The State, It Is Obama

There is a lot of naïveté in the world – and this shows up spectacularly after Obama’s victory at the US elections. Ramesh Ramanathan, for example, sees it as “a giant leap for democracy.” In actual fact, the US State has, under the pretext of democracy, accumulated far more powers than any monarch ever had.

There is the money monopoly.
There is the “war on drugs.”
There are other real wars being waged on foreign soil.

The Americans who know better call their State either “fascistic” or “corporatist” – and both words mean much the same. To many Americans, this democracy is a sham that covers up an ugly reality.

And, indeed, the elevation of a coloured man to their highest public office is part of the sham. It is just like if Mayawati or Laloo became PM here in India. Would that in any way change the ugly reality that is the Indian State?

Note that in this election, there were many prominent voices raised against the two main parties. Ron Paul asked his flock to vote for a third party candidate. All these voters felt that the Democrats and Republicans were Tweedledum and Tweedledumber – and, more importantly, they were engaging in a conspiracy of silence in order to keep many important issues out of the debate: like the activities of the US Fed.

Democracy in the US has for long been analysed – especially by the “public choice” theorists – as “pork-barrel politics.” PJ O’Rourke’s Parliament of Whores refers to the US State. Democracy was originally conceived as a means of limiting the monarch’s taxation – recall the slogan “No Taxation Without Representation.” Today, the monarch, in the guise of democracy, “creates money.” He buys the support of all those elected with this funny money. Elected representatives no longer represent taxpayers. They represent those special interests for whom they collect and deliver all the pork.

Obama’s win at the US presidential election is actually a way of fooling the people into believing that theirs is indeed a “democracy” in the sense that a coloured man can win. If any citizen now asks the question, “Who Governs?” he will be told “Voters like you and me.”

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, in his Democracy: The God That Failed, offers us a reason why democracies are so successful at hiding all their tyrannies. Under a monarch, there is a clear distinction between governors and governed, with only the members of royal families being eligible to govern. Thus, there is an “Us and Them” in the minds of all citizens – and all tyrannies are stridently opposed. With democracy, the “Us and Them” distinction is blurred, because anyone from the bottom of society can become the supreme ruler – like Obama, or Mayawati, or Laloo. Tyrannies remain hidden. And the people do not revolt against them – because they think they themselves are part of The State. This is the big sham.

We all need Freedom from The State. And we Indians need this as much as Americans do.

We must uphold the ideal of Liberty Under Law. We must oppose all “democratic legislation.” That is, Liberty comes first, not Democracy.