From my most recent column over at the Center for a Stateless Society:
We've got a bailout tsar, a car tsar, a climate tsar, a technology tsar, a general "regulatory" tsar, war and foreign policy tsars galore. Can't swing a cat in Washington DC these days without knocking over a would-be Romanov heir. I half expect Obama to appoint a tsar tsar to keep track of all of them (maybe he can find someone named Binks to fill the position).
From an anarchist standpoint, the unveiling of the New Tsardom strikes me as a positive development ... an honest development. The root of the word "tsar" or "czar" is the German "kaiser," which in turn derives from the Latin "caesar." No need to rehash the entirety of Roman history here: Suffice it to say that Julius Caesar's rise to supreme power in Rome was anti-climax -- the inevitable result of increasing vestment of power in the executive, power yielded to that executive by a putative "republic" which kept its decorative democratic trappings in place long after the transfer of real power had become fact.
Nothing new under the sun, folks. This is the nature of government.
You can read the rest of "My God! It's Full of Tsars!" over at C4SS. Also available and not previously promoted here:
- War (On Your Health) is the Health of the State
- Speaking of the State
- Because They Can, Wingtip Edition
- Are Your Papers in Order?
- "Dealergate" is Really Just Business as Usual
- Daniel Hauser's Run for the Border
- To Serve and Protect (Themselves)
- The Problem With Privatization
- Go Ahead and Jump
- The Budget? Fudge It!
- It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want To
- Missing Person
- Think Globally, Bully Locally
Enjoy.
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