Ricardo F. Morín Triangulation II 22″ x 30″ Body color, sanguine, sepia, and white out on paper 2008
Societies rarely recognize when language begins to prepare the conditions for hatred. Long before violence appears, speech has already changed how people see what is in front of them. A group is no longer described by what it does, but by what it is made to stand for: a “threat,” an “invasion,” a “corruption.” Description yields to designation.
In “Language, Judgment, and Freedom of Conscience: On the Architecture of an Intellectual Position,” I examined how freedom of conscience depends on a steady link between what is seen, what is said, and how it is judged. That link is not sustained by itself. Seeing something does not ensure naming it precisely, and naming it does not ensure judging it clearly. When that link breaks, language stops following experience and begins to direct it. Words no longer come after what happens; they tell people in advance what they are supposed to see, think, or conclude. In that shift, the ability to judge for oneself begins to weaken, long before courts are bypassed or rights are set aside.
Once perception is shaped in advance, judgment no longer moves on its own. Hostility no longer appears as a break but as something already contained in the way things are said. A neighbor becomes “one of them.” A disagreement becomes “an attack.”
Societies speak easily about hatred, yet rarely ask where it begins. When violence becomes visible, the instinct is to find someone to blame. The tyrant appears sufficient. Yet this explanation soothes more than it explains. It confines wrongdoing to individuals while leaving intact what made it possible: repeated phrases, accepted labels, words no longer questioned.
It is easier for the Castros, Putins, and Maduros of the world to incite hatred against imaginary enemies than to confront the state of shame and confusion they themselves generate.
A distinction is required. To see clearly is not to hate. To name brutality is not resentment but clarity. To say “this act destroys a life” remains a description. Hatred begins when the person is reduced to what must be removed. Whoever speaks in that way adopts the same language he claims to reject.
Ideologies that organize hostility do not arise in isolation. They differ in name but share a simple rule: people define who they are by pushing others out. Where this rule governs how people define themselves, human worth no longer serves as a shared measure. Public life divides between those who belong and those who do not. Nazism in Europe, Chavismo in Venezuela, the MAGA movement in the United States, and forms of theocracy show how entire populations come to speak of others as enemies and to treat that division as necessary for order or purity.
What appears in Trump is not new. It is what no longer needs to disguise itself.
Once this way of speaking is taken up and repeated, it does not remain confined to leaders or doctrine. It spreads. Some repeat it because they believe it. Others repeat it to avoid trouble, to fit in, or to protect themselves. Language changes. Words stop pointing to people and begin to assign them a place. The adversary becomes a threat; the threat becomes someone to despise. A person is no longer called by name but by a label: “illegal,” “traitor,” “infidel,” “enemy.”
Another confusion follows. In the name of understanding, some begin to describe those who defend such ideas as misunderstood or wounded. This posture appears balanced, yet it shifts attention toward those who exercise power and away from those who live under it.
This confusion rests on a deeper habit of thought. Violence is often explained by pointing to personal wounds or exclusion. There is truth in this. Yet when applied everywhere, it removes responsibility. Everyone is vulnerable. Not everyone participates in organized harm. That requires decisions, repeated words, and people willing to act on them.
The difference between ethics and moralizing appears here. Moralizing sorts people into good and bad. Ethics looks at what allows certain actions to take place and spread. It does not turn the adversary into a monster, but it does not excuse what is done.
Those who suffer the consequences rarely appear in these arguments. They do not belong to factions or slogans. They are those who must live with what others decide: the family forced to move, the worker shut out, the person who learns to remain silent.
The question, then, cannot be answered by pointing to a tyrant. Hatred is fed when people accept the lowering of language, treat humiliation as normal, and allow their judgment to be replaced by ready-made explanations.
At that point, hatred no longer appears exceptional. It becomes a habit. It repeats itself in ordinary speech: “that is how things work,” “everyone does it,” “we have no choice,” “we were forced,” “it is for the nation.” It appears in the language of order and protection: “to restore order,” “for your safety,” and in the steady stirring of fear: fear of losing place, fear of difference, fear of those seen as outsiders, even in societies shaped by mixture.
These expressions do not simply describe what is happening. They shape how it is understood. They make exclusion seem reasonable. What once required justification begins to sound like common sense.
When this way of speaking settles in, hostility no longer needs to be defended. It becomes expected, repeated, routine. Responsibility does not vanish through denial; it fades through repetition: through explanations that excuse and fears no one stops to question.
This is how hatred continues: not only through those who declare it, but through those who repeat it, accept it, or let it pass without objection.
The question remains.
Who feeds hatred?
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Ricardo F. Morín, March 16, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida.
Ricardo Morín Infinity One: The Grammar of Emotional Mimicry 60″x 37″ Oil on linen 2005
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Public life today is shaped less by ideas than by emotional cues. People respond not to the content of arguments but to the register in which those arguments are delivered. Tone becomes substance; affect becomes authority. The substitution of emotional cues for argument is not accidental. It reflects a deeper cultural grammar in which individuals learn to recognize themselves not through reasoning but through emotional likeness. The most resonant voice is not the most coherent one but the one that mirrors the emotional state of the crowd. I call this phenomenon the grammar of emotional mimicry.
The press plays a central role in reinforcing this grammar. Modern media does not function as a platform for the slow work of thought; it functions as a marketplace of sentiment. Editors select, frame, and circulate stories on the basis of emotional traction rather than intellectual clarity. A confession of anguish is treated as insight. A display of distress is treated as truth. The media’s primary currency is resonance, measured not by accuracy but by the intensity of feeling it can evoke. It simply reflects the incentives of an attention economy.
Prominent authors or celebrities are often given expansive platforms to articulate personal grievances that contain little conceptual grounding. A statement such as “there is no closure for innocent suffering unless the universe holds someone accountable” is presented as a courageous moral reflection. Yet the premise collapses at first contact: suffering is not distributed according to desert, and nature does not adjudicate innocence. Still, these are emotionally potent narratives because the marketplace rewards vulnerability, not reasoning.
This pattern of selection and reward parallels the emotional logic of populism. Followers of political figures often identify with leaders not because they share material circumstances or policy interests but because they recognize themselves in the emotional posture the leader performs.This is evident in the movement surrounding Donald Trump. His supporters do not mimic his ideas; they mimic his emotional volatility, his sense of grievance, and his theatrical defiance.He becomes a projection surface for the emotional life of the crowd. In return, he mirrors their turbulence. This is mimicry in both directions.
The convergence between media dynamics and populist dynamics is not accidental. Both rely on the same grammar: emotional resonance as a substitute for coherence. Trump’s appeal depends on this alignment between emotional expression and public response. The press amplifies his volatility because it generates spectacle; the public interprets the spectacle as authenticity; and authenticity is misread as truth. What appears most authentic is often least reliable as a guide to truth. The cycle continues because repetition and amplification do not depend on coherence. Indeed, incoherence strengthens the bond, because it signals freedom from the constraints of disciplined thought—constraints that many interpret as elitist or oppressive.
