Planning is an exercise of power, and in modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for a skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

Richard White, historian, Columbian River USA
The organic machine, p64
quoted in
Water Politics in thr Murray-Darling Basin
by Daniel Connell