History has known attempts to escape this vicious cycle. Following revolutions and upheavals, the democratic system was born — a compromise between absolute power and chaos. The idea was simple: citizens delegate authority to elected representatives for a fixed term. These representatives assemble in parliaments and — supposedly — express the will of those who elected them.
The reasoning seemed sound. Large groups of people cannot make collective decisions by shouting in public squares. The technology for the direct participation of millions in governance did not exist. Representation appeared to be the only available answer.
But what ultimately emerged was the continuation of the same old system of appropriating power from each individual person — only now not through violence, but voluntarily. Citizens surrendered their agency, receiving in return the illusion of participation: the right, once every several years, to choose who would make decisions on their behalf.
The Nature of Power
Power is not simply the capacity to compel. It is the monopoly over the definition of reality. Whoever holds power determines: what is just and what is unjust, what is lawful and what is criminal. People do not merely live under the control of power — they live inside a picture of the world that power has constructed.
The separation of powers into branches, constitutions, human rights declarations — all of these represent attempts to restrain power from within, through systems of checks and counterbalances.
In practice, however, these mechanisms demonstrate systemic inadequacy. Corruption in the highest echelons of power, conflicts of interest, opacity in decision-making — these phenomena reproduce themselves across all political systems regardless of formal institutional guarantees. Even in states with established democratic traditions, the expansion of state control and the erosion of civil liberties are observable trends.
Democracy has become a marketplace of influence. Electoral campaigns require enormous financial resources, accessible primarily to corporate capital. Lobbying structures obtain privileged access to the legislative process. While formally preserving the principle of "one person — one vote," the system operates in practice on the principle of "one dollar — one vote." This is not a corruption of representative democracy — it is its logical consequence.
Sovereign Debt as a Systemic Indicator
Almost every state in the world — regardless of political system or level of development — has accumulated public debt comparable to or exceeding its annual GDP. A paradox emerges: an institution created to manage the resources of society systematically spends more than it is capable of producing.
No international or domestic institution exists with authority to declare the financial insolvency of a state. The procedure of bankruptcy, in the sense in which it applies to other legal subjects, has no equivalent for sovereign states.
People who played no part in the decisions that created the debt bear its consequences. Their children will inherit obligations they did not incur and from which they cannot withdraw.
The asymmetry of accountability. Legal systems are built on the principle of inescapable responsibility. Codes and regulations comprehensively govern the obligations of citizens and the sanctions for failing to meet them. The mechanism of accountability functions without fail in one direction: from citizen to state.
In the reverse direction, this mechanism is absent. The state does not account to citizens for the causes and consequences of its debt. Citizens possess no legal instrument that would allow them to demand such an accounting or to challenge borrowing decisions.
In systemic crises — defaults, devaluations, the erosion of savings — responsibility is attributed to specific officials, parties, or external circumstances. The state as an institution remains beyond the reach of accountability.
The burden of consequences falls on citizens — through inflation, taxation, and the curtailment of guarantees. Without their consent and without compensation.
The Defeatist Narrative
Corruption, organized crime, inflation, economic inequality, social polarization, the degradation of public health, the erosion of justice, political apathy. Wars, arms races, economic crises, the inability to confront global threats.
The existence of these problems is not denied. But instead of acknowledging systemic failure, two justifications are offered.
The first: there is no alternative. The state in its present form is the only conceivable way to organize society. Democracy is imperfect, but humanity has found nothing better. This idea is repeated so often it has come to be treated as an axiom.
The second: the human person is inherently flawed. People are selfish, aggressive, incapable of self-organization. Without external control, compulsion, and punishment, they would destroy one another. Power over them is therefore not an evil but a necessity.
Both constructs are the system's defensive mechanisms. They render criticism meaningless: why change what has no alternative? Why liberate those incapable of freedom?
Both constructs are refuted by experience.
The problem is not human nature. The problem is that any institution separated from the direct participation of people will, sooner or later, lose its connection to reality and undermine itself. Reforming such a system from within is exceptionally difficult — it reproduces itself through any change.