That prompted Klein to ask:

These folks… are purportedly very data focused, very good at assimilating new information. So I find it genuinely scary that neither Romney nor his super-rich backers had any idea he was going to lose. All the polls, all the models, all the betting markets said he was likely to lose. How did a group of people who, in their jobs, have to be willing to read and respond to disappointing data convince themselves to ignore every piece of data we had?

Freeland described it as “astonishing” and “mystifying,” adding that these same people had made the same miscalculation in their roles as managers and investors:

… it was also the case that all the smartest guys in the room managed to lose a lot of money in 2008 and managed to convince themselves of a set of very mistaken beliefs about where the markets where going to go. It was a lot of the same people on the wrong side of both bets.”

But there’s really nothing astonishing about either case. That these people with MBA degrees and long careers climbing management ladders could be so abysmally wrong in their predictions is a textbook example of how power, by its very nature, creates stupidity and irrationality.

As Freeland observes, Romney and his backers have internalized a legitimizing ideology in which all the things that are best for the American economy are — entirely coincidentally — also in their own self-interest. The very act of getting rich (“my success,” as Romney put it) is “an act of civic virtue.” They’re the “job creators,” after all. Billionaires see themselves as a class of the best and brightest — tough thinkers who make the hard, thankless decisions, “having an extremely unique set of skills that sets them apart from everybody else, and it’s partly brainpower, but they all see it as crucially including an ability to judge and take risks and work very hard.”

This social and political ideology is a powerful form of groupthink that filters what its adherents perceive about the world. It’s just as powerful inside institutional hierarchies like the giant corporation as in the political arena.

One central function of a hierarchy is to filter the upward flow of information — to tell naked emperors how great their new clothes look. Power distorts information flow because, as R. A. Wilson observed, nobody tells the truth to someone with a gun. Authority relations result in one-way information flows, preventing decisionmakers from receiving accurate feedback on the real effects of their decisions. As Kenneth Boulding put it, those at the tops of hierarchies tend to live in almost completely imaginary worlds.

As a result those at the tops of pyramids generally communicate much more effectively with their peers at the tops of other pyramids than with their subordinates in the pyramid below. CEOs tend to make policies based on the “best practices” of other hierarchical institutions in the same industry. They evaluate their effectiveness based on the enthusiastic propaganda from other CEOs about how well it’s working in their own organizations — despite the fact that those other CEOs are equally clueless about the real effects of their policies.

I’ve lost count of the number of columnists and talking heads who observed that Romney visibly bristled when debate moderators like Candy Crowley talked back to him. He was used to being surrounded by subordinates who were afraid to tell him anything he didn’t want to hear. Seriously, how would you like to be the person on Romney’s staff who tells him his proposal is a stupid idea, or why it didn’t work?

How are businesses run by managers like this gang of idiots able to stay in business? The same way Soviet factories and industrial ministries were able to stay “in business”: By playing in a rigged game.

The U.S. economy isn’t a free market. It’s a corporate capitalist market, heavily cartelized and subsidized by the state, so that each industry is dominated by a handful of giant firms sharing the same pathological culture. The system is designed to socialize risk and cost, and privatize profit, so that natural born idjuts (excuse me, “successful job creators”) like Mittens can spend their entire lives living in bubbles, being told exactly what they want to hear, without suffering any ill effects.

Primeiro foi o Tenente John Pike da polícia da Universidade da Califórnia em Davis, cujo saque rápido do spray de pimenta relegou-o a uma vida inteira de saber que toda pessoa com quem interagir o verá secretamente como mais baixo do que uma solitária no cólon de Satã. Seu comportamento truculento, nacionalmente visto, e subsequente transformação em ícone nacional do mal eletronicamente divulgado foi uma advertência para toda a cultura da polícia — provavelmente a primeira lição a penetrar fundo mostrando que as coisas agora são diferentes.

Agora é o Governador do Kansas Sam Brownback. Sua pequena marcha da vergonha começou quando Emma Sullivan, estudante do último ano do colegial, tuitou observações depreciativas a respeito do comparecimento dele ao programa Juventude no Governo. A diretora de comunicações de Brownback, Sherienne Jones-Sontag, descobriu o tuíte numa pesquisa na Internet colocando o nome de Brownback, e foi choramingar para as pessoas do Juventude no Governo. O Juventude no Governo, por sua vez, foi choramingar para a diretora do colégio de Emma.

