Posts Tagged ‘State power’

“The Logic of Extraction”

March 18, 2026

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Ricardo F. Morín
Triangulation Series Nº 2
37″ x 60″ x 2″
Oil on linen
2006

Ricardo F. Morín

March 10, 2026

Oakland Park, Florida

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Posted in Political Economy, Institutional Analysis, Economic History, Technology and Society, Digital Economy, Artificial Intelligence, Energy and Resources, Global Systems, Public Policy, Governance and Power | Leave a Comment »

“Unmasking Disappointment: Series IV”

March 4, 2026

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“Geometric Allegory” digital painting ©2023 by Ricardo Morin (American visual artist born in Venezuela–1954)

Ricardo F. Morin

December 29, 2026

Oakland Park, Fl

Author’s Note

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This installment of Unmasking Disappointment presents the first part of Chapter XII, “The Fourth Sign.”   It covers §§ 1–9 under the heading Autocracy and lays out the conceptual and institutional framework necessary for the sections that follow.   The chapter continues in subsequent installments, which address Venezuela (§§ 10–25) and The Asymmetry of Sanctions (§§ 26–34).

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Chapter XII-Part 1

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The Fourth Sign

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Autocracy

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1

The justification for a discussion of autocracy and democracy arose from ideas that emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries, which provided insights into the foundations of contemporary governance.   John Locke, in his Two Treatises of Government [1689] argued that legitimate political authority derived from the consent of the governed.   Locke’s emphasis on natural rights (life, liberty, and property) and his concept of a social contract—in which government’s primary role is the protection of those rights—laid the groundwork for modern democratic governance.   He offered a contrast with autocracy in his advocacy of the rule of law.    Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract [1762] contributed to democratic theory with his concept of the general will, in which he posited that sovereignty resided with the people and that governments should be accountable to their general will, understood as civic responsibility.    By contrast, Rousseau analyzed autocracy as a kind of tyranny that violated the principles of popular sovereignty.   Thus, he anticipated the move from monarchical rule to participatory democracy.

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Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws [1748] asserted that democratic governments were based on popular sovereignty, whereas autocratic governments were founded on fear and obedience.    Montesquieu introduced the idea of the separation of powers, which became a foundational principle of democracy.    Montesquieu’s emphasis on checks and balances, within a tripartite structure (executive, legislative, and judicial), contrasted with autocratic regimes in which power was concentrated in a single ruler or institution.    His work influenced later constitutional designs, particularly in the United States and France.

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The 19th century was marked by political revolutions, the rise of nationalism, and the spread of constitutional monarchies.   While important developments occurred, such as the expansion of suffrage and the evolution of representative government, the philosophical groundwork had largely been set in the previous century.   The 19th century was more focused on the application of these principles rather than their theoretical development.   Thinkers like Alexis de Tocqueville and Karl Marx have provided critical insights, but their focus on practical analysis (democracy in America or class struggle in general) has been built on earlier theories rather than proposing a new understanding of governance.

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It has been said that in some instances benevolent despots serve the common good, though John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty [1859] (Chapter 1, Introductory, 4-5) has clarified for us that it was only true in the context of civil liberties when benevolence was in favor of participatory democracy:

By Liberty was meant protection against the tyranny of political rulers. . . .   Their power was regarded as necessary but also as highly dangerous. . . .   The aim, therefore, of patriots, was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty.

Mill argued that from antiquity civic liberty has been defended to prevent the tyranny of the majority, or the abuse of power.   Thus, he believed that autocracy was flawed because of its concentrated power without responsibility.

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In the 20th century, Robert A. Dahl’s Polyarchy [1971] introduced the concept of polyarchy to describe systems of government that, though imperfect, have provided higher levels of citizen participation.    For Dahl, democracy was not just the presence of elections; it also required pluralism that allows citizens to participate.    This feature distinguishes democracy from authoritarianism.    Dahl’s analysis examines the functioning of democracies and introduces measurable elements that distinguish democratic governance from autocracy.

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In the 21st century, Juan J. Linz and Larry Diamond have continued this lineage by exploring the conditions under which democracies fail and autocracies rise.    Linz’s work, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes [2000], has focused on the breakdown of democratic regimes and the concept of “authoritarianism.”    He has explained how this antagonism is fundamental in understanding the fragility of democracies and how democracy can devolve into autocratic rule under a single leader.   Similarly, Larry Diamond’s The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World [2008] and In Search of Democracy [2015] have focused on “democratic backsliding,” where democracies have been in decline and given rise to authoritarianism.    Both Linz and Diamond emphasized the importance of institutions, civil society, and the rule of law in maintaining democracy.

