We posted an excerpt on corporations yesterday. We hope you enjoyed it. Today we flip the coin a bit, and look at governments in the Kalos Universe…

Governments

George Washington is reputed to have said, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force.” While the authenticity of the quotation is in doubt, the accuracy of that assertion is not.

In the Kalos Universe, governments are the tangible expression of the natural tendency of some individuals to seek to dominate others through the use of force. Those who are part of the government are the “insiders”, while those subject to the government’s rule are the “outsiders”. Insiders have a pecking order where some wield more power than others, and the means by which insiders rise and fall in the hierarchy depends on the specific form of government.

The goals of those in government depend on their rank in the hierarchy, and vice versa. At the lowest levels, such as a city council or a school board, most insiders will seek to use their power and status to force others to adhere to a certain moral code or to gain some benefit for a preferred social group. Some may even seek to promote what they perceive to be the “common good”. At intermediate levels, such as in state governments, smaller national agencies, or even upper levels of national governments in smaller countries, the insider’s desire for money, power, and status is as important as their concern for public morality or social justice. At the highest levels of government, such as the legislatures and major agencies of world powers, the goals of those in government are money, power, and status, to the exclusion of all other considerations.

Outsiders, those not in government, often think that governments exist to provide services. Governments may in fact provide services for outsiders, but this is incidental. A government without a postal system, a highway department, or a department that administers medical subsidies would still be a government. A government without an army, on the other hand, would cease to be a government. As Mao Zedong said, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”