The U.S. Goverment

[Endora]

I'm also having problems in understanding how you regard a monarchy as more legitimate that a democratically elected government. I might be able to see how a monarchy might appeal to a libertarian in the Foucauldian sense of power being highly visible, but non intrusive, in contrast with the states much more clandestine but pervasive powers. Other than that, I'm confused. For you, what's the yardstick of illegitimacy of any body? The ability for it to exert influence over you without your consent?

[Potjeh]

Dude is basically a closet anarchist.

[Tonkyhonk]

In Germany as well as in your countries we have proven that a welfare state is working out pretty well while all the liberal countries are failing right now. The only stable European countries are ours (Germany and the Scandinavian states. Hope it isn't offensive to say "your countries") and the only fair ones supporting those in need ours have been for a long time anyway.

it is an interesting aspect.
a newspaper article i read actually implied that the success of germany in recent years is mainly from EU effects. maybe the writer is a bit biased (and this newspaper is known to be rather left-winged), but, what he said was that the capital in EU only moved from those failing countries into germany and a few others, germany purposely or not used the opportunity of new EU market which as a result made other EU countries suffer, and now smiles to them and says germany will gladly help those suffering countries with the capital it has gained/exploited from them.
what would you say to this?

[Potjeh]

I would say LOL. When has Greece ever produced any wealth? Their only industry is tourism, and attributing it's failure to Germany is like saying that Germany single-handedly and purposefully caused the recession.

[burgingham]

what would you say to this?

Germany is also by far the biggest spender in the EU. Foremost, but not exclusively in a monetary sense. Together with France the two are constantly working on a closer relationship between the members, or in times of crisis as right now to save the Union (one could obviously argue about how scuessful that is, but the general attempt is there).

The Union also led to a big economical uprise for most of its members after they joined. That they kinda gambled that away especially in cases like Greece or Ireland is not the Unions fault, but the fault of the countries relying on the Unions money too much and getting involved into questionable business.

Germany of course always was a country of export so it isn't exactly surprising that they earn a lot of money through their sales into the European region.

Best proof for the whole thing working out quite well is that it still exists and even the "loosers" at the moment never thought about withdrawing from the Union. So it obviously has a lot going for it when it stays that strong in times of crisis.

[HarryDresden]

what would you say to this?

Germany is also by far the biggest spender in the EU. Foremost, but not exclusively in a monetary sense. Together with France the two are constantly working on a closer relationship between the members, or in times of crisis as right now to save the Union (one could obviously argue about how scuessful that is, but the general attempt is there).

The Union also led to a big economical uprise for most of its members after they joined. That they kinda gambled that away especially in cases like Greece or Ireland is not the Unions fault, but the fault of the countries relying on the Unions money too much and getting involved into questionable business.

Germany of course always was a country of export so it isn't exactly surprising that they earn a lot of money through their sales into the European region.

Best proof for the whole thing working out quite well is that it still exists and even the "loosers" at the moment never thought about withdrawing from the Union. So it obviously has a lot going for it when it stays that storng in times of crisis.

You guys really should get back in the Mercenary market.

[Horatius]

it is an interesting aspect.
a newspaper article i read actually implied that the success of germany in recent years is mainly from EU effects. maybe the writer is a bit biased (and this newspaper is known to be rather left-winged), but, what he said was that the capital in EU only moved from those failing countries into germany and a few others, germany purposely or not used the opportunity of new EU market which as a result made other EU countries suffer, and now smiles to them and says germany will gladly help those suffering countries with the capital it has gained/exploited from them.
what would you say to this?

You can sometimes read about this in newspapers here as well. I've even read about someone from our green party (once founded on ecologist ideals, I'd not exactly say that for their current state though) demanding that Germany cuts back on exports and creates a bigger inner market in our own country instead. That utopean attitude is retarded in my opinion. It may have a point but enforcing that somehow would only make things worse in the current situation and weaken the whole of Europe.

Importing more goods than exporting them is a problem for countries because it slowly drains their wealth. Instead of fixing this problem by themselves other countries now demand that Germany pays for their homemade issues. It's not like the government here pumps a shitton of tax payer funds into supporting the dominance of our industries (unlike china mind you). Those companies are effective and efficient by themselves (though I'm also sure there is still enough lobbyism going on) and that is what kills competition in other european countries for the most part (if they even had a bunch of similar companies). It is if you so will the idea of the free market, good concepts eating weak concepts so that in the end only the best concepts remains. That of course leads to loan-dumping and other issues of capitalism to remain competitive and the state is the guardian protector against this. It is probably questionable how good it is at doing this lately though. And in a way it is also ugly how media often demands that similar things be introduced in countries affected by the euro crisis to regain their competitiveness.

