technocrats

As Egyptians battle over the precise definition of a coup, the wording of constitutional declarations, and the future of the discredited Muslim Brotherhood, political elites across the ideological spectrum tentatively agree on one thing: the need for a stable technocratic government. This plea for technocracy has even united the far right Salafi Nour party with the liberal youth organizers of the Tamarod — “rebel” — campaign.

In a deeply fractured political scene — where sectarian, class, and regional schisms threaten to bring chaos — this appeal to objective managerial politics is completely understandable. Technocrats, often lawyers, military officers, engineers, and judges, seamlessly adopt a non-ideological posture and purport to apply objective, professional methods to the task of governing. In a longtime autocracy like Egypt, where the machinery of government is often obscure and byzantine, technocrats appeal to a population looking for an expert who understands how to get things done.

 

[butchersapron]

I wonder if this thread is worth a quick re-read this week? Esp given the EU demands for depolitcising the greek administration (which they will pretend means anti-corruption and party nepotism - it doesn't, it means substituting a rule based model for a political competition model, and the rules just happen to be pro-austerity and pro-finance capitals demands).

 

[butchersapron]

Excellent piece in the new edition of Salvage - outlines clearly in jargon free language the legal basis for technocracy as "constitutionalising austerity." and how politicians - domestic and eu - jumped at the chance as "neoliberalism could be transformed into a binding legal obligation" one shorn of actual real life political struggle and options/choices (which precisely is why, contra ongoing daftness on the brexit thread, the tories and capital generally support remain). Important that this piece looks at how this plays out nationally and on the level of local councils as well - as well as the impact on what we might call the trad left parties. Really worth the read:

Against Law-sterity

Law has a number of features that make it ideal for implementing austerity. On the most basic level, legal ‘rules’ purport to stand above political action, and so form an external restraint on politics. Although laws may be the product of particular democratic institutions, once made they stand beyond the everyday life of politics. Thus, law serves to insulate particular decisions from everyday popular control.

...

One final feature of the law is of particular importance here. Law-making is – as Karl Klare puts it in ‘Law-Making as Praxis’ – ‘constitutive’. That is to say that law, in creating a system of material and ideological compulsions and incentives, plays a key role in shaping and transforming political terrain. This is the ultimate aim of juridicalised austerity. By creating a system of incentives, the legal framework of austerity ultimately forces ‘progressive’ governments into implementing austerity on their own.

...

This is the brutal brilliance of law-sterity. On the one hand, it enables governments to argue that austerity is not a choice but a technocratic and legal necessity. At the same time, ostensibly anti-austerity governments are faced with a huge problem. If they contest austerity, then the law will visit greater austerity upon them. The choice effectively becomes gambling on a radical break with the existing order – which could overturn the legal obligations – or implementing ‘progressive’ austerity to avoid harsher consequences. In this way, law-sterity makes ‘austerity-lite’ the ‘rational choice’ for any government that is not explicitly revolutionary in its orientation. This was precisely the situation in which the Syriza government found itself following the 2015 bailout referendum, ultimately capitulating to the law-sterity of the EU and IMF.

The Syriza example points us particularly to two decisive features of law-sterity. Firstly, by posing the situation as essentially ‘radical break’ or ‘progressive austerity’, it operates as a wedge with which to split the radical and moderate components of any political coalition, generally leaving the latter in power. Secondly, whilst ‘progressive austerity’ may be implemented under protest, one cannot implement such a regime without being fundamentally transformed. Such a government will – necessarily – become alienated from its social base and continue to make compromises, eventually internalising the very logic of austerity (particularly as the more radical elements in its ranks are driven away). In this way, there is a double movement towards transforming progressive governments into austere subjects.