Fourth Note to “Patrimonial States”

A collapsed and failed state juxtaposed with the best economy in the world is the American story in a nutshell. How you reconcile these two conflicting aspects of the overall story is the task of the leader and statesman in America. Which means most of the pressure on the collapsed and failed state might come from the outside as opposed to the inside, given that there is no guarantee that an informal network which can go on to seize the state the way the neocons did and the way Trump did after the neocons can ever arise. It might arise, and it will perhaps arise down the road given that Trump won’t live forever. But there is no guarantee that such an informal network that is capable of seizing state power will arise anytime soon. There is no guarantee, but one cannot guarantee that it won’t happen either.