The plain truth is that what holds a free state together is neither general will nor a common interest, but simply politics itself.
BERNARD CRICKDemocracy is perhaps the most promiscuous word in the world of public affairs.
More Bernard Crick Quotes
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To Marx the claim of the theory of ideology is that all doctrine is a derivative of social circumstance.
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One of the symptoms of a declining social order is that its members have to give most of their time to politics, rather than to the real tasks of economic production, in an attempt to patch up the cracks already appearing from the ‘inner contradictions’ of such a system.
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What matters in Politics is what men actually do – sincerity is no excuse for acting unpolitically, and insincerity may be channelled by politics into good results.
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BOREDOM with established truths is a great enemy of free men.
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The political process is not tied to any particular doctrine. Genuine political doctrines, rather, are the attempt to find particular and workable solutions to this perpetual and shifty problem of conciliation.
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The politician has no more use for pride than Falstaff had for honour.
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The idea of a rational bureaucracy, of skill, merit, and consistency, is essential to all modern states.
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Politics deserves much praise. Politics is a preoccupation of free men, and its existence is a test of freedom. The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.
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Factory workers are not working for capitalism, they are working for a living wage.
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There is no great danger to politics in the desire for certainty at any price.
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Individualism and Economic Order and many other works, which is, to put it briefly, the whole of laisser-faire economic theory, then plainly man as such a programmed predator has very little interest in being fraternal, or very little chance.
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Totalitarian rule marks the sharpest contrast imaginable with political rule, and ideological thinking is an explicit and direct challenge to political thinking.
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The unique character of political activity lies, quite literally, in its publicity.
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The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.
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Politics are, as it were, the market place and the price mechanism of all social demands – though there is no guarantee that a just price will be struck; and there is nothing spontaneous about politics- it depends on deliberate and continuous activity.
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