In the other working papers of this series we describe the Megamachine as an emergent system — structures that arise without anyone planning them, selection without a conscious subject, positive feedback loops that reinforce themselves without a conductor. That is true. But it is only half the truth. And half the truth is dangerous — because it unintentionally grants absolution.
The opposite move — everyone is guilty, everyone is perpetrator and victim at once — is no less dangerous. "We are all little sinners" is the favourite phrase of those who carry truly great guilt: they use the levelling to disappear. The bank manager who shifted billions is not in the same boat as the employee who looked away because he feared for his job. These are different people with different responsibility.
The truth does not lie in the middle between these two extremes — it lies in differentiation. There are perpetrators who plan, know and decide. There are accomplices who go along because it pays. There are fellow travellers who stay silent because they are afraid. There are victims who had no choice. And there are all the shades in between — people who are partly perpetrators, partly victims, who show backbone one moment and look away the next. The structure sets the frame. The human being decides — more or less freely, more or less consciously, more or less guiltily.
I. The Cartel of Ignorance — and Its Limit
Prof. Dr. Erich Häußer — President of the German Patent Office, a lawyer, an insider of the system — described in a 1998 BR-Alpha interview what he called the "cartel of ignorance". Inventors are not supported but neglected. Interesting inventions are taken up, and then everything is done to dispute the inventor's share. This works without any agreement — because all those involved have the same interests and read the same signals. Häußer was ignored. A year after the interview, in 1999, he died — still relatively young.
Häußer's cartel of ignorance is not a cartel in the criminal-law sense. It is informal, uncoordinated, emergent. But a cartel in the form of price-fixing, market-sharing and coordinated coercion is very much a matter for criminal law. The Megamachine works on both levels at once — and the two levels reinforce each other.
II. The Personal Level — How Scruples Disappear
Nobody is born a fraudster. The mechanism is subtler. First fraud — scruples, but profit. The scruples diminish. Second fraud — easier, more profit. Normalisation. The scruples vanish. What remains is the conviction that generosity is stupidity — and that everyone else acts the same way, they are just more discreet about keeping quiet.
This is not moral decay in any dramatic sense. It is learned behaviour. The system teaches: fraud works. Greed pays. Scruples are a competitive disadvantage. The person learns the lesson — reluctantly at first, then out of habit, finally with conviction. In the end he no longer regards his behaviour as fraud. He regards it as realism.
Mario Adorf played this figure perfectly: not the villainous villain, but the ordinary man who at some point learned that compassion does not pay — and who internalised this lesson so completely that he takes it for wisdom. "I'll bury you in so much of my money you'll choke on it." That is not a line from a gangster film. It is the standard attitude of part of the business elite — only rarely spoken so openly.
And then the positive feedback between the personal level and the system level: whoever cheats successfully on the personal level rises in the Megamachine. Whoever rises has more influence over the structures. Whoever influences the structures shapes them so that fraud becomes even easier and more lucrative. The structures reward the behaviour — the behaviour strengthens the structures. The circle closes.
III. Two Cartels — One System
The informal cartel — Häußer's cartel of ignorance — works without agreement. When an inventor turns up with an inconvenient idea, all those involved react with uniform rejection: not because they have spoken to one another, but because their interests converge. That is emergent.
The formal cartel — price-fixing, market-sharing, coordinated coercion — is, by contrast, very much a matter for criminal law. The Cologne waste scandal. The German car cartels — coordinated for decades, punished with fines running into billions. Cum-Ex. Libor manipulation. Concrete agreements, concrete perpetrators, concrete guilt.
What is insidious is the mixing of the two. The informal cartel provides cover for the formal one: whoever exposes the formal cartel is ignored or marginalised by the informal one. Whoever blows the whistle is prosecuted or socially destroyed. The informal cartel of ignorance is the protective shield of the formal cartel of collusion.
IV. A Concrete Example — Coordinated Coercion
An inventor, together with his lawyer, negotiates for many months with a company over a licence and consultancy agreement. In a hard-fought struggle the company bargains away important protective clauses from the inventor — among them an obligation to exploit the licence. The contract is ready for signature. The inventor is happy neither with the outcome nor with the constellation. But the bank — whose venture capital company had financed the development and construction of a test machine as proof of concept — wants to see the deal closed. The invention has long been pledged to the bank. In theory the inventor is free. Nobody can force him to sign. In practice there is no alternative. He gives in.
In the final phase of the negotiations — by chance or not — the invention's most important patent is granted. The three-month opposition period begins. The inventor signs.
Months later he takes over project management at the company — originally an employee of the company had led the project. The inventor unexpectedly becomes head of an already existing working group. People get to know each other. They grow closer. And then the inventor learns from one of the staff: the company had arranged a deal with a friendly company — should the inventor not sign the contract, this friendly company would challenge the patent.
That is not emergent system behaviour. It is coordinated coercion: sign on our terms — or we will see to it that your most important patent is challenged. The friendly third party as a tool. The patent system as a lever. The employee who told him did so in private — out of conscience, out of sympathy, out of some remnant of decency that had survived in the system.
The company kept up the formal legal façade. The contract was signed. No criminal offence that would be easy to prove. The inventor learned the truth only afterwards — when the threat had already served its purpose. The system protects itself: the informal cartel of ignorance ensures that nobody looks. The formal cartel of collusion ensures that the inventor signs. And the formal legal façade ensures that everything looks clean afterwards.
V. What Follows from This
Describing the Megamachine as an emergent system is correct — and incomplete. It explains the structure. It does not explain the personal decision. And it must not serve as an excuse.
Structural change is necessary — but not sufficient. As long as fraud pays, people will cheat. As long as the informal cartel of ignorance protects the formal cartel of collusion, collusion will take place. The structure creates the incentive. But the human being decides. And that decision is attributable.
Häußer named the cartel of ignorance and was ignored. That is the system level. But the people who concretely harmed concrete inventors — with collusion, coercion, abusive oppositions — made personal decisions. For those there is no absolution from systems theory. Responsibility is not evenly distributed: whoever plans is a perpetrator. Whoever goes along is an accomplice — but in a different way. Whoever stays silent because he is afraid is different again. And the employee who told the inventor the truth is none of these — he is the remnant of decency that had survived in the system. The Megamachine set the frame. But the hand that signed belonged to a human being.
The hand that has signed so much in the inventor's life cramps up to this day at every new signature — regardless of what the signature means.