Recently there is this ugly tendancy to blame this lack of competetiveness on Germany. That also infuriates the common man here because a whole lot of tax payer money goes into other European countries to stabilize the situation and instead of gladly accepting the help you can see pictures of people doing irrational nazi demonstrations in some of these countries (mostly greece a while back) claiming that the germans are back to steal the land their grandfathers died for to protect and becoming the new lords of Europe. To be fair when you hear about some open discussions going on in Berlin, for example about sending a supervisor for greek finances (totally negating their own souvereignity) or people like Öttinger from the european parliament demanding that greece should hand over state property as a payment you can't help but do a facepalm, even as a citizen of Germany. Our political parties have a tendency to bring forth clowns who often love to voice their opnions loudly in the public and never really get punished for it - instead they often get a nice and wellpaid position in the EU when they become a problem for a party, sometimes they even return after a time of rehabilitation.

But anyway, to get back to what I was originally talking about... Greece and some other countries not only suffer from inefficient industries they also seem to suffer a lot from corruption. It took Greece half a year to stop paying rents to more than 60.000 people who were already dead and even now the government seems to be working against similar problems (lately also observed in italy btw), instead playing on time and hoping that the rest of Europe will cut their debts in half to save them. It's things like that from which the drastic ideas of sending a financial supervisor are born - of course such ideas are still not acceptable, even if not for the people of Germany itself then at least for the other members of Europe.
And while all of Europe is looking at Greece and waging its finger the rich greek people already move their money out of the country in expectation of a system collapse. No man in his right mind would currently invest in Greece either since it's uncertain what will happen to the country in the future. As long as this situation remains the country will slowly bleed out more and more. And it is generally anticipated that italy, spain, portugal, belgium, ireland and some other countries will be affected in the same negative way once greece reaches the bottom and dies. They can already feel some of the pressure now.

If you now want to save the situation by crippling Germany's exports you'd start chopping off the tree of Europe completely because then no money will flow anymore at all.

[jorb]

First of all I do not despise you or anything. I am having a lot of fun discussing those matters. The presentation I gave about Rand was in a weekend long seminar about anarchism. Left wing as much as right wing. You would have enjoyed it a lot I am sure

I realize that. I was mostly being rhetorical.

I am curious though how a king is "lawful" according to you, a democratically elected government however is not. I am not talking about the actual flaws in current systems mind you. I am very well aware that democracy has be worn down to be a somewhat questionable lable these days. However I truly believe that is the fault of having capitalistic democracies. The part that needs to go away to make the systems shine again is the capitalism at least in its current form.

You will notice the qualifiying "perhaps" in my statement. Nevertheless my reasoning is simply that monarchy is the form of government that -- in its European forms, at least -- history hath shewn to be the most instrumental to the preservation of human liberty in the context of a society. I believe -- together with Plato and Aristotle -- that the natural course of democracies is to evolve into dictatorships and tyrannies. The masses are quite simply not intelligent, learned, responsible and, frankly, interested enough to be entrusted with the running of a state. The use of the term lawful here was not necessarily to say that parliaments cannot be lawful, but rather that Kings can be unlawful or act contrary to the law, in which case I believe there is a moral right to rebellion. I believe, for example, that the American Declaration of Independence was a legitimate response to the tyranny imposed on the thirteen colonies by the British Parliament, and by extension the King as he at the very least didn't prevent the unjust taxation of the colonies.

Mind you, I am not per se of the opinion that *republics* are necessarily on a slippery slope to tyranny. Mass democracies of the modern variety, however, are.

With regards to capitalism I would argue that -- if capitalism is taken to mean, in the Marxian tradition, private ownership of the means of production -- capitalism as such isn't what is desirable. What is desirable is, again, human liberty and the allowance for the free exchange of goods and services between human beings. Capitalism is a necessary prerequisite for that, but private ownership of the means of production exists also under a coporativist -- fascist -- system. Capitalism without freedom -- the defining characteristic of the social-democratic welfare state, or of Mussolini's Italy for that matter -- is indeed a most foul and vicious tyranny. Thus I tend to use the term "corpo-cleptocratic", or similar, as many International Megacorps are indeed little better than vampires. Goldman-Sachs comes to mind.

