On: EU leaders discuss Iran, Ukraine at Cyprus summit

I read today of leaders gathering in Cyprus to discuss great matters of state. They approved a massive loan for Ukraine, and will speak of budgets and conflicts. I find myself wondering not about the sums of money, nor the strategic calculations, but about the quiet arithmetic of consent that makes such things possible.

Who truly gives this loan? Not the leaders themselves, but the millions who pay taxes without question, who accept that distant authorities may commit their resources to causes they may not understand. The remarkable thing is not that leaders negotiate loans, but that we have all agreed to this arrangement where a few may dispose of the wealth of many. Would you let a friend take your money to give to another friend of his? You would ask many questions first. Yet we accept this when done through the machinery of state, as if the title “leader” transforms appropriation into benevolence.

I do not understand why we maintain this custom of granting such power to so few, and then marvel at how they use it. The habit has become so deep we no longer see it as a habit at all.