A short treatise on the injustice of directorial government
by Rylond Sebastian Schönberg, in an editorial to Reason & Times Magazine, 1893
(Rylond Sebastian Schönberg was elected President by the Boer Kongres led by the Republican-Liberal Coalition following the collapse of the Boer Republican Party's majority. In this article penned at the end of last year, Herr Schönberg examines the governments of entities as diverse as the British Commonwealth, the French Commune, the North German Federation, the Russian Directory, and the Tokugawa Shogunate as examples of "directorial government" as a form of bureaucratic despotism. He argues that democracy and liberalism are superior philosophies for guaranteeing the rights of Man. Herr Schönberg, known to his friends as "Big Sebastian" for his tall stature and wide frame, was for many years a practicing lawyer living and working in Johannesburg, where he engaged in several cases on behalf of farmers, ranchers, and businessmen opposing government overreach. He has been an outspoken critic of the Boer Republican Party, leading to his ascension in the ranks of the Liberal-Market Party.)
OUR colleagues in the Progressive Party have, for many years now, crowed about the superiority of what they call "directorial government;" and have had occasion on all of these instances to cite the success of policies in Russia and Germany as testament to this fact. What the average Boer knows about this relatively small movement is that they support limiting the powers of the democratic bodies that constitute the government of the Free Boer Republik, and placing these powers instead more fully into professional organizations with the skills and knowledge required to apply the lessons scraped from the difference engines - what they call "the engines of progress for the 20th century."
I have spoken before against the irresponsible usage of government powers, that result from their unseemly extension to all corners of society, but never had occasion yet to address this problem in the specific terms to which it is applied: the diminution of the Kongres and the elevation of the unelected Bureaucracy. The argument goes that bureaucracy can enshrine rule by professional and qualified individuals, and thereby guarantee legal equality and competent rule. This notion has allowed the Russian Directory, most prominently, to acquire complete control within its own domain; and it has influenced, to a certain extent, the evolution of allied movements in other nations. With the failure now of the Boer Republican Party to keep the peace, and the noted and hated excesses which it applied in the name of democratic rule, they have gained a certain amount of cachet among other critics of President van die Berge and his confederates. But, I maintain that although the Boer Republicans squandered their mandate to the detriment of us all, in the end they yielded to the will of the people, which now has set course to correct their misdeeds; no such guarantees exist under the bureaucratic despotism which the Progressive Party desires, and indeed no system of government can correct the will of Man to be Wicked.
What much love of Progressivism stands for, in my eyes, is a misunderstanding of the nature of civil society and government. We can identify these misconceptions as the guiding principles of governments which have sought to supplant the role of individuals and private actors with government control and direction, which indeed is the premise of "directorial government." The assumption is that Man cannot be trusted to command his own destiny, and in fact all that keeps him from slitting the throats of his fellows is the stern hand of a ruler, and the warning of consequences. I've heard observers from Germany comment that Man never commanded his own destiny, and in fact always lives in misery and squalor, unless productively controlled and allocated by a wise overlord.
Clearly, these observers have never walked among the people whom they claim to speak for. The truth is so much simpler than can be supplied by any manner of historical rationalism or authoritarian logic. I ask these Progressives, who desire the rule of wisdom, from whence does wisdom come? Is it supplied by judicious study of history? - No, it cannot be; for we all study the same history, colored by our inviolable perceptions. Is it supplied by law and order? - No, for even lawmen and ordergivers have been known to engage in tyranny. Is it supplied by education? - No, for even the learned can be foolish. No, I say that the wisdom which we rely upon to evade destruction springs from our own hearts, which every man is entitled to in equal measure, and which only through exemplification of virtue can be realized in fullness. The truth is that there is no system which can guarantee wise rulers, because wisdom does not exist as an absolute. It is the product of virtuous behavior and responsibility towards oneself and towards others. The usefulness of law is in the application of this wisdom, when it has been proven and practiced; and which can be judged by any of us as the measure of a great leader. To a lover of tyranny, the Great Pyramids of Giza symbolize the height and power of authoritarian rule - to me, they symbolize wasteful excess, selfishness, and ruination. Think now! What made ancient Egypt great? Was it their monuments, or was it their prosperity?
The Progressive may reply to this point to say that the prosperity could only have been afforded with tyranny, that great armies purchased this prosperity with blood and warfare. This is only trivially true. In fact, the prosperity did not come from the armies - the armies came from prosperity. As surely as the Nile flowed and the plains bloomed with life, so surely could they be reaped, and their fruits offered up as sacrifices to unjust maniacs who considered themselves above their fellows. Prosperity emerged first from the Earth, and the works of Man, for himself and his equal fellows - and was then taken, despoiled, ruined, and ultimately destroyed by the so-called great aristocracy of their time.
This is the foundation of my philosophy: that the greatness of Man is defined by his work, his pride, and his virtuosity - his society, his government, and his station are incidental to these things. When Man strikes the Earth and pulls forth the wealth from within, he enriches himself; when he trades the sweat of his brow Honestly with others, he shares that wealth for the enrichment of all. To view this interaction as an aberration or as something sinister to be controlled, as Men are animals, chattel, resources, however it can be justified - I say this is the soul of Evil, the detachment from society and humanity that allows the very worst excesses of tyrants to be realized, only later to be justified as "necessary" for the betterment of some privileged few.
Think now! What truly, substantially, makes the government of Britain different from the government of the North German Federation, or of Russia or Nippon? I say it is nothing, so long as they execute the same philosophy in approach to their people and the societies which have entrusted them with due custodianship. In some ways, these
juntas have evolved past the need for an absolute monarch, who need not be fettered by any fellows as he regards himself utterly Supreme in all things; but in other ways, they have not evolved past the primitive desire to despise the works of Man and his natural Freedom, which they then conspire to take away. It makes no difference if the ruling élite calls themselves generals or soldiers, or bureaucrats or scientists, or businessmen or aristocrats, because the nature of the élite remains the same in all these cases: of superiority, of arrogance, of dismissal of the common Man's concerns as temporal, irrelevant, or petty.
Some of my critics have tried to take advantage of my critiques of elitists to call me a Communard, and to liken me with their ilk. This could not be further from the truth. While I shall not hide my disdain for tyrants, I also do not subscribe to the simplistic interpretation of history that the Communards entertain; and in fact, as I look upon the French Commune, I am filled with nothing but disgust. Whereas they claim to speak for the common man, like their fellow societies of Europe, they grind him underfoot into irrelevance. What use has a confederation of labor unions for the honest businessman? He is merely one, and the needs of the "many" outweigh his desire for enterprise and self-fulfillment. Whereas in more democratic societies we recognize the right of Man to pursue his own destiny and make his own choices, in the Communard society these are reviled if they do not serve the purpose of advancing the "common good." I would not hesitate to describe such a society as just as tyrannical as the entangling bureaucracies of the modern day and the absolute monarchies of the past.
In the end, what shall make the ultimate determination is how those responsible choose to view those they are responsible for. There is only one choice that is moral: to regard them as free individuals, no more or less special than oneself, just as fragile, and just as irreplaceable. Only through such humility can liberty be guaranteed, and responsibility lay with all of us to choose carefully whom we trust, lest we lose the great privilege we have to dwell in a free society. It is for this that I stand and why I shall now and for all time oppose both the Progressives and the Communards.
