Wednesday 22 July 2009

Alexis de Tocqueville

De Tocqueville gave us a warning from history whic is what has happened in schools:-

Consistent government interference results in a soft despotism of expanding paternalistic state power that gradually undermines self-government. Soft despotism does not “tyrannize, it gets in the way: it curtails, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally it reduces each nation to nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

4 comments:

  1. A brilliant and accurate assessment. Some things do not change, it seems.

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  2. Indeed G Marx. How prescient a view form over 200 years ago! It is curious how human nature does not change, how the state will use the same tactics (intentional or otherwise) to increase its authority, and how libetarians must be ever aware of that.

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  3. Alexis de Tocqueville, surely.

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  4. Bishop Hill. Absolutely. Thank you for drawing my attention to a rather silly mistake.

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