A diretora dela, alérgica a controvérsias, como os burocratas em toda parte — especialmente quando atinjam pessoas que controlam seus financiamentos — ficou possessa. Depois de passar-lhe um pito, determinou que Emma escrevesse uma carta de desculpas. Inclusive discriminou os pontos a serem abordados.

Mesmo que a história terminasse aqui, essa seria perfeita ilustração do narcisismo e senso de direito de posse das pessoas em posição de autoridade. Eis aí um sujeito em cargo de poder, cercado de bajuladores lambebotas e vacas de presépio eles próprios com enorme poder, que ganha mais dinheiro do que Deus. E quando uma colegial escarnece dele, ele corre em lágrimas soluçando convulsivamente por causa disso — como uma menininha da escola dominical calçando sapatinhos com alças que acaba de ver algum vagabundo expor suas partes privadas no parque. Oh, pobre, pobre homem!

Antigamente, a coisa teria acabado aqui. Só Emma e seu círculo imediato teriam sabido, e ela provavelmente teria acabado escrevendo a carta.

Mas não acabou. A história dela atingiu os blogs, distribuidores de súmulas e agregadores de notícias como um tsunami, e a conta dela no Twitter subiu de trinta para (enquanto escrevo) 14.220 seguidores. Há um par de dias, eram apenas 5.000. A história esparramou-se pelo longo fim de semana de Ação de Graças antes do pedido de desculpas dela ter o prazo vencido. Estimulada pela explosão de apoio público, e com o altivo apoio da mãe, Emma recusou-se a pedir desculpas. “Eu o faria de novo.” Essa é a diferença entre um político viscoso e uma jovem corajosa.

Agora Brownback, diante de todo o ridículo, está tropeçando todo em si próprio tentando recuar. Como é típico dos de sua laia, reagiu como uma barata correndo para baixo da geladeira quando a luz da cozinha se acendeu. Mas viscoso até o fim, está pedindo desculpas — não por si próprio — mas por “sua equipe,” que “exagerou na reação.” Que maçada! Eu não comeria nenhuma comida que minha equipe me trouxesse, se fosse ele. Se porém esse é o modo pelo qual ele normalmente trata as pessoas, provavelmente vem, sem saber, consumindo fluidos corporais há anos.

Os Pequenos Eichmanns do distrito escolar local, sem dúvida descansando seguramente na crença de terem pachorrentamente movido o Affaire Sullivan da caixa de entrada para a caixa de saída e mantido a máquina do estado funcionando azeitadamente, tiveram péssima surpresa. E como os burocratas de toda parte, entraram em modo pleno de controle de danos. Eis aqui a declaração oficial deles:

“O distrito não censurou a Srta. Sullivan nem infringiu sua liberdade de expressão. Não é exigido dela que escreva carta de desculpas ao governador.”

Ah, vocês querem dizer que foram pegos com a mão na cuia, certo?

Jones-Sontag, em comentários subsequentes para o Daily Star de Kansas City disse que aquele era um “momento de aprendizado” para os estudantes acerca do uso da mídia social. Era importante, disse ela, os estudantes aprenderem “o poder da mídia social,” porque a coisa continua lá para sempre.

Certo, foi um momento de aprendizado, mas não do tipo que ela pensa. Para os estudantes, foi um momento de aprendizado que ensinou exatamente o oposto do que as Fábricas de Processamento de Recursos Humanos têm tentado ensinar todos esses anos: Eles aprenderam “o poder da mídia social” de expor perversidades dos altos níveis. Aprenderam que tal exposição é uma danada de uma grande clava que eles podem pegar para bater no alto da cabeça de poderosas instituições, para igualar um pouquinho as coisas. E o fato de que a mídia social “é duradoura … na Internet” foi mais uma lição para as autoridades públicas do que para os estudantes: Estamos de olho em vocês, e não há onde se esconder.