This grammar does not operate only in politics. It shapes cultural life more broadly. Cultural production increasingly privileges emotional exposure over disciplined expression. Works are evaluated on the basis of how effectively they simulate immediate sentiment, not on how clearly they illuminate experience. The result is a narrowing of public imagination: nuance becomes difficult to sustain, and reflection is displaced by emotive shorthand. This environment favors individuals who narrate their emotions vividly, regardless of whether their interpretations withstand scrutiny.
The consequences for civic life are considerable. When emotional mimicry becomes the dominant mode of engagement, disagreement becomes impossible to navigate. Individuals no longer encounter differences in judgment; they encounter differences in emotional identity. To critique an argument becomes an attack on the person’s emotional legitimacy. Public conversation becomes a contest of grievances rather than an exchange of ideas. The result is a brittle social sphere in which the loudest emotional frequency defines the terms of debate.
This shift also erodes the distinction between witness and participant. By seeking emotional stories, the press becomes a participant in the very dynamics it reports. It reinforces the emotional scripts people already inhabit. It privileges personal turmoil as evidence of moral depth. It treats spectacle as substance. In doing so, it trains the public to internalize emotional performance as the primary mode of communication. The media does not merely reflect emotional mimicry; it makes it a habitual form of expression.
Today’s emotional grammar differs in scale and function. Selection, repetition, and amplification now operate continuously, reducing complex experience to a narrow range of signals—grievance, resentment, and confession. As these signals circulate, attention is captured by intensity rather than guided by coherence. This is not a moral collapse; it is a failure in how attention is directed and sustained in public life.
The challenge is not to suppress emotion but to restore proportion. Emotional life is essential to human experience, but it cannot serve as a universal grammar for public reasoning. A culture that communicates primarily through emotional mimicry loses its ability to distinguish perception from projection. It becomes reactive rather than reflective. To recover clarity, we must once again separate the vividness of emotion from the validity of thought. Only then can public life recover the depth it has traded for resonance.
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Ricardo F Morín, November, 2025, Oakland Park, Florida
This installment concludes Chapter XII, “The Fourth Sign.” It presents §§ 26–34 under the heading The Asymmetry of Sanctions, examining the unequal application and effects of external economic and political measures in the broader context established by the preceding sections on Autocracy and Venezuela.
Ricardo F. Morín, December 29, 2026, Oakland Park, Fl
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Chapter XII: Part 3
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The Asymmetry of Sanctions
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26
Sanctions are often employed as a diplomatic tool to weaken autocratic regimes. Yet, their use reveals a deeper asymmetry in the struggle between democratic accountability and authoritarian resilience. According to data from the V-Dem Institute, nearly 72% of the world’s population now lives under autocratic rule—the highest proportion since 1978. This reality reframes sanctions not as exceptional measures against isolated regimes, but as policies deployed within a global order where autocracy has become the prevailing form of governance.
27
On one hand, sanctions aim to isolate autocracies economically and politically. On the other hand, regimes like Nicolás Maduro’s have demonstrated remarkable adaptability in the face of such measures. Such regimes’ endurance exposes the limitations of tools designed for a world in which democracy was presumed dominant.
27a
Subsequent developments, including the removal of Nicolás Maduro from power, alter the immediate object toward which sanctions were directed but do not resolve the structural conditions examined here. The networks of authority, the institutional arrangements, and the external alliances that sustained his rule have not been dissolved by his departure. What is observed in this case is not the endurance of a single figure, but the persistence of a governing structure capable of adaptation beyond him.
28
Maduro has formed adversarial alliances to circumvent external pressure and maintain his rule. By invoking themes of sovereignty and resistance against Western influence, he has turned isolation into a narrative of defiance.
29
This narrative serves as a foundation for partnerships with other autocratic States, including Russia, China, Cuba, Iran, and Turkey. [43][44][45][46][47] Driven by pragmatic interests rather than strict ideological alignment, these alliances enable Venezuela to mitigate the intended effects of sanctions.
30
The result is a paradox: while sanctions aim to weaken autocracies, they unintentionally contribute to their resilience. Reliance on alternative alliances allows regimes like Maduro’s to access resources, military aid, and political support, which in turn shields them from severe economic disruption and international scrutiny. In a world where the majority of the world’s population now lives under autocratic rule, the logic of isolation loses its potency; it becomes a misreading of the global balance itself.
31
In this way, sanctions contribute to the persistence of autocracy. Regimes like Maduro’s exploit their isolation to present themselves as defenders of national sovereignty and resistance to global hegemony. [48] This dynamic amplifies the concept of a multipolar world order. As global power shifts away from unipolar dominance, regimes like Maduro’s find new avenues to thrive.
32
By framing their cooperation as resistance to Western dominance, authoritarian regimes justify their alliances under the banner of multipolarity. This strategic repositioning does more than circumvent sanctions—it actively reshapes the global order. As these regimes expand their influence, they undermine democratic norms by replacing them with a system in which power is consolidated without external accountability.
33
This shift is not confined to regimes like Maduro’s: it reflects a broader trend in which authoritarianism gains ground by exploiting ideological fractures within democratic societies. Across Europe and Asia, nationalist and right-wing movements increasingly echo Kremlin-aligned narratives to amplify skepticism toward Western institutions. The rise of such forces in countries like Hungary, Italy, and India is not merely a domestic shift—it signals an alignment with a global framework where sovereignty is invoked not to empower citizens, but to insulate leaders from accountability.
34
Contrary to the argument that authoritarianism is solely a reaction to U.S. hegemony, its expansion demonstrates an independent momentum, one that persists regardless of American intervention. China and Russia do not seek to challenge the U.S. in pursuit of a more equitable world order; they aim to consolidate their power free from external constraints. In this landscape, the traditional ideological divide between left and right becomes secondary to a more fundamental struggle—the contest between concentrated power and democratic resilience. Whether under the guise of populism or nationalism, the objective remains the same: to undermine institutional checks and to consolidate power without sufficient accountability. [49]
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Endnotes—Chapter XII: Part 3
§ 29
[43] In 2019, Russia’s State-owned Rosneft handled 70% of Venezuela’s crude oil exports and circumvented U.S. sanctions. Russia also supplied military equipment and training to bolster Maduro’s control over the armed forces.
[44] China’s involvement includes joint oil ventures in the Orinoco Belt, infrastructure projects like the Tinaco-Anaco railway project, and housing initiatives (Great Housing Mission). Despite operational challenges, these investments highlight China’s strategic interest in Venezuela’s energy sector.
[45]According to the Brookings Institution, Cuba and Venezuela have maintained close political and strategic ties, particularly during the Chávez and Maduro administrations. This relationship has extended beyond diplomatic and economic cooperation to include security and intelligence collaboration. Cuban institutions have provided training, advisory support, and technical expertise to Venezuelan military and security forces: 1). Dirección de Inteligencia(DI, a.k.a G2) [1961]: The Intelligence Directorate, also known as G2, has been involved in providing intelligence training and support to Venezuelan security forces, particularly in surveillance and national security operations. 2). Comité de Defensa de la Revolución(CDR) [1960]: The Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, created in Cuba, focused on grassroots mobilization and surveillance. Its activities extended to Venezuela, where it contributed to internal security and the promotion of political ideology. 3). Brigada Especial Nacional(BEN) del Ministerio del Interior(a.k.a.Avispas Negras or“Boinas Negras”) [1986]: The National Special Brigade, known as Black Wasps or Black Berets, has been involved in specialized military and security training; it has provided high-level tactical training to Venezuelan military and security personnel.
