If you haven't read Utopia of Rules of Procedure David Graeber, published in 2015 by Political Critics, is simply a good time to catch up (the book is no longer available in bookstores – I encourage you to visit the library).
Graeber criticises the continuous expansion of bureaucracy, claiming that alternatively of simplifying life, procedures multiply, restricts freedom and promotes inequality. It points out that bureaucracy is not only a domain of the state – corporations besides grow it, neoliberalism paradoxically strengthens it, while people submit to bureaucratic norms, although frequently irrational. It points to “technofeudism” where large institutions control human life through forms, algorithms, and debt. According to the author, bureaucracy suppresses creativity and slows down real changes, becoming a tool for perpetuating the power of the elite and creating foundations for authoritarianism and tyranny. This would be followed by a utopian imagination of a planet where everything is regulated, and so rational, just and free from violence.
Graeber is aware that bureaucracy criticism is the domain of right-wing populism. "Right-wing populists rapidly realized that facts, but taking bureaucrats as a mark almost always has the desired effect. That is why, for example, people began to shamelessly condemn and criticize “egg-head bureaucrats” who live off taxes of honest-working citizens. politician George Wallace initiated this during the 1968 presidential campaign," he writes.
Instead of calling for rejection of regulations as such, Graeber encourages us to imagine a more just, flexible society where bureaucracy serves people alternatively than the another way around. The addition to the Polish edition, devoted to superheroes and how superhero narratives – in peculiar stories about strong units leading order in spite of the corrupt strategy and unnecessary bureaucracy – is highly interesting.
It's hard to get better proof of the accuracy of this reflection than what he's doing right now. Elon Muskwho likes to compare himself to Marvel’s “heros”.
Development of the strategy into peasant reason
Musk declares that he wants to end the "tyranny of bureaucracy", which he describes as the 4th branch of the government, acting against Trump's agenda. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – a fresh consultative body created by the President, who put the richest man in the planet at the head of it – was tasked with drastically reducing the number of jobs in government administration and another expenses that would be a waste of payer money. Contrary to what the name suggests, DOGE is not an authoritative government department – specified creation would require the initiative and approval of Congress.
So far, 1 of the more spectacular actions of the Musk unit is to demolish the USAID – American aid agencies and a powerful tool soft power. 1 of the arguments in favour of stopping aid from the USAID was the alleged degeneration of officials, whom Musk called “radical sleepwalkers”, spending millions of dollars on the “ LGBT promotion”.
Elon Musk claimed that through this agency the United States had spend $50 million in the coming year for condoms for the people of Gaza and that they founded akin costly programs in the past. Donald Trump suggested that measures would yet go to Hamas fighters who They usage condoms to make bombs.. However, it turned out that it was not the Palestinian Gaza, but the state of Gaza in Mozambique, where the HIV epidemic raged. The program included a lower amount than that given by Muska, and contraception was just 1 of its many elements – alongside the fight against tuberculosis and HIV through the acquisition and distribution of vaccines, medicines, or conducting educational workshops.
A fewer days after the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) Brooke Rollins admitted that DOGE's squad had been working with the department for weeks, USDA announced that Musk's squad had “by mistake” fired a group of department staff.
It turned out that these workers were liable for the government's consequence to the outbreak of avian influenza in the United States. In January 2025, the virus He first led to the death of a man In the States. Over the past year, there have been evidence 66 cases of human infections, with only 1 reported for respective years. DOGE and the Department of Agriculture realized a mistake. They're now trying to take back the exemptions.
On Friday, February 14, the Trump administration rushed back to work any atomic safety professionals who (about 350 workers) had released the day before. One-sided termination was easy, withdrawal of this decision – much more complicated due to procedures limited to the anticipation of contact with the dismissed.
Since the inauguration of Trump on January 20, DOGE has been reducing jobs throughout the government, and the last 2 weeks have been highly intense in this respect, as mass layoffs have been made in many national government agencies. respective 100 employees of the tiny Busissnes Association (SBA), an association supporting tiny businesses, were fired. DOGE agents informed officials of termination of contracts outside of any procedures and without giving reasons. Only a fewer days later, there was a formal release with all the formalities being kept.
