12 November 2010

Everything belongs to me

The exercise of raw power is the limiting case of excludibility. Raw power is in fact the imposition of excludibility into situations where it might otherwise not obtain. The exercise of raw power imposes an excludibility onto those social domains which could ordinarily be shared. 
Raw power institutionalizes excludibility into all transactions. It says everything belongs to me. There is no covenant. Whatever you have, you have by my largesse. 
Raw power eliminates the possibility of mutual autonomy. It transforms the distribution of excludibility into the centralization of excludibility. Raw power shrinks the space where people share things because they are uncertain.
 Raw power also violates tradita. It takes to itself what otherwise ought properly to be passed on to others. Raw power thus undermines the context for craftsmanship because craftsmanship requires for its own flourishing the possibility of tradita. That stopping of tradition might be the key to the curse's mechanism. The unearned value of the resource, by dint of its inviting power-wielders to violate God's covenant, undermines the corresponding covenant between the rulers and the people, which covenant is implemented via tradition, the passing along of things. By shutting down the covenant the resource curse shuts down tradita, which in turn shuts off craftsmanship. The improper use of resources results in the shutting down of craftsmanship, which is a curse.

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