[46]Iran has aided Venezuela through energy and military cooperation, providing refined fuel and technical support for Venezuela’s oil industry. Barter agreements and drone technology exchanges underscore their deepening alliance.
[47]Turkey facilitated Venezuela’s gold trade, enabling Maduro to bypass sanctions. This trade, involving $900 million in 2018, has drawn criticism for its opacity and links to illegal mining in the Arco Minero region.
§ 31
[48]Aníbal Pérez-Liñán and Scott Mainwaring, Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America: Emergence, Survival, and Fall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 183-87, 199-202.
§ 34
[49]Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (New York: Crown, 2018), 212-15.
Ricardo F. Morín Still Life 22″ x 30″ Mixed media on paper 2000
A relation between two individuals may appear stable even when it rests on a false premise. A decision is put forward without support and accepted before it is tested. One speaks; the other adjusts. A claim is introduced and taken in without examination. When contradiction appears, it is set aside. The relation holds because one asserts and the other accepts. An account of two individuals may appear exceptional, but the relation it reveals is not confined to them.
A wider relation between individuals, sustained by excluding contradiction, does not require agreement. It requires direction and alignment. A statement is repeated as if it were already settled and is carried forward as something to maintain. A speaker states a position with certainty and without qualification, and others accept that certainty as evidence of its validity rather than examine the claim itself. A shared account sets what may be said; questioning it is excluded. A decision holds because it confirms what is already assumed. The relation continues without being questioned.
At what point does such a relation stop interpreting reality and begin to act in its place? Not when a false claim appears, but when the relation no longer allows it to be tested. As long as claims are tested, disagreement examined, and adjustment follows evidence, the relation remains open. The shift occurs when alignment replaces testing. A claim is carried forward before it is checked and no longer stands as something to be tested.
Contradiction no longer interrupts the relation. It is dismissed or set aside and does not enter the decision. What does not fit is excluded from what follows.
A claim holds because it repeats what has already been said. Affirmation arises within the relation itself. Correction becomes unlikely.
A decision formed within the relation is carried out beyond it without being checked, and a person who did not take part in forming it is required to comply. The effect on that person is not examined and is treated as secondary to keeping the claim in place. Each participant encounters the effect on the person subject to the decision. Each participant continues to act in accordance with the claim and sets that recognition aside in order to maintain alignment. The action continues before either law or ethics can take hold.
Decisions are then measured against what has already been affirmed rather than against what is present. Behavior proceeds without testing. Judgments form within closed circles of affirmation. In an investment partnership, a senior partner advances a thesis under time pressure and incomplete information, and others commit capital on the strength of that authority rather than on outside validation. Elsewhere, under unresolved uncertainty, in a clinical setting, available tests do not resolve the diagnosis, and a physician advances a working assumption; care proceeds on that basis as it is repeated and affirmed, while conflicting signs are set aside. What appears consistent within produces actions that do not fit the conditions they are meant to address.
A relation of this kind also defines responsibility in a limited way. Each participant attends to the other within the relation, but not to those affected by it. Agreement between participants does not extend to those who are subject to what the relation produces. Within the relation, nothing presents itself as a breach: the claim is affirmed, the decision follows, and alignment is maintained, so no point of interruption arises from which it could be judged. Responsibility would require that each participant consider how the claim and the decision affect those outside the relation and allow that effect to alter or halt what follows. Where that does not occur, responsibility remains contained within the relation, and those outside it are acted upon without their situation entering into the decision.
The difference between shared belief and shared distortion lies in whether the relation allows correction. Where contradiction can enter and be considered, the relation remains open. Where it is excluded, the relation closes.
The problem does not begin when a claim is false. It begins when the relation that sustains it no longer allows it to be tested.
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Ricardo F. Morín, March 31, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida.
Ricardo Morín Still Twenty-three: The Crypto Ladder Oil on linen & board 12″ x 15″ x 1/2″ 2012
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Cryptocurrency claims independence from financial authority. In practice, tokens are bought, sold, and stored on centralized exchanges that control custody, execute trades, and process withdrawals. When participants leave their assets on these platforms, the exchange holds the private keys and manages access to funds. Control therefore shifts from regulated banks, which operate under capital requirements, liquidity rules, and continuous supervisory oversight, to private trading platforms that are incorporated in different jurisdictions and are subject to differing disclosure rules, reserve standards, and enforcement practices. The protections available to participants depend on the rules that apply in the jurisdiction where the platform operates.
In token systems that distribute assets before public trading begins, access to newly issued tokens is limited to founders, private investors, or participants in early distribution rounds. Transactions during this stage occur within that restricted group, and prices reflect exchanges among those who received tokens prior to public trading.
When public trading opens, additional buyers gain access through exchanges. They compete to purchase the existing supply from those who received or acquired tokens prior to public trading. Because supply does not immediately expand, buyers increase their bids against one another. As bids rise, the market price increases.
When participants who acquired tokens earlier sell at the elevated market price created by competitive bidding, later buyers transfer capital through those purchases, and that capital becomes the profit realized by earlier sellers. The exchange of tokens at increasing prices depends on the expectation that other participants will continue to enter the market and accept those prices. This expectation is not produced by the transaction itself; it precedes it and is shared among participants. When participants who acquired tokens earlier sell at the elevated market price created by competitive bidding, later buyers transfer capital through those purchases. The difference between the earlier acquisition price and the later sale price constitutes the gain realized by the earlier sellers.
Token systems can distribute supply broadly at issuance through public offerings or community allocations. Once trading begins, however, participants with greater capital can accumulate larger ownership positions by purchasing tokens from participants with smaller holdings. Over time, this accumulation concentrates supply within a smaller group. Participants who acquire positions earlier, or who can continue purchasing during periods of lower demand, come to control larger portions of supply than those who enter later or must sell under pressure.
If demand continues to exceed available supply, buyers increase their bids and prices rise. If demand declines and fewer buyers submit bids, the increase in price stops. When participants with large positions attempt to sell into a declining market, they submit large sell orders to the exchange. Those orders must match with buyers willing to purchase at the current price. If buyers submit bids at lower prices, sellers accept those lower bids in order to complete the trade. Each completed trade at a lower price becomes the new market price. As the quoted price falls, additional participants with open positions decide to sell in order to limit further loss. Those later sales occur at lower prices than earlier trades. Each completed sale alters the price available to others. Participants who exit earlier do so under different conditions than those who remain. The sequence of action changes the conditions of action for those who follow.
When requests for withdrawals exceed the cash or liquid assets an exchange holds, the platform restricts withdrawals or halts trading in order to slow the outflow. When prices reverse and many customers attempt to withdraw funds at the same time, exchanges that lack sufficient immediately available assets cannot satisfy all requests simultaneously. Participants must wait, and access to funds depends on the exchange’s internal capacity rather than on individual account balances alone. Account balances continue to record claims, but the ability to act on those claims depends on the platform’s capacity to honor them.
