The pernicious myth of 'public service'

The central justification for the modern nation state is that it “serves the people.” The modern nation state purportedly consists of obedient servants who provide the public with essential public services. Hence the term “public servant.”

The term “public servant” contains an unspoken but clear implication. It implies that there are two kinds of servants: private servants and public servants.

According to the “master narrative” of democracy, private servants and public servants are both servants. They differ only in whom they serve. Private servants serve private individuals. Public servants serve “the general public.” But both are servants, and both serve their masters.

That is the myth anyway.

In fact, only private servants are truly our servants. Only private servants will ever be our servants.

So-called public servants are not our servants. So-called public servants will never be our servants, for the simple reason that they are in fact our Lords and Masters.

A servant is defined variously as:

One who expresses submission, recognizance, or debt to another: your obedient servant.

One who is employed to perform personal services for an employer and who, in that service, remains entirely under the control of the employer.

One who works for, and is subject to, the control of the master; a person employed to “perform services in the affairs of another and who with respect to the physical conduct in the performance of the services is subject to the other's control or right to control.

Do our so-called “public servants,” particularly “democratically elected” heads of state, regardless of party affiliation, bear even the remotest resemblance to the aforementioned definitions of “servant?”

Did former President Lee Teng-hui, our nominal servant, “express submission, recognizance, or debt to us,” when the 9/21 earthquake struck and his helicopter entourage killed a five-year-old earthquake victim, one of his nominal masters?

Was former Vice President Annette Lu, our nominal servant, “subject to our control,” when Typhoon Mindulle struck, and Lu demanded that Taiwan's Aborigines, the island's original inhabitants, its rightful owners, her nominal masters, be ethnically cleansed from the island?

Was former President Chen Shui-bian, our nominal servant, “entirely under the control of his employer,” when one million of his nominal masters took to the streets and struggled vainly to discharge him for emptying out our national coffers and transferring our hard earned public wealth into his private overseas accounts?

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