Authority -------------------------------------------------------------------- Sections (TOC) : ---------------------------------- * 1 64 Words; 381 Characters * 2 92 Words; 493 Characters * 3 28 Words; 158 Characters * 4 22 Words; 144 Characters * 5 99 Words; 583 Characters * 6 28 Words; 177 Characters * 7 14 Words; 82 Characters * 8 64 Words; 367 Characters * 9 37 Words; 241 Characters * 10 261 Words; 1,591 Characters * 11 26 Words; 174 Characters Sections (Content) : ---------------------------------- * 1 Every logical and sincere theory of the State is essentially founded on the principle of authority -- that is to say on the eminently theological, metaphysical and political idea that the masses, always incapable of governing themselves, must submit at all times to the benevolent yoke of a wisdom and a justice, which in one way or another, is imposed on them from above. * 2 I cannot see, for instance, how or why the three million French who never vote are targeted for the lawful or arbitrary oppression visited upon the country by a government returned by the seven million electors who do vote. In short, I fail to see why it should be that a government that I had no hand in making, nor had any desire to make, nor would ever agree to make, should come along and demand my obedience and my money, on the grounds that it has the authority from its makers. * 3 A hundred flowers of democracy were to bloom in the gardens of labor. Who could know that in a few years, brush, brambles, and vines would take over? * 4 ...the slaves of Haiti had embraced the republican ideas of their French masters, who thereupon reacted much as would the old nobility. * 5 Men are like handsome race horses who first bite the bit and later like it, and rearing under the saddle a while soon learn to enjoy displaying their harness and prance proudly beneath their trappings. Similarly men will grow accustomed to the idea that they have always been in subjection, that their fathers lived in the same way; they will think they are obliged to suffer this evil, and will persuade themselves by example and imitation of others, finally investing those who order them around with proprietary rights, based on the idea that it has always been that way. * 6 There are those, and they constitute a great majority of the American people, who stand in awe of their president, supposedly their servant, but in fact their master... * 7 There are only two types of people in politics: the idiot and the rascal. * 8 Ours is supposed to be a country ruled by the majority, yet every policeman who is not vested with power by the majority can break up a meeting, drag the lecturer off the platform and club the audience out of the hall in true Russian fashion. The Postmaster General, who is not an elective officer, has the power to suppress publications and confiscate mail. * 9 Were you to preach, in most parts of the world, that political connections are founded altogether on voluntary consent or a mutual promise, the magistrate would soon imprison you, as seditious, for loosening the ties of obedience... * 10 ...members of parliament are chosen for a fixed number of years; only at the polls are the citizens masters -- on this one day when they choose their delegates. Once this day has passed, their power has gone and the delegates are independent, free to act for a term of years according to their own 'conscience,' restricted only by the knowledge that after this period they have to face the voters anew; but then they count on catching their votes in a noisy election campaign, bombing the confused voters with slogans and demagogic phrases. Thus not the voters but the parliamentarians are the real masters who decide politics. And the voters do not even send persons of their own choice as delegates; they are presented to them by the political parties. And then, if we suppose that people could select and send persons of their own choice, these persons would not form the government; in parliamentary democracy the legislative and the executive powers are separated. The real government dominating the people is formed by a bureaucracy of officials so far removed from the people's vote as to be practically independent. That is how it is possible that capitalistic dominance is maintained through general suffrage and parliamentary democracy. This is why in capitalistic countries, where the majority of the people belongs to the working class, this democracy cannot lead to a conquest of political power. For the working class, parliamentary democracy is a sham democracy, whereas council representation is real democracy: the direct rule of the workers over their own affairs. * 11 Democracy is an illusion when procedural mechanisms intended to reach and implement decisive judgments in accordance with a rule of political equality fail to do so. Events : ---------------------------------- Authority -- Added : March 12, 2020 About This Textfile : ---------------------------------- Text file generated from : http://RevoltSource.com/