Even when tokens are initially distributed across many wallets, trading activity can lead to uneven accumulation. Participants with larger capital reserves can buy during downturns and retain their positions through volatility. Participants with smaller positions may sell under financial pressure. Over repeated cycles, ownership can become concentrated despite dispersed beginnings.
Under these conditions, the order of entry does more than determine the distribution of outcomes. It also creates a structural advantage. Participants who acquire tokens before the market reaches broad participation may realize gains with greater latitude once demand increases. Those who enter later acquire at higher prices and retain less capacity to exit the market before a sustained decline. A participant’s position within the temporal sequence alters the range of alternatives available at the moment of decision.
Traditional banks and regulated securities markets operate under public supervisory frameworks. Banks must maintain capital reserves to absorb losses and liquidity buffers to meet withdrawals. Public companies must disclose financial information so that investors can evaluate risk. In many jurisdictions, deposit insurance protects individual depositors up to defined limits. When institutions face systemic stress, central banks provide liquidity to prevent destabilization of the financial system.
Cryptocurrency markets do not uniformly operate under comparable requirements. Some exchanges publish limited financial information. Reserve practices are not standardized across platforms. Deposit insurance does not apply to token holdings. When an exchange becomes insolvent or mismanages assets, customers become unsecured creditors and bear losses directly. Their claims are not protected at the moment of stress, and recovery depends on liquidation processes that occur after access to funds has already been lost.
Participants who seek to avoid dependence on traditional financial institutions rely instead on trading platforms that combine custody, execution, and leverage services. When such platforms suspend withdrawals or fail, users have limited recourse. The location of authority changes, but reliance on intermediaries remains.
The principal distinction lies in how each system distributes and absorbs losses once prices reverse. In regulated markets, capital requirements, clearing mechanisms, and deposit insurance absorb part of trading losses before they reach individual participants. In cryptocurrency markets, those stabilizing mechanisms do not apply uniformly. When prices decline, losses pass directly from successive transactions at lower prices to individual account balances without an intermediate layer that cushions the impact.
The technology associated with cryptocurrencies continues to evolve. Applications beyond speculation expand as protocols are adopted for payment processing, settlement, and other non-speculative functions. Yet so long as sustained price appreciation depends principally upon the continued arrival of new buyers rather than upon cash flows, productive returns, or other observable economic fundamentals, and so long as ownership becomes increasingly concentrated through successive market cycles, the order of entry will determine the distribution of gains and losses. The extent of broad participation remains conditioned by how tokens are allocated at issuance, how platforms administer custody and liquidity, and what protections apply when those platforms fail.
Under these conditions, cryptocurrency does not constitute a substitute for banking or for stock markets in a strict institutional sense. The functions of custody, execution, and liquidity provision persist, but they are carried out under different conditions and without uniform frameworks of protection.
Authority does not disappear. It shifts to the platforms that administer custody, liquidity, and trade execution. Banks operate under capital requirements, liquidity rules, and continuous public oversight. Trading platforms do not operate under comparable constraints.
The language of decentralization coexists with continued reliance on centralized exchanges for custody, liquidity, and rule enforcement. Participants deposit funds, accept platform terms, and depend on exchange decisions even as they describe the system as independent of institutional authority. No shared answer resolves the matter.
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Ricardo F. Morín, February 27, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida.
Young people grow up hearing a language of promise. School principals, teachers, and commencement speakers present the civic language of freedom, equal worth, and opportunity in classrooms, school assemblies, and commencement ceremonies. Young people enter life expecting that dignity belongs to them not by achievement but by right.
The world in which adolescents grow up reveals another measure of value. Universities select applicants. Employers choose candidates. Newspapers, screens, and social media present visible distinction as a standard of value. In this environment value becomes linked less to the fact of being alive than to results obtained: grades, admission, income, recognition. Public language affirms equal dignity and opportunity, while everyday life rewards distinction.
The consequences of this tension in adolescence cannot be reduced to a single cause. Yet the statistics describing adolescent suicide provide an observable point from which to examine the pressures affecting young lives. In the United States, suicide ranks among the leading causes of death for those between fifteen and nineteen years of age. Thousands of adolescents take their own lives each year. Similar figures appear in other countries whose laws and public speech affirm freedom and dignity. These figures do not reveal the thoughts of any single adolescent, yet they show that many young people reach a point at which life appears closed to them.
Each suicide carries its own history. Parents search for reasons in school pressure, humiliation, loneliness, or despair that no one recognized in time. Physicians prescribe medicine. Counselors offer guidance. These efforts help some adolescents and fail to reach others. The continued rise of these deaths directs attention to the world in which adolescents grow up.
From early childhood many students learn that recognition follows visible success. Teachers and schools praise the highest scores and celebrate the strongest performers. Young people watch classmates receive awards and admission letters while others receive neither. Under such conditions adolescents begin to measure their own lives against the success of others.
The acquisitive and ostentatious character of contemporary life becomes visible on screens, in the media, and across social networks. In them, mastery and social status predominate. Young people learn to present themselves as exceptional before they come to know themselves, and they learn not only to observe these images but also to reproduce them. The surrounding culture celebrates achievement while leaving little room for hesitation or failure, even though both belong to the passage into adulthood.
Failure forms part of learning, and discovery begins with uncertainty. That understanding arises from repeated observation across history and from the process of discovery itself. Within that process, error is gradually set aside until what is intelligible and comprehensible comes into view. Yet the surrounding environment continues to place visible honor on success. The young therefore encounter two messages at once: encouragement to endure failure and a public display that celebrates achievement.
Within this environment the work of forming human relations grows difficult. Friendships break. Intimate relations begin with uncertainty. Sexual experience rarely matches the images that circulate in public view. These difficulties belong to the slow formation of adult life. Yet the contrast between public images of fulfillment and the experience of life can lead some adolescents to judge themselves as failures.
The judgment of value does not remain external. It becomes shame. Shame seeks concealment. An adolescent who carries shame may continue to appear among friends, classmates, and family while inwardly withdrawing. Recognition promises to confirm value, yet it awakens a need for worth that cannot be founded by recognition itself. Beneath that shame lies another absence: the absence of self-love. Without some measure of regard for one’s own existence, recognition from others becomes the only source of worth, and failure becomes a verdict upon the self.
Family expectations may deepen this burden. Parents often transmit hopes formed by their own experience. They may believe that success will protect their children from the difficulties they themselves encountered. When the achievements of the young appear to confirm the sacrifices or aspirations of earlier generations, the pressure can grow heavier than a simple wish for well-being.
Communication surrounds young people with images and activity. An adolescent may sit among many signals and still face distress alone. Social encounters become occasions for display rather than opportunities for trust to form through time. The adolescent appears present in social life while carrying a sense of emptiness. When the language of dignity no longer corresponds to the experience of life, the public words themselves begin to lose their meaning.
