It’s more a charade that they don’t have as much power as they do. It’s one of the great ironies of modernity. In ancient times, you would want people to know you were powerful, so they would tremble in fear. Now it’s all who me? I couldn’t hurt a fly even if I wanted to. 
Didn’t I already give you three major ones? If I give you more we’ll probably just argue in circles anyway.
What I was getting at there is that they’re oozing doublethink. They’ve got people believing as an article of faith that Big Gov is the Big Bad Wolf, not because it’s corrupt, but because it’s automatically bad. And then they turn around and say it needs to be bigger (doing more). Suddenly intervention is good, or it’s somehow not intervention. We have always been at war with Bigbizasia. 
And they keep doing it. It’s like the stick-in-the-wheel meme. Deregulate, then blame the other side when the deregulated thing turns sour. You want to interfere with business? You’re a commie. Business isn’t doing what I want and needs my interference? You’re still a commie.
Not necessarily. It depends on the fine print and whatever the law happens to say in whatever jurisdiction happens to have jurisdiction.
I’ll try to find the guy shortly.
The basic principle does apply.
The transition from absolute monarchy to oligarchy is the deconcentration of power. Every additional step towards democratization, likewise. Think of the Magna Carta. It failed, but after a century of further attempts, one of the rewrites kind of stuck. And of course the monarchs kept doing their monarch stuff anyway, but gradually, messily, a more sophisticated system developed. Nowadays if the head of government receives bad news, people have a reasonable expectation that he won’t respond by gouging out the messenger’s eyes. Revert to absolute monarchy, and who’s going to stop him?
The size of the government will always be large in a large, complex, modern economy. Otherwise, you get de facto government by the private sector, and then you have the problem of plutocracy as I explained.
When you have a high concentration of power, whether in the de facto or the de jure government, ignoring it is likely to make it worse. The good news is, if the public sector is not too far gone down the road of remonarchization, you can use it to keep the private sector in check, and also use this thing called democracy to keep the public sector in check.
You misunderstand what I mean by facade in that context. A state where the dear leader is elected but has a 99.9999% approval rating, for example, would tend to be analyzed as a de facto absolute monarchy.
Well no, that’s not it. Take the de facto example I just gave. There’s no separation of powers to speak of. In a typical western country, there may be a serious lack of independence of the legislative and executive branches from each other (thanks Westminster 
), but you still have a high degree of judicial independence, and the leg and exec branches need to hold themselves out as independent.
Not sure how you mean that.
- It’s the source of their power because it gives them legitimacy in the eyes of the public?
- It’s the source of their power because it gives them the resources they need to enforce whatever it is they might want to enforce?
- It’s the source of their power because without it there’s nothing for them to do all day?
There are different types of intelligence. People can be trained to see through bullshit. They can also be trained to believe it. They can even be trained to think they’re seeing through bullshit when they’re actually falling for it.
Of course that’s going to be present as a subconscious factor, but I think you’re giving it far too much weight if you view it as the main issue. Plenty of people are truly scared of the virus, even now, even among anti-mandaters. The main difference is the anti-mandaters are either (1) more scared of the jab than of the virus or (2) more scared of a world without freedom than of the virus.
A surfeit of education and sophistication? It was also a de facto absolute monarchy. Politically speaking, that’s the antithesis of sophistication.
You’re thinking in absolutes again. But let’s not go in circles…
Of course it’s going to be the state (if anyone), because without it you just don’t have the kind of power that’s needed to pull it off. What’s their motivation? Good government for its own sake, ideally. If that’s not enough (and it usually isn’t), it’s up to the people to give them the extra motivation.
The system ensured nothing. If people were better organized and willing to get off their lazy asses and vote, the result could have been drastically different. Think of it like cleaning your room! 
Speaking of which, haven’t we been over this?
Of course the state funds itself. But certain people fund specific politicians and parties and also fund (directly or indirectly) certain tendencies in the state and even specific programs.
Say Joe Zillionaire gives Joe Politician an incentive, in kind rather than in cash, such as a vacation on Joe Z’s island (because cash requires a lot of paperwork), and Joe P gives Joe Z $50m (of taxpayer money via a charity that Joe Z just happens to control).
Who funded what? The taxpayer funded the government, and the government funded Joe Z. But Joe Z funded the specific politician who (it stands to reason) wouldn’t have done it without the incentive.
Set up a barrier for this kind of thing, and surely they will look for a way around it. (The island already is a way around the problem of paying in cash.) Set up an anti-corruption committee, and you’ll need a committee to watch the committee, and so on.
But do nothing, and it’s a free for all. I’m essentially saying don’t do nothing, and if what you do it isn’t good enough, do better. Keep going. The world keeps turning, no matter how disappointed anyone is.
Small scale? Sure, could happen. Full on? Nah. It would be someone else’s government. 