20 September 2012

Stealing from Ourselves

In older monarchical systems, only a tiny elite was privileged to steal from everyone else, and if they stole too much, people would get angry and overthrow them.

Democracy solved the problem by granting everyone the privilege once reserved to elites. Now we can all steal from each other, and even from ourselves. This way, it is no longer clear who the enemy is. We don’t know whom to blame when things get bad. There is no one to overthrow but ourselves.
Jeffrey Tucker

2 comments:

Quyen said...

This is great!

Anonymous said...

Yes, it is thought that evil somehow ceases to be evil if we let more people in on it. This is what I call the Special Folks Theory of Evil, according to which all evil is done by people who hold special titles or special positions. If a Renaissance Pope or a king or a dictator does it, it's bad--but if a large number of ordinary people do it, it goes unnoticed or is even construed as a blessing from God.