Adolescence does not create this condition; adolescence reveals it. Many adults live under the same pressure to prove worth through success and recognition. Work, family, and routine allow life to continue, yet the sense of insufficiency does not always disappear. Some carry it for decades. Adolescents encounter the condition before such supports take hold. Some confront it before they possess the strength required to bear it.
This condition does not belong to the present alone. Records from earlier centuries describe the same despair, the same shame, and the same act of self-destruction among the young. The forms surrounding life have changed across time. Religious authority once imposed its judgments. Family honor and inherited status placed other burdens on the young. Human vulnerability has remained constant even as the surrounding environment has changed.
The question does not lie in whether despair among the young is new. The question lies in how the conditions of the present shape that vulnerability within a society that speaks often of dignity and opportunity yet still produces circumstances in which some young people come to believe that life offers no place for them.
A society may create conditions that intensify despair, shame, and pressure. Those conditions deserve examination and criticism. Yet the act of ending one’s life cannot be assigned to others in the same way that those conditions can be examined collectively.
Over time many people come to recognize a difficult distinction: to feel another person’s pain deeply is not the same as bearing responsibility for their choice. One may carry empathy, grief, and even a lingering sense of connection to that suffering without having been the agent of the act itself.
When deaths accumulate in this way, observers turn to specialized language in search of explanation. Academic terms attempt to describe the problem through categories and theories. Such language may organize discussion, yet the words themselves do not remove the fact that thousands of adolescents take their own lives each year. The numbers remain visible without the help of technical vocabulary.
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Ricardo F. Morín, March 12, 2026, Kissimmee, Florida
“Geometric Allegory” digital painting 2023 by Ricardo Morin (American visual artist born in Venezuela–1954)
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Author’s Note
This installment continues Chapter XII, “The Fourth Sign,” following the initial discussion of Autocracy (§§ 1–9). It cattends to Venezuela and examines §§ 10–25 in which the earlier framework is applied to a specific national case. The chapter concludes in a separate installment devoted to The Asymmetry of Sanctions (§§ 26–34).
Ricardo F. Morín, December 26, 2025, Oakland Park, Florida.
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Chapter XII: Part 2
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Venezuela
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10
To comprehend the practical implications of autocracy and its concentration of power, I defer to Rafael Arráiz Lucca’s book, Venezuela:1830 a nuestros días:Breve historia política [2016]. Here, Arráiz Lucca provides a comprehensive history of Venezuela from independence to today. [1] He examines political, economic, and social changes that have shaped the nation. He traces early struggles and the rise of caudillos, and has treated Hugo Chávez’s rise to power, his ideology, and the effects of his policies on society. He has also examined the continuing influence of Chávez under Nicolás Maduro. In his view, both Chávez and Maduro have exemplified regimes that have centralized power and suppressed dissent.
11
The country’s political trajectory has been determined by its enduring history of military rule. Since independence in 1811, twenty-fivemilitary officers have held the presidency, presided over 172 years of governance, and entrenched the military’s influence in the nation’s political fabric. [2] The transition to representative democracy in 1961 marked a significant shift, which introduced in thirty-eight-years of civilian-led stability under the Punto Fijo Pact (see Chapter XI). This civilian era, however, was not free from upheaval. The 1989 Caracazo riots, coupled with the failed coup attempt by Hugo Chávez in 1992, revealed the fragility of civilian democracy and the persistent appeal of military leadership in moments of crisis. [3][4]
12
The Caracazo riots and the subsequent repression had exposed deep societal fractures that undermined confidence in civilian governance. For many, the chaos and disillusionment restored the perception of the military as a force of order and stability, a perception grounded in the nation’s long history of caudillo leadership. Chávez’s rise can be understood as a direct consequence of this historical legacy: a charismatic military figure presenting himself as the answer to the failures of civilian politics. The violent repression following the riots, coupled with the systemic inability to address the economic and social inequities they symbolized, prepared the conditions for a return to autocratic tendencies, concealed within populist rhetoric. This marked the beginning of a new authoritarian era, shaped not only by the fractures of the present but also by legacies of the past.
13
The presidency of Hugo Chávez continued the tradition of authoritarianism that had characterized the regime of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez.[5] As in the era of Pérez Jiménez, Chávez depended upon oil to finance his policies. [6]
14
For Hugo Chávez, “participatory democracy” directed toward empowering marginalized groups. He created community councils and social missions, which became instruments of his political control—the so-called Bolivarian ideology. Participation thereinwas conditioned upon loyalty to Chávez, which ultimately led to the marginalization of people opposed to his policies. His blend of populism and authoritarianism framed dissent as being unpatriotic and thus hindered national progress. This approach enabled him to diminish the power of law; the legislative and judicial branches of government became dependent on the executive.
15
With the endorsement of Nicolás Maduro by Hugo Chávez in 2012, the country advanced further toward authoritarianism. [7] Opposition parties such as Vente Venezuela, Primero de Justicia, Un Nuevo Tiempo, and Voluntad Popular accused Chávez and Maduro of manipulating the Consejo Nacional Electoral. [8][9][10][11][12]
16
After the death of Chávez, Maduro faced similar accusations in the 2013 and 2018 elections. The Organization of American States, the Lima Group, the International Contact Group, and the Group of Seven concurred.[13][14][15] Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also questioned his legitimacy. [16][17] One exception is the United Nations’ Security Council debate (press release SC/13719), which urged Venezuelans to resolve their crisis internally. [18][19]
17
Following Venezuela’s 2016 suspension from Mercosur, Latin American responses varied and then changed as political administrations changed. [20][21] Initially, Argentina favored the measures by the Organization of American States to apply diplomatic pressure on Venezuela and sought to address the political and humanitarian crises there. [22] It also recognized Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president, though in 2019, it changed and became an advocate for mediation. At first, Brazil recognized Guaidó and was for sanctions against the Venezuelan government, and then in 2023 requested for mediation. [23] Between 2018–22, Colombia accused the Maduro regime of drug trafficking and of giving support to the guerrilla groups, the National Liberation Army and the Revolutionary Armed Forces; Colombia severed diplomatic relations. [24] Later, in 2022, a new administration restored diplomatic relations and promoted non-intervention. Chile has consistently urged sanctions against Maduro’s government, and even referred Venezuela to the International Criminal Court (ICC). [25][26] Peru expelled Venezuela’s ambassador: The immediate trigger for the expulsion was Venezuela’s Tribunal Supremo de Justicia’s move to dissolve the opposition-controlled Asamblea Nacional, which Peru saw as a step toward authoritarian control. [27] As all other members of the Lima Group did, Peru regularized the status of Venezuelan migrants. In the beginning, Mexico condemned the human rights abuses in Venezuela and called for the release of all political prisoners, but, in 2018, it adopted a non-interventional approach and in 2022 offered mediation as the only recourse. [28][29][30]
18
Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, opposition leader María Corina Machado was disqualified after having won her coalition’s primary. [31] The Tribunal Supremo de Justicia based its decision on her alleged support of U.S. sanctions, supposed corruption, and accusations holding her responsible for losses related to the American subsidiary Citgo of the Venezuelan State-owned oil and natural gas company: Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). Machado’s denial of access to the allegations against her was a blatant violation of due process. Her disqualification left Edmundo González Urrutiaas the unified opposition candidate. [32]
19
Both campaigns engaged in tactics of intimidation. González’s coalition deployed 200,000 observers across 16,000 voting centers and Maduro’s administration intensified media censorship and repression. After Maduro declared victory, protests resulted in extrajudicial killings, arrests, and crackdowns on independent media. [33]
20
González’s coalition collaborated with international observers, including the Organization of American States, the European Union Electoral Observation Mission, the Carter Center, and the United States Mission to the United Nations, to monitor irregularities. [34][35][36][37] The government, however, withheld disaggregated voting data critical for audits—supposedly because the data had been hacked—and imposed travel restrictions on foreign observers. [38] The Carter Center criticized the elections for failing to meet international standards of transparency, fairness, and impartiality. [39]
21
Maduro accused both Machado and González of having incited unrest and announced investigations into the crimes of “usurpation of functions” and “military insurrection,” each carrying thirty-year prison sentences. On August 8, 2024, González left for Spain after the government had granted him safe passage.
