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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

BOREDOM with established truths is a great enemy of free men.
BERNARD CRICK

Boredom Enemy Men
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.
BERNARD CRICK

Demand Guarantees Political
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 idea of a rational bureaucracy, of skill, merit, and consistency, is essential to all modern states.
BERNARD CRICK

Consistency Ideas Skills
Totalitarianism surpasses autocracy.
BERNARD CRICK

Autocracy Totalitarianism
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
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 is a way of ruling in divided societies without undue violence…politics is not just a necessary evil; it is a realistic good.
BERNARD CRICK

Evil Political Politics
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
There is no great danger to politics in the desire for certainty at any price.
BERNARD CRICK

Certainty Danger Desire
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
Where government is impossible, politics is impossible.
BERNARD CRICK

Government Impossible
The unique character of political activity lies, quite literally, in its publicity.
BERNARD CRICK

Character Lying Unique
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

Political Politics Together
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
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.
BERNARD CRICK

Economic Individualism Programmed Such Theory

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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