I am not a socialist, but I would consider myself a social-democrat and as Spock would have said "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". We cannot deny that we are living in a mass society and your approach of "Do as though wilt" might work in Kasper Hausers cell, but not in states with tens of millions of people. In Germany as well as in your countries we have proven that a welfare state is working out pretty well while all the liberal countries are failing right now. The only stable European countries are ours (Germany and the Scandinavian states. Hope it isn't offensive to say "your countries") and the only fair ones supporting those in need ours have been for a long time anyway.

I believe that that is empirically false, quite simply. Any honest investigation of the present European crisis will lead to the conclusion that it is precisely the idea of the welfare state that is presently facing bankruptcy. Sweden's and Germany's finances are admittedly in better shape than those of many other European states, but that is accomplished through nothing save confiscatory levels of taxation which allow citizens to keep less of their earnings than feudal serfs, and also obviously an effect of the more general Germanic-Protestant work ethic. Since toil and labor are traditionally considered religious duties in our societies we have a tendency to work even when all the earthly incentives tell us not to. If the welfare state ever had a shot it was, indeed, in the Germanic countries, and it is telling that the least failed Communist state was precisely the DDR.

Also, do not tell me that the Swedish public health-care system is somehow working. I've had much, much, much more than my fair share of dealings with it in the past year to know that it isn't. What is working in Sweden is private health care, which is the vast majority of the industry, from the construction of hospitals to the development of medicines and medical equipment to the hospitals and hospices themselves. The part that isn't working is the health-care insurance, which, incidentally, is often the only part that the government actually handles. The denigrating experiences I've had to go through when I have had to *argue* and *bicker* with *completely* disinterested government bureaucrats only to get my dad some sort of basic modicum of decent treatment is frankly disgusting. Were it a private company I would have taken our money and gone somewhere else a *long* time ago, but unfortunately I am not allowed to do that, because my wise overlords have decided that they are the ones who decide who gets health-care and who doesn't. My mother has been keeping a little "war-diary" describing our interactions with Swedish communism, and it's a long and sad fucking story running in the hundreds of pages by now.

Dealing with hospitals and institutions -- always private -- is usually a wonderful experience. Many of them have been fantastic. Dealing with the government has always been the exact opposite of that, and obviously so. They have absolutely zero real incentives to try to help us. The homes and whatnot could actually lose customers.

I see where a swedish person, grown up in a probably culturally, socially and probably even monetarily rich background is coming from in criticizing the system he has made all his experiences in and propagating a libertarian system to preserve his or her own wealth better,

Idle psychologizing of the traditional socialist kind -- attempting to explain my opinions through ad hominem reference to my cultural and social background rather than actually discussing the argument itself. I could present an entirely analogous argument for why you believe the things you believe, but it ultimately serves no purpose as that isn't what we are discussing.

but in my eyes everyone deserves to be saved and helped and put on the same level instead of having some canibalistic capitalistic system of everyone helping themselves. Because those systems do not prove equality or foster it as has been proven conclusively by people like Pierre Bourdieux. They create new inequalities instead.

The only constant and natural factor of the intra-human condition is precisely inequality. Inequality of talent, ability, looks, wealth, strength, health, haircolor &c&c. Any attempt to "foster equality" by definition implies a restriction placed upon human liberty or a tyrannical imposition placed upon one person forcing him not to excel. The two values are wholly incompatible. Obviously you cannot foster equality in any way other than to remove talent and ability from those who have it and attempt to transfer it to those who don't.

Legislators and revolutionaries who promise equality and liberty at the same time are either psychopaths or mountebanks.

--Maxims and Reflections

Also, human liberty isn't about "helping oneself". Human liberty is about being allowed to help those you care for, and not to be forced to help those you obviously don't care for. Compassion, kindness and generosity are Christian virtues, and they should be exercised. The problem with enforced state welfare is that there is a Gresham's law (bad money drives out good money) in operation which causes private charitable institutions to be destroyed by government welfare. There is not a single civilized society in the history of mankind that has not had institutions dedicated to looking after the less fortunate, and the greatest philanthropists in the history of mankind have been precisely the ridiculously rich.

Here is a short article on the subject.

Bill Gates donated how much to charity? John D. Rockefeller? More than many governments, I would wager, and in far less wasteful and better directed ways, I can assure you.

It is quite funny in this context how many Americans seem to think too much governemental regulation led to the financial crisis when it clearly was not enough of the very same that did it.