22
To understand Venezuela’s political and institutional landscape, one must examine how global indices assess the state of its democracy. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, the Freedom House’s Global Freedom Index, and the Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index all provide distinct metrics illuminating Venezuela’s democratic decline under Nicolás Maduro.
23
The Democracy Index ranks countries with higher scores as more democratic. Freedom House and Transparency International diverge from this by using lower scores to indicate worse outcomes, with lower numbers signifying less freedom and higher corruption.
24
In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, Venezuela ranked as the least democratic country in South America in 2008; in 2022, it ranked 147th out of a total of 167 countries. [40] Likewise, in 2023, Freedom House’s Global Freedom Index finds that Venezuela scored low both as a democracy and high corruption, while in its CorruptionPerceptions Index Venezuela scored 13 out of 100 and was positioned as one of the most corrupt nations globally. [41]
25
Additionally, a report by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for the period from 2012 to 2023 has highlighted the severe corruption to be found in Venezuela. [42] In its 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index, out of 180 countries, Venezuela received a score of 13 out of 100, ranking 177th. These indicators present a clear picture of Venezuelan authoritarianism and of the deterioration of its political landscape in recent years.
~
Endnotes
§ 10
[1]Rafael Arráiz Lucca, Venezuela: 1830 a nuestros días: Breve historia política. (Caracas: Editorial Alfa, 2016), 15-151, 212-37.
[3]The Punto Fijo Pact was a political agreement signed by the three predominant political parties—Acción Democrática (AD), Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente (COPEI), and Unión Republicana Democrática (URD)—at the residence of Rafael Caldera (COPEI): Punto Fijo. The pact aimed to stabilize the country after the fall of dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez [1952-1958] by ensuring democratic alternation of power, institutional continuity, and preventing single-party rule. While it contributed to political stability and a peaceful transition to democracy, critics argue that it also entrenched elite dominance, marginalized smaller parties, and fostered systemic corruption. As a foundational element in Venezuela’s post-dictatorship political landscape, the agreement shaped the nation’s governance for decades. Its legacy, however, is marked by political divisions, as the pact’s structure increasingly excluded some groups and led to dissatisfaction among factions. This period reflects both the challenges and achievements of Venezuela’s efforts to establish a stable and inclusive democracy.
[5]Fredy Rincón Noriega,El Nuevo Ideal Nacional y los planes Económicos- Militares de Pérez Jiménez 1952-1957(Caracas: Ediciones Centauro, 1981)–Kindle Edition
Judith Ewell,The Indictment of a Dictator: The Extradition and Trial of Marcos Perez (College Station: A&M University Press, 1981).
[6] Both leaders have employed centralized power and state control over resources, though their approaches differed. Pérez Jiménez emphasized technocratic and infrastructural development. His policies, as outlined in the Nuevo Ideal Nacional, focused on large-scale construction projects and urban modernization. These initiatives promoted economic growth, but their benefit was directed towards the middle and upper classes. Chávez, on the other hand, pursued a blend of populism and socialism aimed at redistributing oil wealth through extensive social programs for the poor. These policies increased the State’s dependence on oil revenues and left the country vulnerable to market fluctuations.
§ 15
[7]Margarita López Maya, “The Venezuelan Caracazo of 1989 : Popular
Javier Corrales, “Chapter 12: Venezuela’s Autocratization, 1999-2021: Variations in Temporalities, Party Systems, and Institutional Controls.”PDF extracted from Archon Fung, et al, When Democracy Breaks: Studies in Democratic Erosion and Collapse,from Ancient Athens to the Present Day (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023). https://tobinproject.org/sites/default/files/assets/Chapter%2012%20-%20Venezuela%20-%20Corrales.pdf
[12] The Consejo Nacional Electoral, responsible for overseeing elections in Venezuela, has faced long-standing accusations of partisanship and favoritism. Opposition groups (Vente Venezuela, Primero de Justicia, Un Nuevo Tiempo, Voluntad Popular) have alleged that Chávez and Maduro appointed to it only members who favored the ruling party. For an analysis of the Consejo Nacional Electoral’s role in reinforcing authoritarianism, see Javier Corrales: Autocracy Rising:How Venezuela Transitioned to Authoritarianism (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2023), 3, 28. Also see Jennifer L. McCoy and David J. Myers, The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 276-80, 293-96.
§ 16
[13] The Lima Group, formed in August 2017, includes: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Guyana, and St. Lucia.
[14] The International Contact Group (the European Union, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Uruguay) advocates for credible elections and have voiced concerns about the Consejo Nacional Electoral’s impartiality.
[15]Group of Seven (G7)–Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States–has condemned electoral irregularities in Venezuela and called for independent oversight. Allegations of voter registration manipulation by the Consejo Nacional Electoral, has heightened suspicions of vote tampering.
[18]“Venezuelans Must Resolve Crisis Themselves, Security Council Delegates Agree while Differing over Legitimacy of Contending Parties. Briefing on Weekend Incidents Biased, Says Foreign Minister as Speakers for United States, Russian Federation Exchange Barbs,” United Nations: Meetings Coverage and Press Releases, 8472nd Meeting, SC/13719, February 26, 2019. https://press.un.org/en/2019/sc13719.doc.htm
[19] In February 2019, a United Nations Security Council Report debated whether to supervise elections or mediate between Maduro’s government and the opposition. Ultimately, the Council upheld a non-interventionist approach while offering to mediate.
[21]Mercosur (acronym for the Mercado Común del Sur or the Southern Common Market) is a regional trade bloc founded in 1991 by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay (it later included Chile). Mercosur’s mission is to promote economic integration and free trade.
[30].- Mexico has mediated between Nicolás Maduro’s government and the opposition after the July 28, 2024 presidential election results, with support from Brazil and Colombia.
[38].- Disaggregated election results enhance transparency by enabling cross-checking against aggregated totals. This method reveals potential errors, facilitates audits, and highlights regional irregularities, strengthening the legitimacy of electoral outcomes.
Modern societies describe progress through a vocabulary of invention and expansion. Yet the consequences often observed in economic life arise from institutional arrangements that precede the innovations themselves.
