The Pied Piper

by the subway philosopher™

Regardless of ideology or political system, few subjects of gov.com in any land appear to be reasonably free. Leaders, the public faces of state power, are said to be at fault for such shortcomings, based on the media-driven perception that a given government is primarily a reflection and/or creation of the current figurehead. However, on closer inspection, government can more reasonably be said to be the sum of its parts, principally its bureaucracies, many of which are possessed of significant and abusive regulatory power.

After all, Chinese, Russians, Jews, Cambodians, and others did not simply off themselves en masse at the behest of dictators – it takes a big-stick bureaucracy, or several, to get the job done. Unfortunately, the evils of government aren’t limited to totalitarian states but are inherent qualities, essential and necessary elements of the beast in any of its variants.

–         Black’s Rule 1 of government: All government is evil.

Take a good look at any government in history, of any stripe or flavor, and the most significant observation is that from ground zero, government is corrupt and evil, irrespective of any good it might accomplish. First, it grants itself the legal ‘right’ to use violence against citizens in order to confiscate wealth and power for its own benefit. That alone suffices to make the point. Mafias operate on similar principles.

Additionally, government creates institutions of power, inevitably run by people who want that power. Many want state power for the allure of personal influence and purely filthy lucre, and many more are anxious to grasp the whip-handle of government to do good, albeit with a spot of violence or two here and there. There’s no making an omelet without cracking a few eggs, they say. Of course, viewing people as eggs to be cracked in pursuit of utopian omelets is the heart of the problem.

–        Black’s Rule 2 of government: The stronger the capabilities of its citizens, the more evils government will perpetrate, and for longer.

As social and economic capital grew during the Renaissance and the industrial revolution, so too did human consciousness, leading to Western Civ’s great works of science, literature, art, music, political science, economics, architecture and philosophy, many of which, unhappily, are now gathering dust. The vigorous civilization which rose to global dominance in that time and as a result was white and European. Cold-weather people, if you will. No doubt coerced aplenty by the harsh necessities of survival, they were industrious, at minimum.

Any government which lucks into something a bit more substantial than an impoverished tropical island matriarchy has hit the jackpot of golden eggs, as it were. An industrious citizenry, particularly when coupled with a resource-rich land base, is a citizenry producing wealth, which presents boundless opportunity for grifters, empire-builders, wannabe-Stalins, and utopia-chasers – egg-crackers all. The stronger the capabilities of citizens, the more evils their government will perpetrate, and for longer. The American empire is an obvious case in point.

Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy, Oscar Wilde observed. He forgot to mention that the power of the bureaucracy expands even faster. The ability of government to abuse its own citizens is thus a never-ending temptation for those who run its institutions, even if their hearts are pure (probably not – the levers of power attract people who want power, including perhaps especially the power to do good through violence; fear the utopians most).

The Enlightenment and all political progress since the Dark Ages has not proven competent to sufficiently bind this unfortunate and unpleasant beast. Corporate and mainstream media throughout the world enable the governmental Potemkin Village – these people know where their bread is best buttered. As the Chinese say, “everyone’s gotta eat.” (民以食为天)

–        Black’s Rule 3 of government: Government grows until it destroys the civilization it is built on.

A thousand and one or more great historians and writers have attempted to decode the mystery of collapsing civilizations, industriously sifting through giant ash heaps of moldering remnants and artifacts seeking cycles or epicycles or Rosetta stones of elucidation, but each and every one of these fine men has missed the forest for the trees.

Civilizations die when government grows until the institutions it creates choke on their own greed, gluttony, and thirst for power, by which time the bulk of productive citizens are disappeared, disenfranchised, or dispossessed. Each step of government growth and control is a step towards the abyss, purity of intent notwithstanding, and there’s no stopping it.

–        Government alone is responsible for the death of civilizations.

Government is responsible for the death of civilizations. The precise mechanism varies depending on circumstances. Let’s read that again – government alone is responsible for the death of civilizations. Console yourselves, people.

In America and other western nations, arguably possessed of the most capable citizens in history, we have watched the great and ongoing evil for many decades; we are also now witnessing the slow fracturing and death of western civilization at the hands of government and bureaucracies.

The solution to government has never been apparent or available. The greatest thinkers of all time have not been able to more than temporarily relieve humanity from perpetual servitude, whereby the few extract wealth (labor, in fact) and power from the masses (that’s you). Too many people want control over others, and too many of the rest of us are willing to help them get it, insouciantly (h/t PCR) traipsing happily, oblivious, down the eggshell-bestrewn path to ever-imminent utopia with all the wide-eyed guilelessness of a Dorothy or Tin Man.

Government is the Pied Piper of humanity, conducting us with ever-more sweet music over the imaginary mountains of doom and so on down to our own symphony of destruction.

–        You take a mortal man, and put him in control

watch him become a god, watch people’s heads a’roll.

A fitting epitaph for every bureaucrat who has ever lived.

Note: Black is the surname of the scholar who developed the three rules of government through decades of meticulous research and observation. Zhix currently labors in SEA higher academia for a mere fraction of zhix’s true value and prefers to remain anonymous until such time as all governments world-wide have been toppled, or someone shows up with a large (-ish) check.

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