The constitutional principles outlined in the preceding discussion establish a framework in which authority is distributed, constrained, and made accountable.  Yet the operation of that framework introduces a different question:  how systems designed to limit power adapt when confronted with conditions that require decisive action.  The transition from monarchical rule to representative government did not eliminate the need for decision.  It relocated that necessity within a structure intended to contain it.  The tension between rule and decision therefore persists, not as a defect, but as a condition inherent to governance itself.

This tension becomes visible in moments of crisis, when the pace of events exceeds the capacity of procedure.  In Venezuela, states of emergency and economic exception have been repeatedly invoked in response to political and economic instability, granting the executive expanded authority to act without ordinary legislative mediation.  These measures have been justified by reference to external threats, internal disorder, and the preservation of national stability.  In such instances, decisiveness does not stand outside the constitutional order;  it operates within it, but under altered conditions.  The exception begins as a response to necessity.

What begins as a response to necessity can, through repetition, assume a different character.  Measures introduced under conditions of urgency do not always recede when those conditions stabilize.  In Venezuela, the repeated use of enabling laws and emergency decrees has allowed governance to proceed through executive decision in the absence of sustained legislative agreement.  Over time, the exception has shifted from a temporary response to an available instrument.  The language of necessity extends beyond its original scope, and the exception becomes a method through which governance proceeds.

This shift does not require the formal suspension of law.  Institutions remain in place, and procedures continue to operate.  Yet their function begins to change.  Administrative and judicial bodies participate in this reorientation, as interpretations of constitutional authority permit the continuation of exceptional measures beyond their initial scope.  The law persists, but its application becomes increasingly contingent on executive direction.  What emerges is not the disappearance of legality, but its reconfiguration, in which the distinction between formal authority and practical implementation grows less stable.

The extension of the exception as a governing method introduces a limit that arises through use.  The distinction between the ordinary and the exceptional gives the exception its meaning.  When the language of necessity is invoked repeatedly across domains, that distinction begins to lose its clarity.  Measures once justified as temporary responses appear with increasing frequency, and their recurrence alters the framework within which they are understood.  What was introduced to address interruption becomes part of regular practice.  Discretion expands, but its criteria become less discernible.  The exception diminishes through extension, as the condition it was meant to identify becomes indistinguishable from ordinary governance.

This internal limit carries implications that extend beyond institutional design.  When the exception ceases to be temporary, the constraints that once governed its use begin to weaken.  Decisions justified in the language of necessity no longer refer back to a stable framework capable of evaluating them.  In such conditions, practices introduced under claims of urgency—such as the restriction of civil society, the expansion of security measures, or the concentration of administrative authority—can persist without clear criteria for limitation.  What follows is not an immediate transformation, but a gradual reorientation in which the concentration of decision becomes easier to justify and more difficult to resist.

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Another thinker, Timothy Snyder, has emphasized the role of trust and transparency in the functioning of democracy.   In The Road to Unfreedom [2018] and On Tyranny [2017], Snyder has argued that the waning of institutional trust, both in the judiciary and the media, is a tactic common in authoritarianism.   He explains how autocratic leaders manipulate societal institutions by turning them into instruments of propaganda with merely a façade of governance.

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The relationship between an autocratic ruler and the people can be described as transactional:  the autocrat provides security and stability in exchange for the people’s loyalty and their freedoms.  Citizens become instruments for the maintenance of power.  The leader cultivates an image that invites devotion and reinforces dependence, often in the language of protection and national necessity.  What begins as reassurance in moments of uncertainty gradually diminishes accountability, as the concentration of decision is accepted as the condition for order.

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A democracy remains viable only when the State is capable of constraining itself from taking advantage of its own power and privilege.  This brings us to the topic at hand, which is the challenge faced by countries such as Venezuela, where political leaders have diminished the authority of the law by exempting themselves from its strictures.  The framework designed to contain power is not formally abandoned.  It is gradually reinterpreted, until the distinction between rule and exception no longer operates as a limit, but as a justification.

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Posted in Political Theory, Democratic Institutions, Authoritarianism, Governance, Constitutional Thought, Civic Ethics | Leave a Comment »

“The Constitution Within”

August 10, 2025

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Ricardo Morin
The Constitution Within
GCI
2025

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Politics (from the Greek politikós, “of, by, or relating to citizens”) is the practice and theory of influencing people at the civic or individual level.