New technologies appear as discoveries; markets appear as opportunities; growth appears as the natural result of human ingenuity. This language creates an image of development that emphasizes creativity while it conceals a more durable structure beneath it. Governments, legal authorities, and commercial institutions rarely begin systems of economic growth with invention alone. They begin when institutions convert conditions that once belonged to shared human life into resources that can be owned, measured, and exchanged.
Land becomes property; labor becomes wage labor; knowledge becomes data. Rivers that once supplied water freely to surrounding communities now appear in financial markets as tradable assets. Each transformation enlarges the field of economic activity because it reorganizes what was previously common. The narrative of progress celebrates the innovation that follows this conversion; yet the expansion often depends first on the extraction that made the innovation possible. Economic development therefore unfolds through a recurring institutional act: the conversion of shared conditions into organized systems of ownership.
2
The first large transformation occurred when land and labor entered modern economic systems as commodities. Earlier societies cultivated land and organized work through local obligations, customary rights, and communal practices. Modern economies introduced a different arrangement. Legal systems defined land as transferable property; this definition allowed estates, plantations, and industrial sites to circulate within markets.
Industrial production also required a stable supply of labor that could be measured and compensated in monetary terms. Wage contracts fulfilled that requirement. Workers exchanged hours of effort for income; employers calculated production through predictable units of labor.
This institutional reorganization created the foundation of industrial growth. Factories and commercial agriculture did not rely only on machinery; they relied on legal and economic systems that converted land and labor into inputs capable of sustaining continuous production. The Industrial Revolution therefore expanded not only through invention but also through the systematic reorganization of human and natural resources into economic instruments.
3
Industrial expansion soon demanded resources that extended beyond land and labor alone. Factories required concentrated sources of power capable of sustaining mechanical production on a large scale. Coal supplied the first solution; petroleum followed with even greater efficiency.
Extraction industries emerged to supply these fuels. Mining companies developed technologies that could remove coal from deep geological layers; oil firms drilled wells that reached reservoirs beneath land and sea. Railways, pipelines, and shipping routes connected these extraction sites to industrial centers.
Governments and corporations secured access to these resources through territorial agreements, drilling concessions, and strategic alliances that protected shipping routes and energy infrastructure. Industrial powers negotiated drilling rights and controlled shipping corridors that carried fuel across oceans to factories and cities. These arrangements tied distant territories to the energy demands of expanding industrial societies. Energy became the substance that sustained industrial economies; control of energy flows became a measure of geopolitical influence. Economic expansion therefore depended not only on technical invention but also on the ability of States to organize and protect systems of resource extraction across national boundaries.
4
The late twentieth century introduced a transformation that appeared to depart from this material pattern. Digital networks created environments where human activity could be recorded, stored, and analyzed. Companies that operated these networks soon recognized that the information generated through everyday interaction possessed economic value.
Search queries, online purchases, social exchanges, location signals, and browsing histories formed detailed records of behavior. Digital platforms developed algorithms that could process these records and identify patterns within them. Advertising systems used those patterns to match products with likely consumers; businesses purchased access to those predictions because they sought to increase sales.
Individuals who search for information, communicate with friends, or move through cities rarely perceive that these ordinary actions generate the data streams that sustain digital markets. These systems appear impersonal, yet they remain human constructions. Engineers design the platforms, legislators authorize the legal frameworks that permit data collection, and investors finance the infrastructure that organizes this information into profit. The authority of the system therefore rests on decisions made by identifiable actors who participate in its operation. Human behavior becomes a measurable resource within the digital economy, and everyday activity enters systems of calculation that transform ordinary experience into economic input.
5
Artificial intelligence extends this informational system into a new domain. Machine learning systems require vast collections of language, images, and recorded activity. Developers assemble these materials through large data sets that gather written expression, visual material, and behavioral traces from many sources.
Newspapers, books, photographs, academic research, and online conversations become training material for these systems. Computational processes analyze these materials and adjust internal parameters until recognizable patterns of language or perception emerge. The resulting models appear to generate knowledge independently; yet their structure depends on the human expressions that formed the training material.
Collective intellectual activity therefore becomes the substance from which artificial intelligence systems derive their capabilities. Firms that control these systems own the architecture through which this knowledge becomes computational intelligence. Human creativity remains the origin; proprietary systems govern access to the resulting capabilities.
6
The apparent immateriality of this digital environment conceals a substantial physical foundation. Computation requires hardware that conducts electricity, stores information, and performs complex calculations. These devices depend on minerals extracted from the earth.
Copper carries electrical current through circuits and transmission lines. Lithium and cobalt stabilize batteries that power portable systems. Rare earth elements create magnets that operate within turbines and electronic components. Silicon forms the basis of semiconductor fabrication.
Mining operations extract these materials from geological deposits; refining facilities separate and process them into usable forms; manufacturing plants assemble them into processors, memory systems, and data centers. The digital economy therefore rests on a chain of material production that extends from mineral extraction to computational infrastructure.
States compete intensely within this system because control of mineral supply chains influences technological capacity. Countries rich in copper, lithium, and rare earth elements negotiate new partnerships with industrial powers that require these materials. Technological development therefore reconnects digital innovation with the geopolitical realities of resource extraction.
7
Systems built on extraction rarely present themselves through that language. Advocates of each technological era often describe development as an inevitable progression that no society can alter. Industrialization carried that description; petroleum dependence carried it as well; digital expansion repeated the same claim. Phrases such as “the digital future cannot be stopped” or “artificial intelligence will transform everything” present technological systems as unavoidable outcomes.
This description performs an important function. When a system appears inevitable, criticism of its structure loses urgency. Public discussion shifts from examining how institutions organize resources toward adjusting to the system those institutions have already created.
Citizens repeat these expressions in public discussion and private conversation; by doing so they reinforce the appearance that technological systems operate beyond human choice. This repetition relieves individuals of the burden of questioning the structures that govern economic life and allows systems of extraction to continue without sustained scrutiny. Yet technological systems do not arise independently of political decision. Governments establish property rights, regulate industries, and authorize investment structures. Firms design platforms, infrastructure, and markets that channel resources into systems of production. The narrative of inevitability obscures these arrangements. It encourages societies to accept technological systems as natural developments rather than as institutions shaped by deliberate choices.
8
The historical sequence reveals a recurring pattern. Each stage of modern growth identifies conditions of life that institutions can reorganize into economic resources. Land, labor, energy, information, and knowledge have entered this sequence in successive eras.
These resources originate within the shared environment of human society and the natural world. Communities cultivate land; workers apply skill and effort; generations contribute knowledge and expression. Economic institutions establish mechanisms that reorganize these shared conditions into systems of ownership. Property law assigns control over land; industrial infrastructure organizes labor and energy; digital platforms collect behavioral information; computational systems assemble human knowledge into proprietary models.
The tension within this process becomes visible when the resource cannot plausibly be described as private in origin. Water offers the clearest example. No individual produces it, and every society depends on it. Yet financial and legal systems increasingly treat access to water as an asset that can be owned, traded, or controlled through investment structures. When institutions transform a resource so obviously common into a vehicle of ownership, the separation between origin and control becomes unmistakable.
