The dramatic decline to which a select few ‘South Africans’ are subjecting so many of us is no longer considered a ‘crisis’. In essence, neopatrimonialism is not considered a crisis’ – it is merely a huge embarrassment.

As I account for the latest narration, attributable to a senior politician, my mind drifts to the mid-1980s – 1986, to be exact. It is a winter’s evening, and I find myself outside the Transvalia Theatre (which has since vanished into obscurity, with its existence only living forth in memory). Its ‘disappearance’ is quite similar to the fate suffered by the Castle in the movie that I had intended to see that evening. Even Google is at loss as to recalling the Transvalia Theatre’s existence. Its searches return, quite ironically, ‘Transylvania’, the premise on which the movie is based.

On that cold winter’s evening (I wish I could say “that fateful winter’s evening” – but there were many more in store), I find myself, along with fellow moviegoers, being escorted from the cinema by the men in blue, who now have their flashlights peering into our eyes in a way that is reminiscent of an intensive eye test.

Our viewing was rudely interrupted. We had to stop viewing the then unbanned The Rock Horror Picture Show, which had, somehow, been banned again after we had bought our tickets. It would be a year or two later that I was to be able to see the unbanned version, yet still in a censored state. As I replay the episode in my head, I am reminded of the words of Riff Raff to Dr Frank-N-Furter: “Frank-N-Furter, it’s all over, your mission is a failure, your lifestyle’s too extreme . . .” Talk about life imitating art!

Now standing outside a cinema, with your retina being burned into the back of your head, and subjected to a verbal tirade, an interrogation – well, that is embarrassing. A huge embarrassment, if you will.

What about State capture? Well, that is not an embarrassment – it is a crisis. An embarrassment is an awkwardness, an uneasiness, a shame, a humiliation. On the other hand, a crisis is a catastrophe, a disaster, an emergency – it is dire straits.

Ironically, the band Dire Straits’ 1985 hit single was called Money for Nothing, and its memorable lyrics include this line: “That ain’t workin’; that’s the way you do it; money for nothin’ and chicks for free . . .” Now I have to contend with yet another song in my head.

More often than not, we use words without understanding their true meaning or their origin. The risk of using the words is that they simply become buzzwords. In recent weeks, the phrase ‘State capture’ has been everywhere, but what is its true meaning? ‘State capture’, first used by the World Bank in 2000, is defined as “a type of systemic political corruption in which private interests significantly influence a State’s decision- making processes to their own advantage”. Anticorruption watchdog Transparency International defines it as “a situation where powerful individuals, institutions, companies or groups within or outside a country use corruption to shape a nation’s policies, legal environment and economy to benefit their own private interests”.

The thing with State capture is that those who perpetrate it do not consider the real economic costs associated with the practice, in the same way that corruption is considered by the perpetrators as a victimless endeavour. This is, of course, devoid of any truth.

But then the term State capture has itself evolved. In its evolution, consider Harold Lasswell’s definition of politics, in which he identifies the State (government) as a very important institution in determining “who gets what, when, and how”. As a consequence, various interests are involved, with each attempting to influence government in a bid to achieve its desired outcomes. In law, the determination of motive is paramount. Now you have motive.

To gain greater insight into the evolution of State capture, you would need to consider the work of Francis Fukuyama, Political Order and Political Decay, in which he describes the process of State development from kinship-based or band-level societies to tribal organisations and, ultimately, the modern State. According to Fukuyama, the distinguishing factor is that, “in band-level or tribal systems, access to resources is determined by personal relationships with the ruler, while it should be impersonal in fully ‘developed’ States”. This simply means that the relationship with the ruler no longer determines the distribution of resources when a country has developed beyond tribal organisation.

Next, political decay sets in when developed and impersonal institutions degenerate into personal fiefdoms, with kinship and friendship being reintroduced as determinants of fortune within the polity. This is what Fukuyama calls repatrimonialisation, which is generally referred to as neopatrimonialism and is defined thus: “A system of social hierarchy where patrons use State resources in order to secure the loyalty of clients in the general population. It is an informal patron-client relationship that can reach from very high up in State structures down to individuals in small villages.”

Although this might well be the aggrieved wanting to establish blame in the obvious quarters, you might want to consider the words of Vladimir Putin in a meeting with Russian business leaders in July 2000 (the year in which the term State capture was coined): “I only want to draw your attention straightaway to the fact that you have yourselves formed this very State, to a large extent through political and quasipolitical structures under your control. So, perhaps what one should do least of all is blame the mirror.”

I leave you with a parting thought, an observation on the challenges in Russia, which you could apply to South Africa. The Independent newspaper, which is published in Kampala, Uganda’s capital city, offered the following when commenting on the Russian challenge: “Although the concept of State capture naturally conjures up images of powerful oligarchs, we find that captor firms come in a wide range of sizes and sectors. Surprisingly, captor firms are more likely to be new entrants to the market.”

As my thoughts return to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, I am reminded of the lyrics of one of its songs: “Stay sane inside insanity.” This is my prayer for you, which I will explore in a future column.