The Symptom / The Disease

There are social phenomena that do not require definition because we experience them every day. Nepotism is one of them. Its spread is so pervasive that, as a rule, it is not recognized as a distinct act, but as an environment—simply the way things happen “by themselves.” It is not a scandal, but a background. Appointments, competitions, public contracts, the distribution of positions and resources—we all “know” how these things are done, yet they rarely produce surprise; if anything, they prompt the occasional weary nod. “I know exactly what the game is.” That “game” is the first symptom.

The damage this practice causes is not merely moral, nor merely economic. It is structural. When access to opportunities stops passing through things like skill and effort—and begins to depend above all on recognizability and belonging—society loses not only individual talents, but its very capacity to distinguish value. Competence becomes a suspicious trait: it is unpredictable, difficult to control and, most importantly, it may belong to “outsiders.” In such an environment, the safest choice is not the best one, but the least risky one.

The result is not chaos, but a particular kind of stability. Institutions function formally, rules exist, competitions are held. But behind this institutional theatre, real trust is distributed through other channels. A double reality emerges: an official one, which is displayed, and an unofficial one, which decides. It is precisely in this unofficial zone that the real selection takes place—quietly, with extraordinary resilience, and almost invisibly to the outside eye.

The paradox is that nepotism is one of the few phenomena against which there exists such complete public consensus. It is condemned in public, serves as a universal explanation for failures and injustices, and appears in every critique of “the system.” And yet it remains untouched. Exposés do not weaken it, scandals do not undermine it, and reforms rarely leave a lasting effect. This resilience is not accidental. It is the first signal that what we are dealing with here is not a vice that can be uprooted by willpower or moral mobilization.

Here an uncomfortable question arises: how is it possible for a practice that everyone recognizes as harmful to reproduce itself with such ease and persistence? Why is participation in it so widespread even among people who despise it? The answer can hardly be found in the psychology of the individual. If the phenomenon were simply a habit or a reflex of corruption, it would erode under the pressure of constant criticism. The fact that this does not happen suggests that nepotism is not a deviation from some deep norm, but rather its practical manifestation.

Why the Explanations Do Not Work

The first instinct, when confronted with nepotism, is to explain it through cultural clichés. “That’s our mentality,” “this is a Balkan thing,” “a bad habit from the past.” These formulas sound convincing because they are familiar and reassuring. They imply that the problem is inertial—something left over by habit, which should gradually disappear under the pressure of modernity, education, and European rules.

But habits are not that resilient. They change when the environment changes. Nepotism not only fails to weaken; it often adapts and becomes more refined. It “learns” to exist under new regulations, to hide behind procedures, to use the language of transparency without changing its inner logic. This behavior does not resemble the characteristic of a residual habit. It is far more likely to be a constituent part of a functioning system.

The second common explanation is moral. Nepotism is presented as a form of corruption, as the result of personal lack of principle, greed, or weakness of character. This explanation is convenient because it individualizes guilt. It allows society to be outraged without examining itself. The problem is that the moral frame does not explain the mass character of the phenomenon. If this were a matter of personal vice, it would cluster around “bad people.” In reality, it encompasses honest, educated, and critically minded individuals as well—including those who denounce it in words.

Here the moral language begins to creak. It presupposes free choice where choice is often severely limited. In an environment where access to resources and security passes through informal ties, refusal to participate does not appear as virtue, but as recklessness. When the system punishes non-participation more severely than participation, moral condemnation loses its explanatory force.

This leads us to the first uncomfortable suspicion. What if nepotism is not simply a defect of the system, but one of its stabilizing mechanisms? What if it survives not despite public outrage, but precisely because it is in deep agreement with the values that society—often unconsciously—shares?

The Principle / The National Logic of Trust

From Habit to Principle

This is the point at which one important step back must be taken. Not toward concrete practices, but toward the way society distributes trust. Every social system must answer one simple but fundamental question: on whom can one rely? Who is “safe”? Who is predictable? In modern societies, this answer is formalized—through laws, procedures, institutions, and abstract rules that permit interaction among strangers.

In other societies, or in other historical layers of the same societies, the answer is different. Trust is not placed in abstractions, but in origin, recognizability, and belonging. It is not earned through demonstrable competence, but assumed along the line of “ours” and “theirs.” This model is neither accidental nor morally arbitrary. It is the product of long periods of insecurity, external threat, and institutional weakness, in which personal and kinship ties were the only reliable form of protection.

The problem arises when this model is not consciously overcome, but mechanically carried over into conditions for which it is no longer suited. Then it ceases to be adaptive and becomes destructive. In this sense, nepotism is nothing other than the practical application of a deeper principle: that trust is a limited resource which must be kept within the circle of “our own.”