Economic institutions do not operate apart from political authority. States establish the legal frameworks that transform common resources into systems of ownership and production. Through those frameworks, governments grant access to land, energy, information, and technological infrastructure. These arrangements generate wealth for firms and investors who operate within them; they also strengthen the strategic position of the States that oversee those systems.
Political communities therefore confront a difficult responsibility. They must decide whether the resources that sustain collective life remain subject to public authority or become instruments of concentrated ownership.
Governments often treat common resources not only as foundations of economic activity but also as instruments of geopolitical advantage. Rival States compete to secure control over these resources and the industries that depend on them. Ideological disputes accompany this competition; yet the underlying structure remains similar across competing systems. Prosperity and influence arise from institutions that convert common resources into concentrated forms of wealth and authority.
Modern societies continue to pursue innovation and expansion; the history of their development shows that growth has repeatedly depended on this conversion. Progress expands production and knowledge; yet it often detaches ownership from the common resources that made that expansion possible. The enduring question is whether societies can pursue advancement while maintaining alignment between the resources that belong to all and the systems that govern their use.
*
Ricardo F. Morín, March 10, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida.
Ricardo Morin Untitled #5: The Paradigm of Extraction 10″x12″ Watercolor 2003
*
The story of artificial intelligence is usually told as one of endless promise—a technology meant to transform economies and redefine human potential. Yet beneath the optimism lies an older reality: the conversion of human creativity into concentrated wealth. What is presented as progress often repeats the oldest economic pattern of all—the extraction of value from the many for the benefit of the few. The language surrounding AI hides this continuity. It turns innovation into a spectacle of inevitability, a vision of boundless gain that distracts from its unequal foundations.
The spectacle depends on persuasion. Words like manifested intelligence, the next trillion-dollar frontier, and inevitable transformation are not descriptions; they are marketing. They frame profit as destiny and invite participation not in discovery but in speculation. Numbers such as “$80 trillion” and “25,000 percent returns” echo through news cycles like prophecies, and turn investment forecasts into moral certainty. This rhetoric reshapes public imagination. AI stops being a tool for solving human problems and becomes a financial phenomenon—a story about wealth rather than understanding.
These promises do not mark a new beginning. They repeat the same cycle that accompanied every major invention. The Industrial Revolution produced machines that changed work but deepened social divides. The digital revolution spread information but concentrated ownership. AI now enters that history as its newest expression. Its power to expand knowledge and serve the public good is real, but its first allegiance remains to profit. Within existing systems, it accelerates the accumulation of capital instead of correcting its imbalance.
The mechanisms of this concentration are easy to see. Proprietary models fence off knowledge behind paywalls and patents. Data collected from the public becomes private property. The cost of computing power and specialized expertise limits who can participate. The outcome is predictable: the majority will experience AI not as empowerment but as dependency. Far from leveling inequality, it builds it into the infrastructure of tomorrow.
This direction grows more troubling when placed beside the world’s most urgent needs. Billions of people still live without reliable food, healthcare, or education—conditions technology could transform but rarely does. The most profitable uses of AI instead optimize advertising, influence behavior, and extend surveillance. These are not accidents. They are the logical results of a system that values profit over human welfare. When progress is measured only in shareholder value, technology loses its moral compass and society loses its claim to wisdom.
A newer and equally dangerous use of these systems has emerged in the political sphere. The same tools that target consumers now target citizens. Governments with autocratic tendencies have begun using generative models to flood public discourse with persuasive content, to blur the boundary between truth and fabrication, and to cultivate obedience through simulation. Recent reporting shows how executive offices deploy AI to craft political messages, to amplify loyal media, and to drown out dissenting voices. Such practices transform intelligence into propaganda and data into domination. When a state can algorithmically manage perception, democracy becomes performance. The concentration of wealth and the concentration of an engineered belief reinforce each other, both materially and mentally.
We have seen this pattern before. In every technological era, wealth has turned into political power and then used that power to protect itself. Railroad barons shaped monopolies in the nineteenth century. Oil empires steered foreign policy in the twentieth. Today, digital conglomerates write the rules that sustain their dominance. AI follows the same gravitational pull, guided less by human vision than by financial gravity.
In the present order, the union of technological power and financial speculation no longer produces discovery but dependence. Wealth circulates within an enclosed economy of influence and rewards those who design the mechanisms of access rather than those who expand the reach of knowledge. What appears as innovation is often a rehearsal of privilege:an exchange of capital between the same centers of authority, each validating the other while society absorbs the cost. When creativity becomes collateral and intelligence a lease, progress ceases to serve the public and begins to serve itself.
The most seductive illusion sustaining this order is the myth of inevitability—the belief that technological advance must produce inequality, and that no one is responsible for the outcome. It is a useful fiction. It spares those in power from moral scrutiny by turning exploitation into fate. Yet inevitability is a choice disguised as nature. Societies have always shaped the use of technology through their laws, values, and courage to intervene. To accept inequality as destiny is to abandon that responsibility.
Rejecting inevitability means reclaiming the idea of progress itself. Innovation is not progress unless it expands the freedom and security of human life. That requires intentional direction—through public investment, fair taxation, transparent standards, and strong international cooperation. These are not barriers to growth; they are the conditions that make genuine progress possible. Markets alone cannot guarantee justice, and technology without ethics is not advancement but acceleration without direction.
Measuring progress differently would change what we celebrate. If an AI system reduces medical errors in poor communities, strengthens education where resources are scarce, or helps citizens participate more fully in democracy, its worth exceeds that of one that merely increases profit margins. The true measure of intelligence—artificial or human—is the good it brings into the world. Profit is only one form of value; human dignity is another.
At the center of this order lies a quiet hypocrisy. Wealth is praised as the reward of discipline and intelligence, yet it depends on the continuous extraction of value from others—the worker, the consumer, the environment. What appears as merit often rests on inequality disguised as efficiency. The same pattern defines artificial intelligence. Built from shared human knowledge and creativity, it is enclosed within systems that sell access to what was freely given. Both forms of accumulation—financial and technological—draw their power from the very resources they diminish: human labor, attention, and imagination. In claiming to advance society, they reproduce the inequity that turns vitality into stagnation—the inversion of what progress is meant to be.
The fevered talk of trillion-dollar opportunities belongs to an old vocabulary—the language of extraction mistaken for evolution. The real question is whether intelligence will continue to serve wealth or begin to serve humanity. Artificial intelligence offers that choice: to repeat the logic that has long confused accumulation with advancement, or to build a future where knowledge and prosperity are shared. That decision will not emerge by itself. It depends on what societies demand, what governments regulate, and what values define success. The window to decide remains open, though it narrows each time profit is allowed to speak louder than conscience.
The preceding observations concern the consequences of extraction. The institutional logic that produces these consequences belongs to a wider historical pattern in modern economic development. That pattern is examined separately in “The Logic of Extraction.”
*
By Ricardo F. Morín, Oct. 2025, Oakland Park, Florida.
Observations On Perception 