Saturday, March 18, 2023

Pierre Proudhon on being governed

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon | The Anarchist Library 

 

I am on a search to understand the factors amounting to the distress we in the West seem to be under. The existential "homelessness" as I call it in my Substack entitled Homecoming. Perhaps the manner in which we are governed has something to do with it...

 

A quote on being governed from Pierre Proudhon: 

 

"To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. 

 

"To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place[d] under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."

 

A solution? Read Paul Kinsnorth's wonderful essay, The Jellyfish Tribe

 

 

 

 

 

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