"...self-serving, self-perpetuating oligarchies."

[bandwraith at aol.com]

Harry Kelber

"I coined a phrase for them," he said. "These are self-serving,
self-perpetuating oligarchies. I've been for union democracy all
my life. I'm determined that, as long as I can still breathe and
write, I am gonna fight this thing." (p.2)

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/10/09/2008-10-09_harry_kelbers_70year_battle_for_the_righ.html?page=0

Really interesting phrase: "...self-serving, self-perpetuating
oligarchies." It could have come straight out of any Systems
Theory textbook.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory

All life forms are self-serving, self-perpetuating systems, and
as such, are self-similar across scales, and can only be understood
from a "transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary and multiperspectival"
approach. It's the term "oligarchies" that raises huge questions- very
relevant to fiction, especially to ATD.

It is an open question whether a complex system can self-perpetuate
without being oligarchical, Even ignoring (at our peril) ecological
considerations, for the moment, a complex system, i.e., one with
multiple subsystems forming some kind of recognizeable cooperative
identity (self-serving) that self-perpetuates...? Can it happen
"successfully" without some kind of hierarchy? Reef fucks Cyprian
but Cyprian doesn't fuck Reef, etc.- probably not.

It's the hierarchical nature of complex systems that makes them
vulnerable to oligarchies (oligarchicalization?) When the scale
enlarges, some members of the new larger more complex social
network naturally gravitate toward leadership roles in the hierarchy.

Is it inevitable that the leaders become oligarchical? Certainly the
temptation is always there, and certain abuses of power can
always be justified in the face of "external threats," "natural 
disasters,"
"financial crises," "inconvenient brother-in-laws," etc., but are such
abuses just the price of an orderly society?


I think I'll go out and play a few holes of anarchist golf and mull it 
over.