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By Ricardo Morin

August 10, 2025.

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From their earliest formulations, constitutional frameworks have been more than foundational legal agreements; they have stood as declarations of political philosophy, and defined how power should be organized, how it should be restrained, and to whom it must be answerable. Contemporary governance, to a large extent, continues those experiments, shaped over centuries of trial and adaptation. Yet these forms can endure in appearance while being emptied of substance. In more than a few States today, constitutions proclaim liberty while they narrow its scope, define rights in ways that exclude, and preserve the interests of a governing elite. Partisanship exploits the perceived limitations and vulnerabilities of others as grounds for exclusion; self-righteousness becomes a tool for domination, silences opposition, and suppresses dissent. The worth of a constitutional framework, therefore, is measured not only by its letter but by the ethical integrity of those who sustain it. Without ethics, politics loses its meaning; without civic virtue, the law ceases to serve peace and becomes an instrument of dominion.

The separation of powers, vigorously defended by Montesquieu, rests on the conviction that liberty survives when power is compelled to check power. This principle is distorted when institutions are subordinated to partisan or personal interests. In recent years, several States have formally preserved an independent judiciary while, in practice, subjected it to appointment processes controlled by the Executive or the ruling party. Such hollowing-out is not merely a technical failure; it reflects a political culture in which ambition, fear, or indifference among citizens permits the disfigurement of the very mechanisms designed to protect them. It also reveals how institutional strength and civic responsibility are bound together in ways that cannot be separated.

Historical constitutions continue to shape how political communities imagine authority. They bequeath principles that, at their best, offer adaptable frameworks for meeting new challenges without renouncing their essential core: that the legitimacy of a Government rests not on the strength of its rulers but on the solidity of the structures that limit them.

Yet these structures endure only when citizens reject duplicity and sectarianism. Divisions of ideology must not harden into exclusive loyalty to one’s own group at the expense of a shared civic framework. They endure only when citizens resist the idolatry of power, because authority loses its legitimacy once it is treated as sacred or unquestionable. And they endure only when citizens repudiate the cult of personality, in which a leader is raised above criticism through image-making, propaganda, and personal loyalty.

The durability of constitutional order, then, does not lie solely in written texts or institutional arrangements. It rests equally on the civic ethic of those who inhabit them. When ambition, fear, or indifference allow citizens to tolerate duplicity or surrender to sectarian loyalty, the limits on power become fragile. Conversely, when vigilance and responsibility prevail, constitutions retain their strength as both shield and compass—guarding against arbitrary rule while orienting political life toward justice and restraint.

True reform is not solely institutional but also internal: a revolution in the individual and collective sphere, in which each person accepts the responsibility to act with integrity, openness, and commitment to the common good, in harmony with oneself and with others. Only through the alignment of institutional structures with civic responsibility can any Constitution preserve its meaning and endure as a safeguard against arbitrary power.

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Annotated Bibliography

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  • Ginsburg, Tom, and Aziz Z. Huq.; How to Save a Constitutional Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019. (Ginsburg and Aziz examine the legal and institutional pathways through which democracies weaken, from court-packing to the erosion of independent oversight. They draw on comparative examples from the United States, Hungary, and elsewhere to show how constitutional mechanisms can be used to consolidate power while preserving a façade of legality.)
  • Landau, David: “Abusive Constitutionalism.” UC Davis Law Review 47 (1), 2013: 189–260. (Landau develops the concept of “abusive constitutionalism” to describe how incumbents exploit constitutional change to entrench their rule. Uses Latin American and other global cases to illustrate how amendments and reinterpretations weaken checks and balances, alter electoral systems, and undermine judicial independence.)
  • Levitsky, Steven, and Way, Lucan A.: Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. (Levitsky and Way analyze regimes that preserve the formal institutions of democracy but manipulate them to ensure ruling-party dominance. They introduce the concept of “competitive authoritarianism” as a framework for understanding how constitutional norms are hollowed out while democratic forms are maintained.)
  • Levitsky, Steven, and Ziblatt, Daniel: How Democracies Die. New York: Crown, 2018. (Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that modern democracies often decline through the gradual decline of norms rather than coups. The book shows how leaders exploit constitutional ambiguities, stack courts, and weaponize law to suppress opposition, eroding both civic trust and institutional integrity.)

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Posted in Civic philosophy, Democratic life, Religion and society, Political culture, Diagnostic essays | 1 Comment »