I used to think this way as well. I still do to a large extent, but there are a few holes in the data that need filling in.
Freedom comes only with some amount of bureacracy. An individual in the jungle pretty much only has the freedom of dying. Their life is otherwise filled with unknown risks and hidden danger. Two people watching each other’s backs are able to sleep, help each other out of traps and work through unknown territory, including encounters with strangers. Their understanding is the basis of bureaucracy. It’s not a necessary evil, but a very useful tool.
The second thing is that the rulers of us are no longer human. They are algorithms and our (manipulated) instinctive and habitual responses to those algorithms. I very generally use the term “marketing” to cover everything back to the first witch doctor, but the adoption of technology in the last 100 years has really given a boost to algorithmic coercion over intentional human-directed coercion. There’s nobody actually driving this train heading for Collapse.
Like inventions, bureaucracy fills the holes we leave for it. Most of the faceless bureaucrats that get blamed are under much more regulation than the profit-driven algorithms of advertising and fanatical consumptionism. People demand a new highway for autonomous Amazon trucks and the Amazon money goes to Washington and hires bureaucrats to build one through the family farms that are broke anyway because nobody in the local town wanted to subsidize the hardware stores and butcher shops that made small farms tenable.
At least the federal employees HAVE a government code of ethics, which is more than the consumers voting for Amazon have.
Which leads to the “representation” issue. Yes, we have representation in the algorithm-based commerce-advertising-election complex. It’s in your wallet. One dollar truly is one vote. It’s definitely not fair when comparing your votes to Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates.
That’s why we need to eliminate elections and choose representation randomly. If not to replace the current system of felonious lawyers, then to add a 'Peoples House' that all bills must pass, and it only meets for a month. Sans that, then run-off voting is in order.
Sans those: pitchforks and torches: but first, you have to burn all of your money to keep it away from the corporations and stop working for them at a fraction of what they make off you.
Rationally (if that’s your thing), though, if you really want the logical solution, go to fairtax.org and work the path so people receive all of their earned wages and decide if they want to pay the bureaucrats-algorithms or keep their value in their pocket. At least they will know their own value and the actual cost of consumerism.
