Politics & Power Quote by Jose Saramago

Saramago’s line isn’t a neutral diagnosis; it’s an act of deflation. He takes “democracy,” a word that usually arrives wearing ceremonial language, and strips it down to costume: “the outward form.” That phrasing matters. He’s not claiming elections don’t happen or parliaments don’t meet. He’s suggesting the machinery can keep running while the power has quietly changed hands. The insult is structural, not procedural: the system looks legitimate because it’s designed to look legitimate.

The pivot to “plutocracy” does more than name an enemy. It supplies a competing definition of reality, as if the official story (“democratic system”) is marketing copy and the real product is rule by wealth. The term is clinical, almost antique, which gives the accusation a cold authority; it’s not a conspiracy whisper but a taxonomy. “Government of the rich” then translates the Greek for the reader, but also sharpens the moral edge: if the rich govern, everyone else is managed.

Saramago, a novelist shaped by Portugal’s dictatorship and the afterlife of its transition, is writing from a place where “democracy” isn’t an abstract ideal but a hard-won promise that can still be hollowed out. The subtext is suspicion toward institutions that perform accountability while permitting capture: parties financed by donors, media ecosystems owned by conglomerates, policy written in the language of inevitability (markets, austerity, competitiveness). His intent is to make complacency feel embarrassing - to force the listener to ask whether participation is empowerment, or just the system’s favorite way to launder consent.