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The plain truth is that what holds a free state together is neither general will nor a common interest, but simply politics itself.

Bernard Crick

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.
BERNARD CRICK

Giving Order Real
If a government is to do great new things, it will need more support. If a government is to change the world, it will need mass support. This is one of the discoveries of modern government.
BERNARD CRICK

Discovery Government Need Support
Politics has rough manners, but it is a very useful thing.
BERNARD CRICK

Manners Rough Things Useful
Totalitarianism surpasses autocracy.
BERNARD CRICK

Autocracy Totalitarianism
Quite apart from the prestige of technology, people do, after all, prefer a simple idea to a complex one.
BERNARD CRICK

Ideas Simple Technology
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.
BERNARD CRICK

Men Political Politics
The method of rule of the tyrant and the oligarch is quite simply to clobber, coerce, or overawe all or most other groups in the interest of their own.
BERNARD CRICK

Groups Method Tyrants
Free men stick their necks out.
BERNARD CRICK

Free Men Neck Sticks
Too often the revolutionary is the man who must create order in the chaos left by failed conservatives.
BERNARD CRICK

Chaos Conservatives Men Order
If, of course, one builds into the concept of an ‘individual’ all that Professor Hayek does in his Road To Serfdom.
BERNARD CRICK

Builds Men Order Professor
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.
BERNARD CRICK

Acting Matter Men What
Where government is impossible, politics is impossible.
BERNARD CRICK

Government Impossible
Factory workers are not working for capitalism, they are working for a living wage.
BERNARD CRICK

Factory Living Workers Working
Totalitarian rule marks the sharpest contrast imaginable with political rule, and ideological thinking is an explicit and direct challenge to political thinking.
BERNARD CRICK

Challenges Ideological Political Rule Thinking
The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.
BERNARD CRICK

Condescension Men Praise
Politics is too often regarded as a poor relation, inherently dependent and subsidiary; it is rarely praised as something with a life and character of its own.
BERNARD CRICK

Character Poor Relation

The plain truth is that what holds a free state together is neither general will nor a common interest, but simply politics itself.

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The plain truth is that what holds a free state together is neither general will nor a common interest, but simply politics itself.

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Popular Authors

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