Democracy or Bureaucracy? Who’s Really in Charge?

We like to believe that in democratic countries, the people rule through their elected representatives. But the hard truth is that governments are not truly run by the people—they’re run by the people *on the payroll*. And once a system is operated by its employees, it becomes nearly impossible to rein it in.

Every government department, every regulatory agency, every office of compliance and enforcement has one fundamental interest: self-preservation. That means more funding, more power, more employees. It's not about serving the public—it's about sustaining the bureaucracy. This is the real engine of state expansion, and no election changes that.

As the book, The Sovereign Individual, pointed out, modern states function less like benevolent protectors and more like highly organized protection rackets. They claim a monopoly on violence, demand a cut of your income under threat of punishment, and then offer "services" you never asked for—whether you want them or not. And the people running this machinery aren’t just passive participants—they’re the ones keeping the racket going.

Every time a politician promises to cut spending, reduce the deficit, or limit government power, they’re fighting not just political opposition, but an entire embedded class of state functionaries with every incentive to resist change. These aren’t temporary public servants—they’re the permanent government. And they’re not accountable to you—they’re accountable to the system that feeds them.

In the end, democratic governments may derive their legitimacy from the people, but they're operated by a sprawling managerial class that answers to itself. That's not representation—that’s institutional inertia.

And the bill keeps going up.

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