Artigo original afixado por Kevin Carson em 29 de novembro de 2011.

Traduzido do inglês por Murilo Otávio Rodrigues Paes Leme.

Meanwhile, the NSA is building a gargantuan data-crunching facility — the Utah Data Center — that it expects to become operational in 2013: “Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital ‘pocket litter.'”

Civil libertarian reactions to this stuff consist mainly — and quite understandably — of horror at the newly augmented power of the automated police state. In terms of the state’s intent and its legal figleaves for justifying it, this is obviously yet another step in America’s slide into full-blown security state authoritarianism a la the movie “Brazil.”

We’re living in a high-tech form of bureaucratic Caesarism with about as much relation to the US Constitution it claims to observe as the Principate had to the institutional forms of the Roman Republic. But I’m less inclined to panic over the actual capabilities of that security state — precisely because it tends to operate like something out of “Brazil.”

The main reason the security state has never managed to thwart a real terror attack with all its electronic surveillance and data-crunching capabilities (they’ve all been stopped by a combo of stupid terrorists and smart fellow passengers) is that they’re already generating too much data for their bureaucracy to process. The system drowns in the false positives it generates, and in the face of this bureaucratic information overload actually ignores (say) direct warnings from the Underwear Bomber’s dad that his crazy kid is planning to blow up a plane. I’m guessing this will make the problem of false positives a hundred times worse, replacing the haystack the needle of usable info is buried in with an entire barn full of hay.

If this “Enemy of the State” monstrosity is good for anything at all, it’s keeping track of people the regime already knows it doesn’t like for political reasons. Imagine A. Mitchell Palmer with a facial recognition database of IWW and Socialist Party members, and you get the idea. “Eugene Debs spotted at the A&P — dispatch paddy wagon immediately!” But even for this application, the actual implementation would probably be more like Information Retrieval in “Brazil.” Some database error would result in Eugene Bebs being arrested instead.

That’s my second point. Consider the typical (very cozy) relationship between military contractors, the Pentagon’s procurement bureaucracies and congressmen from the districts where weapons systems will be built. The whole system is geared to massage weapons test results and grease the skids for approval. So you get extremely expensive weapons systems, with massive cost overruns, that — when tested in actual use — come down with all sorts of unforeseen bugs that were carefully concealed during the Potemkin Village “testing regime” and don’t perform at all as advertised in the contractors’ slick brochures.

The very fact that Abraxas has such incestuous ties with the security community should be a major source of reassurance in this regard.

Because the state is the state, it seeks unlimited power and attempts to acquire that power. But because the state is the state, the things it does to augment its power will mostly be stupid. The typical post-9/11 pattern has been for agile networks like Al Qaeda, Wikileaks and Anonymous to run circles around bureaucratic dinosaurs like Homeland Security and the TSA. The security state is trying to counter the threat by making the dinosaurs bigger. We’ll see how that works out.

Now it’s Kansas Governor Sam Brownback. His little walk of shame began when Emma Sullivan, a Kansas City high school senior, tweeted disparaging remarks about him during his appearance at the Youth in Government program. Brownback’s communications director, Sherienne Jones-Sontag, found the tweet in a vanity search for Brownback’s name, and whined to the folks at Youth in Government. Youth in Government, in turn, whined to the principal of Emma’s high school.

Her principal, like bureaucrats everywhere allergic to controversy — especially when it offends the people who control their funding — went ballistic. After chewing her out, he ordered Emma to write a letter of apology. He even provided talking points.

Even if the story stopped right here, this would be a perfect illustration of the narcissism and sense of entitlement of people in authority. Here’s a guy in a powerful office, surrounded by bootlicking sycophants and yes men who themselves wield enormous power, who makes more money than God. And when a high school girl taunts him, he goes running in tears to sob his little heart out about it — like a little Sunday School girl in Mary Janes who’d just seen some hobo expose his private parts at the park. Oh, you poor, poor man!

In the old days, it would have stopped there. Nobody but Emma and her immediate circle would have known, and she’d probably have wound up writing the letter.

