Why the US won't go like Egypt

War, Martial Law, and the Economic Crisis by Peter Dale Scott

I don't have any faith that the coercive state can contract or self limit. Classical liberalism, thatcherism and Reaganomics, although vaunted by advocates for limited government, when looked at in real terms, all presided over the continued economic growth of the state much like our current 'swingeing cuts'. There may have perhaps been a switch in who the state favoured but, for all the limited government rhetoric, an empirical analysis that doesn't overlook 'emergency' measures will describe the continued growth of the state.

You can't vote for a smaller state. That's not how the machine of money and power works. You're offered a choice between two pictures of a bigger state. Sometimes, when the economic situation brings such sentiments to the fore, there may be the choice between a big increase in the state and a technically smaller increase in the state. This nominally 'small government' option is always bigger than what we currently have. Spending always increases and taxes always increase.

So faith in the 'democratic process' or the systems of elite representative government to do what's best for us and get off our backs is not only fool hardy but perpetuates the very problem of the state by continuing to legitimise an unstoppable cancer.

As a result I've come to believe that the only hope for freedom is a critical failure in the heart of the state. A catastrophic financial meltdown isn't a popular option to advocate but no political revolution or social uprising can halt the 'progress' of our enemies as effectively as fuel supply interruption.

Elsewhere I've admitted that popular awareness of the state as the root cause of almost any given problem and the possibility and desirability of stateless solutions is non existent. Even free market ideas are in the minority. If UK plc failed tomorrow the people would rush to reconstruct a social-democratic centralised nation state with corporate and social welfare funded by coercive taxation at equivalent levels to today.

Market anarchy libertopia will not spontaneously emerge in 2011. Not in Alexandria, not in benghazi, and not in hemel hempstead.

That said, the linked to article makes it perfectly clear that tptb have already built their defences before our opposition has even emerged. The north African/ middle eastern states failed because they were crap states. Their parasitic statists just weren't as good at the game as ours. Overt authoritarianism against a populace aware of this oppression is expensive and precarious. The west has developed mechanisms and techniques that optimise control and profitability and minimise awareness, cost and risk. Rather than suppress opposition and defend against uprising they co-opt opposition into their system. They buy off hazardous social blocs and make them thankful for their dependency and enslavement.
The north African/middle eastern statists were still using the vertical hierarchical model of state authority which proved unsustainable. Our benign overlords practise the horizontal state. The slaves keep each other in check.

Even if, by some miracle, lovers of freedom can overcome this, as the article shows, the western state is one step ahead, cocked and ready.