Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“I came by the concept of singularized succession in perpetuity in trying to think through the furthest implications of the absolutist politics I wanted to give some finished shape to in completing _Anthropomorphics_. The logic of concentrating actual power in nominal power, in acknowledgment of the fact that every social order in which the center has been occupied has found it necessary to designate some power as central and “ultimate,” seemed to come to rest in the question of selecting your successor: if you are not choosing your successor you are not actually in power, because everyone around you can hedge on various degrees of obedience and support by transferring promises of obedience and support to the more likely successors—which also means the successors they are helping to make more likely. In hereditary monarchies, the problem is solved, but in such a way as to generate other problems, and since it's a mistake to invest one’s thought in a single, rigidly defined form of order, I considered it best to abstract away from the (one must admit) remote possibility of establishing hereditary monarchies across the world. Meanwhile, if you are choosing your successor, then it would follow that choosing your successor is all you are doing, which means that all decisions, all allocations, all considerations held in reserve are directed toward the “fluency” of that succession, thus placing social continuity explicitly at the forefront of public concerns and organizing all attention on commemorative events surrounding that succession and its prerequisites.”

— Adam Katz, The Sufficiency of Singularized Succession in Perpetuity · Nov 07, 2022 · Bouvard Substack