{"id":822,"date":"2009-03-18T00:46:39","date_gmt":"2009-03-18T05:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/?p=822"},"modified":"2009-03-18T00:47:27","modified_gmt":"2009-03-18T05:47:27","slug":"from-each-according-to-their-patience-to-each-according-to-the-length-of-their-rope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/?p=822","title":{"rendered":"From each according to their patience to each according to the length of their rope"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Perhaps the most interesting question in relation to petty corruption is: how do underpaid public employees manage <em>not<\/em> to practise corruption? (544)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Corruption has provided a source of much sarcastic humour within the Mozambique press. Much of this humour revolves around the representation of corruption as goat-like behaviour, that is, the propensity to &#8216;eat&#8217; rather than work. While the UK was beset by the &#8216;mad cow&#8217; crisis, satirist and writer Mia Couto argued that Mozambique was suffering from &#8216;mad goat&#8217;s disease&#8217;. The Chinese new year of the Tiger was compared with the Mozambican new year of the Goat. <em>Mediafax<\/em> published a <em>Cabricionario<\/em> on 27 May 1996 (<em>cabricionario<\/em> being a conflation of the Mozambican words for goat and dictionary), providing a subversive lexicon of anti-corruption language. A wonderfully revealing new word suggested within the dictionary was:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>CABRITALISMO [conflation of <em>cabrito<\/em> (goat) and <em>capitalismo<\/em> (capitalism)] Definition: socio-economic system characterised by the use of state resources for private profit. Distribution policy is made according to the principle &#8216;from each according to their patience to each according to the length of their rope&#8217;.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This quotation reveals the popular perception-in many ways correct-that corruption is part of economic liberalisation. It also satirises Marx&#8217;s famous dictum (from each according to his means, to each according to his needs) to highlight how Frelimo&#8217;s bureaucratic order (symbolised here by the queue) has been replaced by a time when individuals each look out for themselves, and the more political power one has, the better one can do this. The phrase &#8216;each according to the length of their rope&#8217; evokes an image of goats, each with a circle of bare ground around them: larger goats have longer ropes and therefore larger circles of ground to eat from&#8230; (547-8)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Graham Harrison, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Corruption as &#8216;Boundary Politics&#8217;: The State, Democratisation, and Mozambique&#8217;s Unstable Liberalisation,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <em>Third World Quarterly<\/em> 20, no. 3 (June 1999): 537-550.<\/p>\n<p><span class='st_facebook' st_title='From each according to their patience to each according to the length of their rope' st_url='http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/?p=822' ><\/span><span class='st_twitter' st_title='From each according to their patience to each according to the length of their rope' st_url='http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/?p=822' ><\/span><span class='st_email' st_title='From each according to their patience to each according to the length of their rope' st_url='http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/?p=822' ><\/span><span class='st_sharethis' st_title='From each according to their patience to each according to the length of their rope' st_url='http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/?p=822' ><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perhaps the most interesting question in relation to petty corruption is: how do underpaid public employees manage not to practise corruption? (544) Corruption has provided a source of much sarcastic humour within the Mozambique press. Much of this humour revolves around the representation of corruption as goat-like behaviour, that is, the propensity to &#8216;eat&#8217; rather [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<p><span class='st_facebook' st_title='From each according to their patience to each according to the length of their rope' st_url='http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/?p=822' ><\/span><span class='st_twitter' st_title='From each according to their patience to each according to the length of their rope' st_url='http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/?p=822' ><\/span><span class='st_email' st_title='From each according to their patience to each according to the length of their rope' st_url='http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/?p=822' ><\/span><span class='st_sharethis' st_title='From each according to their patience to each according to the length of their rope' st_url='http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/?p=822' ><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nomes.malcolm-x.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}