That is so obviously false. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were federal institutions designed to promote home-ownership loans to people whom the free market would not provide loans simply because they could not afford it. This is not an example of capitalist greed, but rather of cleptocratic politicians selling bread and circuses in exchange for votes from now insolvent home-owners. The boom-bust cycle as such is caused by artificial money creation by the government, i.e. inflation. The claim that too little regulation is the problem here is seemingly very strange as the financial markets of the world are more regulated now than they have ever been in the past, yet strangely they work worse than ever. Have you not noticed that it is precisely governments who are racking up the massive debts that are the cause of our present European crisis? Do you dispute that Greece is bankrupt because it has been running a welfare state ponzi scheme for the past few decades? Is this somehow to be blamed on the private sector not "contributing enough"? 50-60-70% of net income somehow isn't enough? What then, would be? 80%? 90%? 100%? Do you not see that it is a miracle and a testament to the human will to life that there are still companies in operation in Europe at all? You do understand that we outsource the graphics making for Salem to India because it is ridiculously expensive to hire people in this country, right?

If you wish I could point you to some introductory literature on economics.

History has already proven me right during the past few years and the only thing missing is the population rising up to demand back their right which is the state. The state belongs to all of us and there we have the root of all evil these days.

Aaah, the thoroughly politicized masses rising up as one man and demanding their rights? Sounds just lovely. You don't think that we've had enough of that shit in the past century? Wouldn't some peace and quiet be a nice change of pace?

State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: "I, the state, am the people."
It is a lie! It was creators who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life.
Destroyers are they who lay snares for the many, and call it state: they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them.
Where there are still peoples, the state is not understood, and is hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs.

By their very nature, civil relations are not the primary relations in anyone's life, and most people have no idea of how even to begin resisting political demands that would absorb those relations into a radically different kind of social order. For civil man, politics is generally a distinctly part-time matter. For the political fanatic, politics is everything.

To then once again come back to Adorno (yes I love him very much) that is probably a result of dumbing down the masses by the use of mass cultural media (Adorno was originally a scientist for music and believes strongly in the mind numbing impact of pop music, but also movies etc. I would be interested to see him comment on the internet, would turn in his grave the good man). This dumbing down leads to all of us rather sitting in front of our monitors playing a game than to get our asses into the political apparatus and start to be part of the decision making proccess.

lol. A democrat despising popular culture? Remind me, again, all that classical music and all those great works of art which you presumably believe aim to describe the higher, nobler human ideals, when was it all created? In democracies? Mozart was active at the court of the supreme soviet of Austria?

It was created precisely in the age of Absolute Monarchies, at the courts of a thousand European Kings and Princes. That pop-culture you speak of so disparagingly is precisely characteristic of democratic societies. It aims only to please the lowest common denominator among men, which usually is simply the more animal needs. Aristocratic art aims to please the prince, and thus it is refined.

By and large the literature of a democracy will never exhibit the order, regularity, skill, and art characteristic of aristocratic literature; formal qualities will be neglected or actually despised. The style will often be strange, incorrect, overburdened, and loose, and almost always strong and bold. Writers will be more anxious to work quickly than to perfect details. Short works will be commoner than long books, wit than erudition, imagination than depth. There will be a rude and untutored vigor of thought with great variety and singular fecundity. Authors will strive to astonish more than to please, and to stir passions rather than to charm taste.

-- Democracy in America

Such was the Glory of Europe.

This all has in no way the loss of individual freedom as a result and I love that freedom just as much as you do. Or do you feel repressed in the current system you live in?

Of course. The state does nothing but get in my way in whatever I attempt to do and accomplish in life. 70% of the time I spend working is entirely wasted, and I do not recognize any such claims on my time, which is very dear to me, as I do not have a lot of it in this life, which is the only life I believe I shall ever live. Fundamentally, though, it isn't so much about the money -- something I respect, but fundamentally do not care too much about -- as about the moronic ways it's being spent. I have had to work pretty hard for every penny I've ever earned in my life, and seeing it spent on political pet peeves, or on promoting gender equality, or on bailing out fiscally irresponsible countries on the other side of the continent, or on some other completely arbitrary goal that my wise overlords have arbitrarily decided that they should force me to pay for is frankly rather nauseating considering I actually worked for that money whereas my wise overlords decidedly didn't.

Last question is if you believe in an anarcho-capitalistic system entirely without a state such as David Friedman (Miltons son) proposed it? I find the thought not entirely unintriguing, but in the end such a construct would be nothing but an arbitrary system of total power I fear.

