EGGS

A sky in regulation – colourless, obedient, efficient. No birds, just the buzz of surveillance drones dancing above the rooftops, blessing you with their silent judgement. The air bleeds only the smell of bleach and fear. You look to your feet, every patch of green grass under you a different shade of grey. What will it be today? Capitalism, socialism, communism, or some other hybrid economic system gift-wrapped for the working-class with pretty colours and slogans.

It doesn’t really matter – it is always concentrated power, diminished agency, and a system more interested in preserving itself than the people it claims to serve – like clamshell packaging.

“Everything is fine” he said.

“That’s what people say before things aren’t” she said.

“Well, everything will be fine” he said.

“That’s worse” she said.

Capitalism looks sexy, it’s the top shelf stuff on the magazine stand, freshly pressed, sharp cut, glossy cover for easy cleaning. But then we see America, where capitalism has reached stage IV of its cancer and has begun to devour its own democratic foundations. His little older brother the UK, following blindly behind, dragging its friends down with it.

In Marxist theory, Marx dreamt big, like a child sketching castles in the fog. Socialism, the halfway house to the economic nirvana that is communism, where workers take the reins and guide the carriage to classless bliss, in practice, has rarely followed the script. With every attempt being less about omelettes, and more about breaking eggs.

The pattern here is well-known: when a state assumes total control of the economy and the lives of its citizens, even if initially justified by revolutionary ideals or equity, falls toward authoritarianism. Often, the justification is survival – the revolution must be defended from internal enemies, class traitors, and foreign powers. In the end, the state’s grip tightens, and the utopian ideal blurts into dystopian rule, like the popping of a spot.

But don’t think the other side wears a halo. Capitalism, that glistening machine of freedom, innovation, and bespoke coffee, hides its rot behind a subscription where you can’t even buy eggs, let alone break them.

You are “free”, kinda, like a fish in a tank, and they seem content, I think.

In the United States, the form of authoritarianism emerging isn’t forged in the fires of revolution – it’s baked slowly, over decades, through wealth concentration. As billionaires accumulate more power, and corporations gain the ability to influence elections, write legislation, and shape public discourse with the media they own, you end with something much subtler than authoritarianism, and perhaps more insidious: a plutocracy – rule by the wealthy.

Politicians are elected by voters, yes, but funded by donors. Regulations are debated but drafted by lobbyists. Citizens are free to speak, but their voices are drowned out by media. But it still “feels like democracy”, right? Here, have some freedom sauce on your hotdog.

This pattern – from idealistic structure to concentrated power isn’t new. Robert Michels coined the Iron Law of Oligarchy in the early 20th century, observing that every organisation, no matter how democratic at its inception, eventually develops oligarchic tendencies. Leaders consolidate authority, bureaucracies entrench themselves, and the system begins serving itself before it serves the people.

The problem is every system needs someone in charge, but no one should ever be in charge. To quote Douglas Adams –

The major problem – one of the major problems, for there are several – one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Personally, and honestly, I think we should just give power to whoever can pull a sword from a rock and hope for the best.