Government as Employee: Why No Servant Has the Right to Burden the Master With Debt

Government as Employee: Why No Servant Has the Right to Burden the Master With Debt

In the modern political order, governments behave as if they are sovereign beings. They sign treaties, make promises, and, perhaps most consequentially, generate debt. Trillions of dollars are created in the form of bonds and obligations, binding not only today’s taxpayers but also unborn generations. And yet, if we strip away the myths and legal fictions, what is government really? It is not a god, nor a king, nor even a person. It is an employee of the people — a janitorial service tasked with administration.

And just as no employee may walk into a bank and sign a loan in the name of their employer without explicit authorization, no government should be able to indebt the public without its direct, informed consent.

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1. Government Is Not a Person

A person can be held morally and legally responsible. A government, however, is an abstraction — a shifting collection of officeholders, departments, and clerks. When the government borrows recklessly, no individual minister or bureaucrat personally repays the debt. Instead, it is transferred onto the shoulders of taxpayers, who never signed the contract.

In legal systems, governments and corporations are given “legal personhood” to make contracts easier. But this is a dangerous fiction. It hides the fact that real persons — the citizens — are being bound by decisions they never authorized. If an employee in a private company were to borrow money in the company’s name without board approval, it would be treated as fraud. Why is it different for government?

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2. The Employer–Employee Relationship

Citizens are the employers. They pay the wages of politicians, civil servants, and military staff through taxation. In any rational framework, this means government is subordinate — it exists to execute the will of its masters.

No janitor may order a golden chandelier on the employer’s credit card. No secretary may mortgage the office building for a personal project. And no prime minister or president should be able to sign away the future of millions without those millions having given their explicit authorization.

If the government truly is a servant, it should never presume to be the master.

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3. The Moral Fraud of Public Debt

Public debt is unique because it binds not just those alive today, but the unborn. Children enter the world already burdened by obligations they never agreed to. This violates one of the most basic moral principles: no one can consent on behalf of another without direct mandate.

Thomas Jefferson argued that debts should naturally expire within a generation — roughly 19 years — because one generation cannot morally bind the next. Yet modern states roll over debts endlessly, treating the public purse as a bottomless resource. This is not governance. It is intergenerational theft.

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4. The Illusion of Necessity

Defenders of state borrowing argue that emergencies require flexibility. But history shows this is a mask. Wars, pet projects, election promises, and subsidies for powerful industries are the true drivers of debt. When genuine catastrophes occur, nations help each other through aid and solidarity — not by endlessly indebting their populations.

If commerce, trade, and cooperation were prioritized, war itself would be nearly obsolete. In such a world, “emergency borrowing” would be rare, and most of it could be funded transparently through voluntary contributions or direct public approval.

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5. The Principle of Consent

The principle is simple: no debt without consent.

If the people authorize borrowing through referendum, then the obligation is legitimate.

If the people do not authorize it, the debt is void, and those who signed it are personally liable.

This restores the basic employer–employee dynamic. The servant cannot spend what the master has not approved. The janitor does not buy chandeliers. The administrator does not sign mortgages.

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6. Accountability and Enforcement

How could this principle work in practice?

Citizen Approval: Any major borrowing proposal would require direct citizen approval, either by referendum or citizen assembly.

Transparency: All borrowing must be publicly recorded, with full disclosure of purpose, interest rates, and beneficiaries.

Personal Liability: Politicians and bureaucrats who authorize unauthorized debt would bear personal liability — their assets, not the people’s, would be used to repay.

Expiry: No debt may extend beyond a set generational limit, ensuring no unborn citizen is bound.

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7. The New Social Contract

Government is a tool. A broom, a ledger, a service. It sweeps, records, and organizes. It is not a sovereign. It is not a master.

The act of indebting citizens without consent is a breach of the social contract. It is an employee presuming to be king. It is theft disguised as law. And just as no employer would tolerate such behavior in a business, the people should no longer tolerate it in the public sphere.

The future belongs to those who reclaim this principle: government is a service, not a person — and servants cannot indebt their masters.