Looks like we won't be moving out of examples like this in no time. On Wednesday, February 26, Musk acknowledged that DOGE "accidentally" had stopped the Ebola countermeasure program, which reaps fatal harvest in Uganda. In fresh weeks a number of contracts and contracts have been terminated with medical teams and subcontractors working on the site. Billionaire maintains that contracts have already been resumed, but U.S. employees andD. employees deny this, informing that efforts to halt the virus have been importantly weakened.
Musk and his squad do not halt working together. It was loud about giving DOGE employees whose tasks did not require specified powers, access to the US Treasury's payment system, allowing them to track transactions worth billions of dollars, and share delicate data with them. DOGE besides limited programs supporting treatment and improving the quality of life of veterans or victims of the assassination of the WTC, but under the influence of criticism (veterans in the US are inactive sacred) withdrew from part of the cuts. Contrary to Trump's run assurances that he will not decision in by the administration In late February, DOGE announced further cuts. any of the agency's staff decided to resign, not to put their hands on it.
DOGE defends itself by claiming that it is taking cost-effective measures, while discovering further fraud. The thing is, Musk and White home spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, “fraud” call everything they dislike for any reason: from supporting contraception or fighting infectious diseases to spending $57,000 on investigation and another climate change activities in Sri Lanka. In addition, the information about savings published by DOGE is full of errors – for example, the contract for Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE), allegedly worth $8 billion, proved to be worth $8 million. Last week DOGE reported savings of $55 billion, but Bloomberg's analysis indicates that they amounted to about 16.5 billion.
Philip Bump in "The Washington Post" summed it up well: "Instead of realizing the gaps in cognition and mitigating future comments, Musk builds a defensive position around his claims, based on organization films and attacks on his critics. This unfairly strengthens the scepticism of the government (against its critics). But that is the point."
Too many stories about heroes
Despite the murmuring position and compromising errors, Musk's activity continues to have large support. To realize this, it is worth looking – behind Graeber – at the pop culture of fresh decades. You know these stories: there's a large crisis coming, and a corrupt and inefficient strategy can't handle it. The hidden presumption is that changing the strategy through improvement is impossible – it would take besides long, it would encounter besides much resistance.
Armageddon, Batman, Dirty Harry, Iron Man, Harry Potter is Star Wars These are stories whose protagonists – endowed with exceptional talents, common sense and determination – working outside the law and adopted model of conduct make changes in a planet full of oppressive regulations, lazy officials, failure to work procedures. To change (for the better, of course) strong peasants are needed (and in the “progressive” version – strong woman), who will argue corrupt police, officials from the Ministry of Magic or unimaginable scientists who say that "it cannot be done". But who would like to watch movies about how regulations, procedures and control activities have affirmative effects? For the effect it is better to make them an obstacle, which the hero – endowed with peasant reason, giving him clarity about what to do – must bypass. Part of this fantasy is to believe that there are – for years – immense structures of people of bad will who do nothing useful, do not produce any cognition or services and that no 1 among political decision makers would have specified a problem.
For decades we have lived in a planet where the basis of storytelling was a communicative based on psychology alternatively of sociology, on heroes alternatively of describing the planet and its institutions. In these stories, the fact that individual truly wants something, has the right temper and believes that they will succeed, is adequate to change the social system, punish the guilty and reconstruct justice.
Street Law and first seasons Games about the throne They became large hits because, contrary to the usual schemes, they tell first of all about the world, its relations, its institutions and how they affect the characters. Both series regularly abandoned their heroes, without losing the pace of the story, due to the fact that their core was social conditions, principles, all this invisible strategy exerting force on individuals. Street Law He talks about inefficient institutions, but shows that there is more to this inefficiency than the bad chief of the local police. Similarly, the problem with media independency and the decisions on which stories are published and which are omitted is not simply about the question of courage or deficiency of courage. Factors specified as the calculation of consequences by the editorial team, its links or the requirements of the recipients, which in themselves can form media pathologies, are besides involved. In turn Game of Thrones It is about people who commit cruel acts under social force and customs that frequently have their reasons.
It is simply a model of the story, in which taxation systems, religion, sex standards or the economy of the planet presented play a key role, but there is besides space for heroes and their function in this world. Recent Seasons Games about the throne were much weakerBecause from the sociological communicative they returned to the lost, schematic intellectual narrative, focused on strong individuals.