I don't. I consider myself a Monarchist, but I do believe in the right of secession. If you wish to live outside the law I will not deny you that right. You, on the other hand, would obviously have to bear the consequences of not being subject to the King's Peace.

Seriously, though, it is a matter on which I am not sure I have any firm opinions. I believe in human liberty and I believe that monarchy generally speaking is the system most well adapted to preserve human liberty. With regards to the full anarcho-capitalist argument I am rather torn. I have made the observation that traditional -- i.e. migration period -- Germanic society -- most well documented perhaps in its Icelandic form -- had many similarities with anarcho-capitalist society.

The medieval Icelandic state had an unusual structure. At the national level, the Althing was both court and legislature; there was no king or other central executive power. Iceland was divided into numerous goðorð (plural same as singular), which were essentially clans or alliances run by chieftains called goðar (singular goði). The chieftains provided for defense and appointed judges to resolve disputes between goðorð members. The goðorð were not strictly geographical districts. Instead, membership in a goðorð was an individual's decision, and one could, at least theoretically, change goðorð at will. However, no group of lesser men could elect or declare someone a goði. The position was the property of the goði; and could be bought, sold, borrowed, and inherited.

Obviously fairly reminiscent of the "anarcho-capitalist" vision. Nevertheless those societies, especially so, obviously, on the continent, gradually evolved into geographically delimited monopolies which then solidified into the more modern states of the Holy Roman Empire. This evolution is probably a fairly natural occurrence, which leads me to believe that the "anarcho-capitalist" system isn't a very stable form. The idea that such a system could somehow be given any sort of meaningful permanence unfortunately reeks of utopianism.

So, I'm undecided, but, you know what? I'd probably stop bitching if the tax rates were, say, half of what they are today, if politicians didn't get paid to rule and lord over me, and if there were at least some restrictions placed on the exercise of state force, such as we always used to have back when our King actually had power.

Now that I have been kind enough to write this long-ass wall of text just for you, could you perhaps be so kind as to show your late, lamented and beloved King and Emperor -- Wir Wilhelm von Gottes Gnaden, Deutscher Kaiser und König von Preußen, Markgraf zu Brandenburg &c&c -- some respect and restore his august visage to its rightful place in your avatar image? Wir wollen unseren alten Kaiser Wilhelm wiederhaben, dammit!

[Potjeh]

I believe -- together with Plato and Aristotle -- that the natural course of democracies is to evolve into dictatorships and tyrannies. The masses are quite simply not intelligent, learned, responsible and, frankly, interested enough to be entrusted with the running of a state

It really depends on what kind of masses you're dealing with. Poor masses' discontent with the present system will drive them into the hands of any demagogue. Middle class, though, is highly conservative because they wish to retain their social status. They will quickly reject anyone remotely radical in favour of tried and true things. Sure enough, this means a certain degree of political stagnation, but it also means stability which is IMO a highly desirable thing in any society. Anyway, point is that democracies work pretty well in societies with a large and well educated middle class, just like every other form of government has it's optimum social environment - I don't believe there is a one size fits all. I'd say that the quickest way to tyranny is making education prohibitively expensive which is a trend we're seeing with university fees recently, or even worse abolishing public education completely which IIRC is something you support.

If the welfare state ever had a shot it was, indeed, in the Germanic countries, and it is telling that the least failed Communist state was precisely the DDR.

Yugoslavia was doing better than DDR Only problem is that it relied too much on Tito's personality cult to hold it together.

[burgingham]

human liberty in the context of a society

There is no liberty at all if the ultimate power lies with a illegitimate government that cannot be overthrown by legal means.

The masses are quite simply not intelligent, learned, responsible and, frankly, interested enough to be entrusted with the running of a state.

You say that like this is a premise, an axiomatic fact, but it is not and that might be the biggest flaw in your entire reasoning. The masses are like that because they have been kept like that since forever. By the totalitarian rulers much more than by the democratic ones, but even those seem to have a tendency or interest to keep the masses in a state of dullness. That is why I eventually always come back to education as the one and only tool to achieve fair, free and equal conditions for everyone within society. That is also yet again the reason why Critical Theory is so important to give the masses the tools of making their own, truly free choices.

Capitalism without freedom -- the defining characteristic of the social-democratic welfare state

Now now, that is just populist rethoric with no evidence to throw those two together. I was talking about a free welfare state without (our current form of) capitalism. That is the real solution. I am by no means a specialist on economics, but I believe the solution has something to do with the advancement in technologies freeing us from the need of participating in production and productivity at all. Granted that is a little utopean at this point, but it is not like we aren't way too deep in an ideological debate already.

