Institutional Power: A Tale of Two Worldviews

Power and governance, at their core, are rarely about serving the public—they're about preserving control. A comment in my Price of Convenience piece yesterday summarized it perfectly: "The problem completely changes when the government decides it wants to control you instead of serve you."

This captures a pattern that's become increasingly clear: a society divided not between left and right, but between those who believe government institutions have good intentions but need reform, and those who understand that consolidating power and control is their inherent nature.

My own journey through this understanding has been gradual. Through decades in tech, I witnessed how systems meant to democratize information could become tools for surveillance and control. 

Looking back, it's clear we were building the infrastructure for unprecedented monitoring and social control, though it took me a while to recognize it. Like many in the dot com business (as we referred to it at the time), I believed we were democratizing information and connecting humanity. Instead, we were creating the perfect tools for mass surveillance and social control.

The signs of this broader pattern were everywhere: endless wars launched on false premises, the corporate-government revolving door, the steady erosion of privacy. Like many, I initially saw these as bugs rather than features of the system.

The Reformer's Delusion

Being realistic about the nature of power doesn't make one a pessimist. Understanding how systems actually work is the first step toward building better alternatives. But this illusion is powerful because it offers hope - if we can just reform the system, everything will work as intended.

This pattern of institutional growth follows a predictable cycle that exploits human psychology: First, a problem emerges (real or manufactured). This triggers public reaction - typically fear or outrage. Finally, authorities implement pre-planned “solutions” that expand their control Consider:

• COVID: Problem (virus emerges), Reaction (public fear), Solution (expanded government powers, mandated medical interventions)

• Financial Crisis: Problem (market crash), Reaction (economic panic), Solution (bailouts and expanded Fed control)

• Terrorism: Problem (9/11 attacks), Reaction (fear and uncertainty), Solution (mass surveillance and endless wars)

The temporary "emergency" measures become permanent, yet we fall for this pattern repeatedly because it offers the comfort of apparent action.

This worldview maintains that when the government fails, it's because of corruption, incompetence, or insufficient controls. The solution is always more - more oversight, more regulations, more "qualified" experts (as I explored in "The Illusion of Expertise"). It's a perpetual reform program that never questions whether the institution itself might be the problem.

Consider how this plays out in practice. The FDA fails to protect us from dangerous drugs, so we demand more FDA authority. The SEC fails to prevent financial fraud, so we expand its regulatory powers. The Department of Agriculture fails to protect small farmers, so we give it more power over food production. Each failure becomes justification for expanding the very institutions that failed.

This reform mindset, however compelling, misses a fundamental truth about power itself.

The Realist's Understanding

While reformers chase the mirage of better oversight, realists understand what Machiavelli recognized centuries ago: power seeks its own preservation and expansion.

The American Revolution was sparked by tyrannies far less invasive than what we quietly accept today. A tax on tea and a few soldiers in private homes sparked a rebellion; today, we surrender our private communications, geolocation data, and medical autonomy with barely a protest.

This isn't about malicious individuals. Many people enter government service with genuine desires to help their communities. The problem is systemic. Just as the FDA inevitably serves pharmaceutical companies and the SEC protects Wall Street, every regulatory body eventually serves the power structure it's supposedly monitoring.

Look at how this pattern repeats. The government creates artificial scarcity in healthcare through licensing restrictions and patents, then offers itself as the solution to high costs. It debases the currency through infinite money printing, then blames inflation on private businesses. Each crisis becomes an opportunity for expansion, each failure a justification for more control.

Once promising to democratize information, tech platforms have instead become the perfect tools for centralized control, as evidenced by their collaboration with government agencies during COVID. We witnessed unprecedented coordination between government agencies and tech platforms to suppress dissenting medical opinions, even from highly credentialed experts. The censorship extended to discussions about lab origins, mask effectiveness, and alternative treatments – positions later vindicated by evidence. These 'misinformation' labels became memory-holed when the narrative shifted, but the precedent for control remained.

The same pattern plays out across every domain. Central Bank Digital Currencies are promoted as convenient and secure, but represent unprecedented potential for financial surveillance and control. Similarly, climate policies create complex regulatory frameworks that favor large corporations while expanding surveillance through 'smart' technology mandates. Each so-called 'solution' strengthens centralized power while shifting costs onto those least able to bear them.

The Inversion of Purpose

Each government agency systematically undermines its stated mission - not through incompetence, but by intentional design. The Department of Defense—in perhaps history's most successful rebrand—renamed from its honest original name, the Department of War has kept us in perpetual conflict while consuming the largest military budget in history—while failing its seventh consecutive audit in 2024. The Department of Education has overseen declining test scores and literacy rates, with only 34% of 4th graders reading at grade level. The Department of Health and Human Services presides over a nation where chronic disease rates have doubled since 1980.

Even the Treasury, tasked with maintaining our currency's stability, has overseen a 96% decline in the dollar's purchasing power since 1913. The Environmental Protection Agency often protects corporate polluters while restricting individual and community-level solutions. The FDA serves as a pharmaceutical industry marketing department rather than a consumer protection agency, with 45% of its drug review budget coming from industry fees.

This isn't incompetence; it's intentional design. Each agency becomes a mechanism for concentrating power in the very industries they're supposed to regulate.

Reclaiming Sovereignty

Medieval Iceland thrived for 300 years without centralized government, where disputes were settled through a sophisticated system of voluntary courts and restitution rather than state punishment. The Hanseatic League, a network of free trading cities, dominated Northern European commerce for three centuries through voluntary trade agreements and mutual defense pacts rather than state control, proving that voluntary cooperation can create enduring prosperity.

Today, we're seeing modern versions emerge. Local food networks are bypassing industrial agriculture controlled by regulatory capture. Independent journalists are routing around corporate media gatekeepers. Parallel economies are emerging based on direct exchange and community trust rather than centralized control. Small-scale farmers' markets alone have grown from 1,755 to over 8,600 in the past two decades, improving food security, reducing environmental impact, and keeping wealth within communities.

These aren't just protests against the current system - they're blueprints for a freer future. Every homeschool cooperative and local trade network demonstrates how human flourishing happens naturally when people cooperate voluntarily.

The real battle isn't between the artificial enemies presented in partisan news organizations designed to divide us, but between those who still believe in the benevolence of centralized power and those who see it for what it is. The former group keeps trying to reform a system whose primary purpose is control. The latter group is busy building alternatives.

I maintain the real solution isn't through reform—it's through creation. Every local initiative, every independent network, every act of voluntary cooperation weakens the grip of centralized control. The question isn't whether we can fix broken institutions; it's whether we'll build better alternatives before the next crisis justifies even greater centralized power.

The good news? Once you see the system for what it is, you can't unsee it. With every decentralized action, every network built, and every community strengthened, we plant the seeds of real change. Sovereignty isn't given—it's reclaimed.