She's besides breaking out of her intellectual narrative. Diuna. Its main message is: Beware of heroes, due to the fact that even the most talented and competent leader (and such, unlike Elon Musk, is Paul or Leto II Atreides) can do quite a few harm if he himself realizes his own vision. The consequences are borne by the full planet – whether it is simply a fictional reality Diunes, drowned in blood during Muad’Diba jihad, or our future, in which the cosmic scrap of Elon Muska falls on Poland and another countries, paying the price for a "innovation" combination of large dreams with cost cutting. The logic of socializing losses and privatization of profits, contrary to the narratives about the individual sacrifice of the leader, yet always wins.
Between Sociology and Psychology
The stories about the fact that only a strong hero can solve problems that the strategy cannot cope with are the foundation of pop culture communicative in the US and Europe. This imagination of the planet seems to drive the popularity of Elon Musk and his actions.
For decades we have lived in a planet where the basis of storytelling was a communicative based on psychology alternatively of sociology, on heroes alternatively of describing the planet and its institutions. In these stories, the fact that individual wanted something very badly and had the right temper and believed something very much was adequate to change the social system, punish the guilty, reconstruct justice.
The attractiveness of this fantasy comes from frustration, which each of us feels erstwhile dealing with a trivial substance requires another visit to the office, another document, drawing up a note, buying basic materials for public means of taking part in the tender, and putting on the marketplace the simplest product – an additional safety certificate. It's average that sometimes we fantasize about turning the strategy upside down.
In the real world, however, the resolution of major problems – specified as migration, food safety or the labour marketplace – requires long-term, complex and challenging actions based on a well-thought-out strategy. erstwhile designing 1 change, a large effort is needed to avoid creating other, even greater difficulties. For example, spending cuts in the public sector can lead to a pandemic outbreak, a wave of lawsuits or make a threat to critical infrastructure. Implementing solutions require long-term monitoring and forecasting of their effects, making certain that they are effective in the long word and that there is no better alternative.
Regulations, laws and standards guarantee basic safety and predictability. Thanks to them, we don't gotta worry about the supermarket ceiling falling on us, drinking from plastic bottles will origin cancer, and eating the store jam will end up in the ER. They let you to work and live without regular fear of losing your occupation or wellness care overnight.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk promised to cut the national budget by $2 trillion a period ago (yes, it is not a translation error). He has already withdrawn from this declaration, as well as his assurances that his savings will only bring benefits.
Billionaire has a long past of making and not keeping promises. In 2019, he announced that Tesla would produce a million autonomous Robotaxis by the end of 2020. Last year he stated that vehicles would appear in 2025 – there is no indication that this would happen. In 2016, he declared that in the year another Tesla would autonomously pass through the US "from coast to coast" – it has inactive not worked. Humanoid robot Optimus, Hyperloop, or Solar Roof are further examples of technologies that he has announced that have never seen daylight in the announced scope (or at all).
Is this not adequate reason to consider it a legitimate concern that, in pursuit of his ambition, Musk will make increasingly extremist and unthinkable decisions, the consequences of which we will all feel painfully?
Robert Zurbin, an American aviation engineer and inventor, mostly known for his years of initiative to colonize Mars and erstwhile associate president of Tesla, said that “the main motivation of Musk is the desire for eternal glory for doing large deeds. He wants to save civilization to be remembered as its savior. [...] This desire for eternal glory for doing large deeds was the engine of his most crucial achievements – Tesla and SpaceX. (...) But it has its dark side, which was utilized (by Trump administration – cars).’
Chaos, faults and delays in the implementation of the first announcements are average in the first days of start-ups, investigation task or even fresh government. However, Muska's mistakes are more than a late invoice or an advertisement for a smartphone that does not meet its promises. They will have real long-term consequences for millions of people around the world.
During the fighting fought by Hollywood heroes we regularly see ruined fresh York City, collapsing buildings with people inside, breaking bridges or throwing cars. This is frequently accompanied by monologues of heroes about their interior life, emotions or ambitions. In this fictional planet only they substance – the others are extras. no of Manhattan's movie residents will sue Superman for being destroyed by spectacular property clashes or health.
Accepting Trump and Musk's imagination is to stand up as a statistic that allows the large planet to model its life based on their whims.
