“Since the beginning, we have been a non-hierarchical business run by our democratic collective process,” the co-op website states.
How many read that, and thought of this scene?:
Woman: I didn’t know we ‘ad a king! I thought we were autonomous collective.
Man: (mad) You’re fooling yourself! We’re living in a dictatorship! A
self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes—
Woman: There you go, bringing class into it again...
Man: That’s what it’s all about! If only people would—
Arthur: Please, *please*, good people, I am in haste! WHO lives in that
castle?
Woman: No one lives there.
Arthur: Then who is your lord?
Woman: We don’t have a lord!
Arthur: (surprised) What??
Man: I *told* you! We’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune! We’re taking turns to act as a sort of executive-officer-for-the-week—
Arthur: (uninterested) Yes...
Man: But all the decisions *of* that officer ‘ave to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting—
Arthur: (perturbed) Yes I see!
Man: By a simple majority, in the case of purely internal affairs—
Arthur: (mad) Be quiet!
Man: But by a two-thirds majority, in the case of more major—
Arthur: (very angry) BE QUIET! I *order* you to be quiet!
Woman: “Order”, eh, ‘oo does ‘e think ‘e is?
Arthur: I am your king!
Woman: Well I didn’t vote for you!
Arthur: You don’t vote for kings!
Woman: Well ‘ow’d you become king then?
(holy music up)
Arthur: The Lady of the Lake— her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king!
Man: (laughingly) Listen: Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some... farcical aquatic ceremony!
Arthur: (yelling) BE QUIET!
Man: You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just ‘cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!!
Arthur: (coming forward and grabbing the man) Shut *UP*!
"Help! I'm being repressed!"