If every exchange is negotiated with the presumption of bad faith,
the only
possible way to come away with even a piece of what you
want is to propose
basic terms which you have no intention of fulfilling,
while feeling around
for what givens on the other side can be seized
and services extracted without
further harm to you, though the tenets
of the system be destroyed. Thus one
does real business with family,
from whom there is no extraction, and on whom
survival often depends,
so is neo-sacralized, while any outside encounter
provides opportunities
for real advancement on terms that can be as fresh as
one's devising,
with no disturbance to the interior life. This is a failure of
contract law,
a primary means of exclusion, and an aspect of state failure in
general,
along with environmental depredation, disputes over birth
rates,
and thousands of incalculable daily forms of threat and coercion,
culminating in violent deaths that achieve sporadic documentation.