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When James Ottis declared that "Taxation without representation is tyranny", he was speaking for the entire revolutionary capitalist world.
Economic life had been feudal ever since the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals and other Germanic barbarians had brought the Roman empire to its knees in the fifth century AD. But a new mode of production was born from feudalism's womb in late medieval times.
By the 17th century, capitalism � youthful and unstoppable � had consigned feudalism to the grave. All production � economic, intellectual and artistic � was now in capitalist hands. Yet one vital office, the political state, remained in the hands of a feudal institution � the monarch, almighty, despotic, even "divine".
The feudal state, therefore, was now wholly parasitical on the capitalist houses. Through tolls, tithes and other levies, it made painful inroads into their profits to finance the monarch's increasingly tyrannical hold.
And yet he adamantly refused to listen to all their pleas to be represented in any decision-making council. The protest was eloquently expressed by the French philosophes, the English utilitarians and the American Federalists.
The result was inevitable � the great bourgeois revolutions of 1688 (England), 1776 (America), 1789 (France) and, in the 1870s, national unification in Germany and Italy out of hundreds of puny feudal principalities.
To wrench political power from feudal hands and liberate the economy from tax and other laws which the capitalists had not participated in making � that was the quest. In Made in America, Bill Bryson points out:
"What [Ottis and other colonial American rebels] did lack were seats in Parliament [in London]. They resented ... being required to pay taxes to (England] when they were denied a voice in the House of Commons."
Yet, on taking power, the class soon forgot its revolutionary ideals. The Euro-American bourgeoisie soon threw overboard its promised Libert , Egalit et Fraternit and introduced economic oppression even more painful.
Right here in Kenya, colonialism � a post-revolutionary phenomenon � soon imposed immoderate taxation and other forms of oppression, while ruthlessly suppressing all those who agitated for political representation.
The result? Dedan Kimathi was as inevitable as Oliver Cromwell, George Washington, George-Jacques Danton, Otto von Bismarck and Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Yet since Kenya attained independence � with Mau Mau's help � our own ruling class (the nationalists) have ruthlessly taxed us with neither service nor representation.
Everywhere, Kenyans have been systematically robbed of their lands and other property by the very same class that once organised us to spill blood against British colonialism.
In the market system � with its characteristic individualism � I do not know of any form of oppression more dehumanising than having no money. Independence has meant the most agonising financial tyranny.
Even relatively well-paid cadres live from hand to mouth because all their fringe benefits are taxed heavily.
Where does our money go? Into the maws of a queen bee called the state which is supposed to use it to provide us with food, medicine, education, roads, water, power and security � but which never does.
How can Parliament protect us from nyang'au when it is itself nyang'au? New MPs begin by raising their own emoluments towards the sky � financed from our pockets.
When a motion is due in Parliament which affects their personal or tribal fortunes, MPs swarm there like houseflies. Yet a quorum may not be found when it comes to debating an important financial Bill.
After each Budget speech, the MPs have two weeks to discuss the proposals and possibly raise our tax plight. They never do. Instead they hurl uneducated abuse at one another on irrelevant subjects.
If it is that our MPs either don't understand financial economics or are too busy in personal financial intrigues to come to the House, it only adds to the proof that we have no representation.
As our taxes rise, the transnationals arbitrarily raise the prices of essential consumer goods. We sink deeper into hunger. Our MPs' response? To gorge themselves with our money. So exactly why do we need Parliament?
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