Ricardo F. Morín
Concession
Computer-generated image (CGI)
2026
When a state exists not to advance the prosperity of its inhabitants but to administer their dependence, government does not guarantee the exercise of freedom: it rations it, and that rationing sustains those in power. Common resources, whether land, mineral wealth, or labor, are not protected on everyone’s behalf; they are held for the benefit of their custodian. What is called collective protection is the public form of private appropriation.
Free enterprise then appears as a threat rather than a possibility. Investment that competes, property acquired without political favor, and individuals who work for themselves establish a measure of independence from the distribution. A ruler whose power depends on dispensing favors cannot tolerate that independence. His hostility to the market is defended on doctrinal grounds, but it serves a precise purpose: to ensure that prosperity remains subject to his control.
That is why producers are so often invoked and so rarely encountered. The handful of people who persevere despite the restrictions are praised, and the praise itself confirms their rarity. Where property and the autonomy of those who produce are at the mercy of power, praise serves as a farewell.
A transfer of power does not by itself alter this administration. Those who oppose the ruler often oppose the person rather than the role: they aspire to the same office, with the same powers, to distribute the same favors among the same multitudes. The transition is conceived as a change of hands, and that change leaves the distribution intact.
In Venezuela, the economy has long depended on oil. When the revenues from that common resource are subject to the ruler’s discretion, prosperity is administered as a concession, and the concession can be withdrawn. Those who leave know this. The departure of millions is not an argument: it is a record of what remaining demanded.
There is talk of justice while the poor are worse off than before. There is talk of revolution while crime permeates every part of public life. The vocabulary of decency outlives decency itself, and the surviving words parody what they name. The system’s name conceals the subordination of its promises to a single purpose: that those who govern remain.
In 1947, my father wrote a doctoral dissertation in political science entitled “Human Capital.” I had not read it before his death in 1997. What I knew of his convictions I learned from his conduct: from the patience he showed in his dealings with the state as he waited for the right moment to present his defense.
Once, when I was seven, I heard him tell his real estate agent that if freedom and property were ever threatened by a populist system, one would have to sacrifice one’s life. He said it in my presence, without addressing me. In time, I understood that he was not speaking of what he had accumulated. He was speaking of the possibility of losing what cannot be accumulated: the dignity of not owing one’s existence to those who govern. For him, life on those terms was no life at all. He died before what he feared came to pass.
Recognizing the threat is not enough to escape it. Those who live under tutelage, without the conviction that sustained my father, may understand their predicament and doubt their ability to change it. Exhaustion then precedes resignation: the will retreats because action seems futile. Anger finds release in complaint, and complaint serves to justify inaction. Their resentment has a cause and leads nowhere. They seek what they can obtain now because their future has been administered by others; they avoid further sacrifices because they have seen the fruits of earlier ones confiscated. Responsibility persists, but the repeated experience of being unable to discharge it feeds the conviction that they have none.
There is a point at which deprivation narrows even the sense of what one can demand. The body goes hungry, the mind concentrates on immediate need, and protest asks the custodian for a larger handout. Abjection takes hold when that custodian is recognized as the rightful owner of what he distributes. The will survives, but it acts within limits it does not question. Power no longer needs to compel each surrender: those who depend on it have learned to yield in advance.
My father rejected more than the regime he feared: he rejected the disposition to accept one’s own existence as a concession. That disposition is not confined to any one social group or class. The ruler demands it of others; those who benefit accept it while their advantage lasts; opponents perpetuate it when they aspire to administer the same distribution. Their positions neither confer the same power nor impose the same responsibility. The distribution endures as long as the right to grant concessions is contested only to decide who will hold it.
Ricardo F. Morín
In transit, October 14, 2026