Thus I tend to use the term "corpo-cleptocratic", or similar, as many International Megacorps are indeed little better than vampires. Goldman-Sachs comes to mind.

I am reading this bit by bit and commenting, so not sure if we come back to this again with my anarcho-capitalism question, but this is exactly the problem I see with every capitalistic, libertarian society. The tendency of the creation of monopolies PLUS the non-existance of a force to regulate that. So once it happens in a libertarian society it is already too late. Even if there is only a very minor chance of a total monopoly that is enough to let me refuse the entire idea of such a system alltogether since it would lead to the worst form of slavery should it ever come to this. Granted one could try to argue that the nation-state is a form of monopoly as well, but again that one we have legal means to overthrow and take it back (in a functioning democracy, I always got to add that to not have people confuse my argument as a speech for the actually existing democratic governments right now).

Do you dispute that Greece is bankrupt because it has been running a welfare state ponzi scheme for the past few decades?

This is not a flaw of the welfare state, but the one of a corrupt government. Corrupted by the economic sector btw.

You do understand that we outsource the graphics making for Salem to India because it is ridiculously expensive to hire people in this country, right?

Again not a problem of the welfare state, but a problem deriving from the beast that is this globalized power capitalism. A problem of exploiting the less educated or fortunate. What we need to do is create equaliy in a sense of making their lives better and not ours worse. We have the technology, we have the knowledge, we have the power. The ones hoarding it are just too greedy to ever get it rolling. Current forms of development aid are only replicating existing inequalities, but that just as a side note.

Wouldn't some peace and quiet be a nice change of pace?

Not peace achieved through dumbing everyone down enough to not make them care anymore. Just look at Facebook these days to see what they have done to us. Brings me right back to Adorno and his fear of mass media. Your assumption that no great art has ever evolved in democracies is making a correlation into a causality. And not even that. There are lots of works that Adorno would have deemed fitting which were created in democracies. He has a big thing for "modern" music for example, atonal patterns etc. But that is probably going too far to elaborate on right now. What is the point is that art is there to stimulate the mind in his eyes and the media should transport that and demand us to use our brains. They have however been corrupted right off the bat and been abused to achieve the exact opposite. Dumbing down the masses and keeping them imprisoned in that system.

Toquevilles assumption there is simply wrong in my opinion as well. That again has rather something to do with the economic system demanding to rush work, to show results rather than to pay attention to the quality of the results. The political system in no way correlates to that. If anything we should aim to all be the princes that art aims to pleasure. Not arbitrarily pick some of us to be those princes. We all have the same requirements to be such princes, so let us all be one!

Of course. The state does nothing but get in my way in whatever I attempt to do and accomplish in life. 70% of the time I spend working is entirely wasted, and I do not recognize any such claims on my time, which is very dear to me, as I do not have a lot of it in this life, which is the only life I believe I shall ever live. Fundamentally, though, it isn't so much about the money -- something I respect, but fundamentally do not care too much about -- as about the moronic ways it's being spent. I have had to work pretty hard for every penny I've ever earned in my life, and seeing it spent on political pet peeves, or on promoting gender equality, or on bailing out fiscally irresponsible countries on the other side of the continent, or on some other completely arbitrary goal that my wise overlords have arbitrarily decided that they should force me to pay for is frankly rather nauseating considering I actually worked for that money whereas my wise overlords decidedly didn't.

Problem here is that all these decisions are or should be ultimately made to help you. Nation states strive for self-preservation first as any other system does. That means the decision they make with your money are to keep themselves in a stable state. Such as bailing out other countries to keep your own economy stable in the end. That there are wrong decisions made I don't question. Has partially to do with the human nature of not being perfect and partially with the corrupted state the systems are in right now (again).

I'd probably stop bitching if the tax rates were, say, half of what they are today, if politicians didn't get paid to rule and lord over me, and if there were at least some restrictions placed on the exercise of state force, such as we always used to have back when our King actually had power.

I can at least agree with some of those

So to sum my argument up: It is usually the economic system influencing the political system that makes the political system appear undesirable. It is also problematic that we have uneducated masses (with such I think you are probably right that a politicization in their current state would cause more harm than help) and that only a complete overhaul of all educational systems from the very bottom of their systematics.

P.S. Always happy about some literature.