Expanded Kinship

When a model of trust proves durable over time, it rarely remains limited to its original scale. The logic of kin loyalty—trust in “our own,” suspicion toward “outsiders,” moral justification for preference—is effective in small communities. The problem arises not when it exists, but when it begins to expand beyond its natural scope.

Certain types of national ideas do precisely this. They do not create a new morality from nothing, but scale up an already existing one. What is at issue are those national projects that base belonging on ethnic origin and blood kinship, rather than on civic contract or shared rules. In this context, kinship becomes a symbol, origin becomes destiny, and belonging becomes a prior guarantee. “Our own” are no longer just family or clan, but people who share a supposed blood community. This expansion is not merely metaphorical. It changes the way trust is distributed within society.

In this sense, ethnic nationalism is not necessarily aggressive, nor inevitably loud. It can be quiet, everyday, even benevolent. It is enough for it to establish one simple hierarchy: that belonging precedes verification, that “our own” deserve an advance, while “the outsider” must provide proof. From that point on, the practices arrange themselves.

Nepotism is one of the places where this logic becomes visible. It is not a distortion of the national idea, but its routine, banal realization. Where belonging is experienced as a moral category, preference for “our own” does not appear as abuse, but as a natural gesture of solidarity.

Trust as Prior Distribution

It is important to stress: what is at issue here is not hatred of “outsiders.” The simpler explanation is fear of the unfamiliar. Abstract rules require trust in a system that we do not see, do not know personally, and cannot control. For societies formed over long periods under conditions of external insecurity and weak institutions, this kind of trust is difficult to achieve.

That is why trust is distributed in advance. Under such systemic conditions, it is not earned through action, but inherited through belonging. Origin becomes a moral shortcut. It spares the effort of evaluation, the risk of error, and the anxiety of unpredictability. In a world experienced as hostile, this is a powerful psychological resource.

But it is precisely this prior distribution that makes the system closed. When trust cannot be acquired, but only recognized, social mobility becomes an exception rather than a rule. Institutions exist, but they do not serve as a source of security. They are a stage on which decisions already taken are legitimated.

Thus a double logic is formed. The official one—of laws, procedures, and competitions—and the real one—of belonging, loyalty, and informal channels. People learn to live in this duality not because they approve of it, but because it works. It works for survival, for minimal security, for avoiding sanctions.

When the Principle Begins to Corrode

Here the metaphor of disease is highly precise. As with cancer, the problem lies not in the mechanism’s original function, but in its uncontrolled reproduction. The cells are not “evil” – they simply follow a logic that has ceased to be adequate to the whole.

Nepotism begins as a protective reflex, but over time it turns into a destructive force. It undermines society’s ability to distinguish value, to reward effort, and to take risks. Everything new appears suspicious, because it has not been vetted along the line of belonging. Everything different is perceived as a threat, because it does not fit into the existing networks of trust.

This also explains why reforms so often fail. They attack the form, but not the principle. They change the rules, but leave untouched the question “whom can one trust?” As long as that question continues to receive the same answer, the practices will rearrange themselves, but they will not disappear.

THE MACHINE / SELF-REPRODUCTION

Loyalty Against Ability

In a society where trust is distributed in advance, individual ability turns into a problematic category. It is difficult to control, because it does not arise from belonging. It may appear from outside, be unexpected, even inconvenient. A capable person possesses autonomy – he has his own source of value, one that does not depend on patronage. That is precisely what makes him risky.

That is why such systems prefer not the best, but the most reliable. And reliability is understood not as professional competence, but as predictability of behavior. Loyalty is more valuable than skill, because it is safer. It guarantees that the balance will not be disturbed, that the internal hierarchies will remain stable, that no one will “jump the rails.”

This choice carries a long-term cost. It gradually pushes out the capable, or forces them to adapt by dulling their own autonomy. The system begins to reproduce mediocrity not because it values it, but because mediocrity is manageable. Thus nepotism does not merely redistribute resources – it shapes the human material.

Informality as Power

It is often said that the problem lies in the “lack of rules,” by which people mean the lack of functioning formal, institutional rules. In reality, the rules of the official order do exist. They are written down, adopted, formally binding. The problem is not their absence, but their conditionality. They do not determine the result; they merely legitimize it after the fact.

Informality is not chaos. It is a technique. It allows decisions to be made out of sight, and then clothed in procedure. That is precisely why the system appears simultaneously lawful and unjust. Everything is “according to the rules,” but no one believes that the rules decide anything.

This informality creates dependencies. Access to opportunities becomes a favor, and the favor becomes a debt. In this way a network of mutual obligations emerges, far more durable than any formal hierarchy. It cannot be dismantled by decree or reform, because it does not exist on paper.

