Co-option as strategy¶

The Ankh-Morpork Rebellious Firebrand Retirement Programme (unofficial name) worked beautifully, Vetinari reflected.

Take young Mossy Lawn, for instance. Five years ago, he’d been throwing cobblestones and demanding the overthrow of the tyrannical Patrician. Inspiring stuff. Vetinari had been impressed by his organisational abilities. Now Mossy was Assistant Deputy Liaison to the Guild of Agitators (officially recognised three years ago, much to everyone’s surprise), earning forty-three euros a month and attending quarterly meetings about proper protest permit applications.

His most recent memorandum concerned the appropriate size of placards for the restricted protest zone near the Palace. He’d argued quite passionately that seventy centimetres was insufficient for proper slogan visibility.

“Whatever happened to ‘storm the palace gates’?” Drumknott had wondered aloud.

“He achieved a committee position,” Vetinari replied. “Much more permanent than storming anything. Storming is temporary. Committee seats are forever.”

The trick was never to crush the radical spirit. That created martyrs, and martyrs were terribly inconvenient. Instead, you gave them an office. A title. A salary, however modest. Most importantly, you gave them meetings. So many meetings. About strategy, about messaging, about coalition-building, about funding applications for the next round of approved consciousness-raising activities.

The Seamstresses’ Guild had mastered this generations ago. Any young woman who started getting ideas about workers’ collectives and fair negotiation found herself on the Guild’s Progressive Reform Subcommittee before she could say ‘exploitation’. Six months later, she’d be arguing about pension contribution percentages and health and safety regulations for second-floor rooms.

Revolution became a career path. And careers, Vetinari knew, required compromise.

“Sir,” Drumknott once asked, “doesn’t this all seem rather… cynical?”

Vetinari looked up from a report proposing a new Guild of Revolutionary Thinkers (with appropriate licensing fees). “Not cynical, Drumknott. Realistic. Everyone needs employment. Why not employ them doing what they love? They get to feel rebellious. The city gets stability. And I get detailed minutes of every radical meeting in the city, filed in triplicate.”

Outside, someone was holding an officially sanctioned demonstration about wealth inequality. The placards were regulation size. The chanting stopped promptly at five o’clock, as per the permit.

Progress, Vetinari thought, was happening at exactly the right speed. Which was to say, not at all.