It should not surprise us that confusion has recently arisen in the global discourse on the state and the public sphere (Friedland and Kunelius 2023; Zürn 2024). It looks like the global economic crisis has also created a crisis of the mind, with disastrous consequences for public discourse. As if the lack of financial resources (food) deprives the brain of the necessary reason (food supply), which then prevents it from functioning.

Interlude

There is an impostor in my first sentence. Who does the subject “us” represent?

Such a statement implies that we all agree on something, which is theoretically and practically impossible. Nevertheless, my statement is meant to provoke the reader, so it is warranted.

The issue

From the discourse of these deprived brains, it follows that the state is (should be) a guardian of the public interest. The above-cited papers try to redefine Habermas as the prime philosopher of a public sphere (Friedland and Kunelius) and propose that the public sphere degrades due to deficient institutional structures (Zürn). The notion taken for granted not only in the two cited papers is that the state does not adequately represent the public; that the state trades the public for the interests of capital, the rich, or some particular interest that is not of public concern.

My point goes much further and is much more straightforward.

The wrong assumption

The prevailing thinking commits a fatal error, one long discarded in theory, by assuming that there is only ONE PUBLIC (in the form of the public interest). In contrast, we know that in any society, there are many publics delineated from one another by the boundary of interest.

Consequently, the criticized line of thinking implies that the state, for example, is not fulfilling its role as “guardian of the public interest” when it proposes cuts in health care, public administration, or education. Such statements appeal to all the disadvantaged who lack the power to confront the situation. They fear a situation in which the state’s role is only to take measures to balance the power of different publics and interests (as it should be). This assumption of the criticized mind is fatal because it implies ONE PUBLIC that the state should represent. This fatal error leads us to totalitarian regimes: Stalinist, fascist, Catholic, “state capitalist,” or mixed economy.

The balance

The state is not there to protect the interests of any public but to secure the balance of power of many existing publics.

However, this fundamental value of liberal democracy, expressed by the American Founding Fathers, has already been forgotten. The aforementioned “sick mindset” drives us all into the familiar traps of negative selection, state intervention, and similar pitfalls. One should look for examples in well-known Stalinism and in all mixed-economy systems spreading everywhere, with America as one of the pioneers of this movement.

Why is this perverse idea so attractive? The answer is simple: it suits all those who cannot express their intellectual, manual, subjective, emotional, labor, inventive, or any other power. This notion is a sugarcoating for all those who are only comfortable when they feel protected, seemingly saving them from exposure to competition. This idea is so convenient for all those who have no will, no power, and no desire to achieve. For all those who like to blame others (who have power…) for their failures, while at the same time cleverly avoiding doing anything for which they might be held accountable. Such minds are perverted, sick, and unproductive. They can shout in public, but shouting is their only expression. They are a fatal burden to human evolution.

Interlude II: The Welfare Society

You should now ask whether I’m against the concept of the welfare state?

My answer is: yes!

However, I do not blame the “welfare” but the “state.” The constructive proposal that would include social care for all those who are either too young or too old, or handicapped is called a welfare society.

The twist is self-evident. Do we want the state to be well-off or the society? The welfare state implies that we work for the benefits of the state. And that is exactly what is going on all around Western civilization. We feed the state while society remains deprived. Thus, we should eliminate the state from welfare. As simple as that.

The final blow

It should be noted that the described statist minds do not understand that they are also the ultimate expression of intelligent-design ideology. Many of them would be (will be) appalled at this assertion since they see themselves as atheistic, democratic-libertarians. But their self-perception has nothing to do with their reality. They long for a strong hand that is not an invisible hand and is God-like.

Unsurprisingly, the title of the book of one of the strongest totalitarians of today, Y.N. Harari, is “Homo Deus.”