The State

Demonstrations and strikes used to be announced, controlled, and organized. Nowadays, these protests are of such importance they can disrupt an entire city. Strikes can paralyze an entire country. Now, we must all schedule our lives around a calendar of strikes.

The degeneration of the power and quality of politicians, and the rise of their mediocrity, has led to a decline of their authority. Unions, which represent only a small minority of workers, make the law. Of course these rights must exist, the right to assemble and protest must be protected, but law and order are constantly undermined by purely anarchist acts. Governments are too scared to do anything.

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The void left by the diminution of the power of politicians has been filled by the State, which is becoming ever more autonomous and autocratic. The State, during the Middle Ages, was patiently and progressively crafted by kings to maintain order from the forces of anarchy and assure the wellbeing of the citizens. The State is comprised of civil servants nominated by political leaders; they should be dependent upon them. Today, most are chosen for electoral reasons, giving them a degree of independence from those whom they should be responsible to.

In every country, the number of civil servants increases indefinitely, as the party in power seeks to increase its ranks and create new posts. The result is inefficiency. The more civil servants there are, the less work is done. And yet, the taxi driver I recently spoke with about this phenomenon, notes that health and education services are hopelessly understaffed. So our hospitals and schools suffer while new ministries and bureaucratic departments are overflowing with unnecessary posts that no government dares to do away with.

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In a few countries, the State is nearly paralyzed while it grows uncontrollably. Now, because they are not elected, these civil servants are unrestrained, their power and influence is increasingly unchecked, whereas the politicians and elected officials are responsible to the electorate. Without this accountability, their power becomes practically limitless. This combination leads the State to a complete abdication of its responsibilities.

The State no longer provides security of the citizens. Entire neighborhoods are so wretched that they are avoided at all costs, even by public services. Far from searching for a solution to these ghettos, the State lets them grow and expand, taking over other communities.

Traveling today is a nightmare. I have to take a sedative to go to an airport. Immense crowds are pushed and prodded in every direction for hours and days. Chaos, mountains of bags are lost and misplaced. It is all a matter of delays, overbookings, cancellations. The other day my daughter and her children were refused boarding due to overbooking. It is not at all the comfort that is advertised. To fly today is to dive into discomfort, aggressiveness, expense, and chaos. Where is the State?

So take the train? And risk being stuck for hours in the middle of the country, locked inside a car. Or stopped in the tunnel, in complete darkness, for hours and hours. These are private companies, but under state control. The State has failed to ensure working transportation.

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And what of health services? It is surely worse. A confusion of diabolical pills with untold side effects that make me feel paralyzed. And what of the medicines that can cause death? These pharmaceutical companies are so powerful they avoid justice for their failures. They don’t even want healthy practices to take root, they push for obesity so they can treat it. Business, always business first, only business. The State hardly intervenes, and does so softly. The guilty are not punished for their crimes. On the other hand, social security is nearly bankrupt. Let God keep me from setting foot in these hospitals, the little I’ve seen has been enough. Jam packed corridors, understaffed, waiting hours and hours in unsanitary conditions. Microbes and bacteria and viruses waiting to greet the patients who come for a simple check up and leave with a serious condition or illness.

The worst may be education. They are overrun by petty local concerns, academics are terrorized by their students, who they are unable to control or reprimand. The actual courses of study are insufficient. It seems only private universities have any standards anymore.

The State has rejected its responsibilities; it strokes is ego while all it does is waste resources. It is totally inefficient in its tyranny. No longer is the State that entity that explores, facilitates, or authorizes, it only closes, denies, and harms.

Those who represent the State, these innumerable state servants, most of them are unnecessary. They form an anonymous dictatorship of the unelected, sitting safely and comfortably behind their desks, issuing their decrees. A citizen’s existence is entirely regulated by these ever changing bureaucrats, squeezed by new laws, usually idiotic and unjustly imposed that serve no real cause or purpose. Fines and punishments are the order of the day. We can protest with no result, or submit like sheep. There is no choice; we no longer have any recourse. Perhaps one day the people will revolt, perhaps they will take responsibility themselves for carrying out the functions that the State has proven incapable of managing.


by  Prince Michael of Greece