Exclusion as a Condition of Order

In this kind of system, order is achieved not through inclusion, but through limitation. Stability is guaranteed not by widening the circle of trust, but by keeping it closed. Every new participant is a potential threat, because he may introduce unpredictability.

Here one of the deepest and least consciously recognized logics of the entire model reveals itself: security is experienced as a negative category. It does not mean the presence of opportunities, but the absence of risks. “Better one of ours, even if weak, than an outsider, even if capable.” This is not a formula of malice, but rather of fear.

Thus the system locks itself in. Every attempt at opening appears dangerous. Every call for transparency is perceived as naïve. The inclusion of “outsiders” is experienced not as enrichment, but as a shaking of a fragile balance.

Double Morality

One of the most stable elements of nepotism is its moral comfort. It does not require cynicism; it permits virtue. Inwardly, the system is flexible, understanding, and forgiving. Outwardly, it is strict, moralizing, and often uncompromising. This division is not hypocrisy; it is a logical consequence of prioritizing belonging.

The inner circle is the place where “human” considerations apply. The outer world is an arena of abstract rules, which can be applied without scruple. Thus injustice is experienced not as a violation of morality, but as its defense. “Toward our own, we are human. Toward outsiders – we shall see.”

Why the System Reproduces Itself

All these elements support one another. Prior trust makes loyalty more valuable than ability. Loyalty requires informality. Informality produces dependency. Dependencies require exclusion. Exclusion justifies double morality. And so the circle closes.

At this point it becomes clear why nepotism is so resilient. It is not a sum of bad decisions, but an internally consistent system. It has its own rationality, its own ethics, and its own mechanism of self-protection. In this sense it really does resemble cancer: not because it is evil, but because it uses the organism’s own resources in order to reproduce itself, even when this ultimately kills it.

The Cost of Non-Participation

In this type of social order, participation in nepotism is rarely experienced as a choice. More often it is perceived as a condition of survival. A person may despise it, criticize it, recognize it as destructive – and nonetheless submit to its logic when the stakes become personal. The reason is simple: refusal is not a neutral gesture. It has a price.

That price is rarely formal punishment. More often it is a slow, quiet erosion. Missed opportunities. Lack of support. Invisible barriers. A person is not directly thrown out of the system; he simply ceases to be noticed. In a society where security is concentrated in networks of belonging, isolation is not a moral position, but a practical risk.

Here moral language once again proves inadequate. Not participating does not always mean being virtuous; in most cases it simply means being reckless. That is precisely what makes the system so effective: it relies not on conviction, but on the distribution of consequences. Participation is rewarded with minimal security. Non-participation is punished with insecurity.

Nepotism as a “Small Moral Feat”

Here lies one of the most unpleasant, but also most explanatory moments in the entire reflection. Within a blood-oriented value system, nepotism may be experienced not as vice, but as virtue. Helping “one’s own” appears human, natural, even courageous – especially in an environment perceived as hostile and unjust.

This turns criticism into something more than a rational disagreement. It begins to sound like moral injustice. To refuse to help “one of your own” in the name of an abstract rule can be experienced as cruelty, not as principled behavior. In this way the system not only survives, but also generates an internal loyalty that arguments can hardly shake.

Here it becomes clear why exposés rarely have much effect. They attack the practice, but not its moral foundation. As long as “I protect my own” remains a higher value than “I follow the rules,” every criticism will appear either naïve or malevolent.

The Diagnosis, Without Consolation

In this sense, nepotism is not a disease brought from outside. It is not the result of “bad people,” nor of cultural backwardness. It is an internal consequence of a value order in which trust is blood-based rather than institutional; belonging precedes verification; security is achieved through closure rather than inclusion.

The metaphor of cancer here is not journalistic. It is exact. Just as cancer cells use the mechanisms of the organism in order to reproduce, so nepotism uses society’s moral intuitions – loyalty, solidarity, care – and turns them against its very capacity to function. Nothing is external, nothing is accidental. Everything is consistent.

This also explains why the struggle against nepotism so often appears hopeless. It cannot be removed by appeals, by laws, or by moral campaigns as long as the question “whom can one trust?” continues to receive the same answer. As long as belonging remains safer than the rule, the system will reproduce itself – more quietly or more noisily, but inevitably.

This text offers no solution. Not because none is possible, but because without a clear diagnosis every solution is merely another form of self-deception. The first step lies not in changing the practices, but in becoming conscious of the values that make them rational. Without that, nepotism will continue to be publicly condemned and privately reproduced – like every disease we refuse to recognize as our own.