The Unreason of State

When, after hearing about a case of government corruption, police torture, or arbitrary arrest we in Europe call on the state to respect moral values, we forget that the most important privilege modern bureaucratic government guarantees (if not imposes on) its subjects and servants is moral irresponsibility.

Be he soldier, functionary, minister or simple citizen, the individual is absolved of all responsibility and relieved of the task of freely examining public issues so long as he obeys orders from above. The state takes on itself the full burden of committing errors, follies and crimes, transforming them into efficacious or at least “inevitable” acts. If the state did not grant this privilege to its citizens it coul...