But it didn’t stop there. Her story hit the blogs, wire services and news aggregators like a tsunami, and her Twitter account went from thirty to (as I write) 14,220 followers. A couple of days ago, it was just 5,000. The story broke over the long Thanksgiving weekend before her apology was due. Encouraged by the explosion of public support, and with the proud backing of her mother, Emma refused to apologize. “I would do it again.” That’s the difference between a weasel politician and a brave young woman.

Now Brownback, in the face of all the ridicule, is stumbling all over himself trying to walk it back. As is typical of his ilk, he reacted like a cockroach scuttling under the refrigerator when the kitchen light got turned on. But, weasel to the end, he’s apologizing — not for himself — but for “his staff,” who “overreacted.” Hoo, boy! I wouldn’t eat any food my staff brought me, if I were him. But if this is the way he normally treats people, he’s probably been unknowingly consuming bodily fluids for years.

The Little Eichmanns in the local school district, no doubt resting securely in the belief they’d uneventfully moved l’Affaire Sullivan from in-box to out-box and kept the machinery of state in smooth operation, got a nasty surprise. And like bureaucrats everywhere, they launched into full damage control mode. Here’s their official statement:

“The district has not censored Miss Sullivan nor infringed upon her freedom of speech. She is not required to write a letter of apology to the governor.”

Um, you mean now that you got caught, right?

Jones-Sontag, in subsequent comments to the KC Daily Star, said this was a “teachable moment” for students about use of social media. It was important, she said, for students to learn “the power of social media,” because the stuff stays out there forever.

It was a teachable moment, all right, but not the kind she thinks. For students, it was a teachable moment that conveyed the direct opposite of the lesson Human Resources Processing Factories have been trying to impart all these years: They learned “the power of social media” to expose wickedness in high places. They learned that such exposure is a big freaking club they can pick up and beat powerful institutions over the head with, to even things up a bit.  And the fact that social media “is lasting … on the Internet” was more a lesson for public officials than for students: We’re watching you, and there’s no place to hide.

Translations for this article:

• Portuguese, A Barata Sam Brownback Corre Para Debaixo da Geladeira.

Those who benefit the most from an economy woven through with state coercion tell those at the bottom to make sacrifices and accept getting less in return for their acquiescence. Social programs are cut while the security-industrial complex gets new contracts and the managers of favored firms are protected from the consequences of their actions. The poor are expected to shoulder all the blame for their condition at the same time that workers are expected to be grateful to have any job at all. The drill is, “Appreciate what you’re given and let the important people do important things.”

We could argue about whether the system is broken or just working at abnormal intensity, but either perspective raises an important question. Should the system be fixed? Should a different system be adopted?

Wherever states exist, they will always try to drive producers toward serfdom. The powerful have the easiest access to the state, and politicians need a stable power structure to administer society. Reformers can at best make the state less destructive by placating conflict or pushing deprivation to the margins. Better conditions are won by forcing concessions or by playing different ruling class interests against each other.

But is entrenched power a necessary evil that must be negotiated with to attain the essentials of life? No.

Entrenched power brings with it bureaucracy and cronyism. No matter how much funding is increased for anything from schools to security, the flow of money will be dammed up by excessive administration and siphoned off to the pockets of crony contractors. But reducing funding while leaving the system in place often means that administrators will continue taking their cut and just leave less for those at the bottom — the people who are supposed to be helped by programs in the first place. Without fundamental changes people pay and obey as much as they are forced to, but get less in return.

Even worse, reliance on power structures dissolves personal autonomy and social bonds. It conditions people to await orders and devote their time to carrying out orders. Initiative often becomes a matter of how effectively one can get around requirements. And relying on distant powers means dependence on people who probably know you as a statistic or as work material, instead of creating reciprocal relations with people who know you as a person.

The resources exist to dispose of the system altogether. Authority rests primarily on the idea that it ought to be obeyed. If a large number of people were to dispense with this idea and support each others’ efforts in enacting new ideas, then change would be more than a campaign slogan.

The best way to resolve disputes over how to use the state against people is to abolish the state. No system will be perfect, but an order based on the flourishing of each individual instead of on subordination to elites, where people make their own lives instead of having their purpose given to them with commands, certificates, or clubs, is a world that allows the best systems to emerge.