Certainly if the fundamental problem of society is that demands are infinite and resources are always limited, politics, not economics is the master science.
BERNARD CRICKPolitics 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.
More Bernard Crick Quotes
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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.
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Factory workers are not working for capitalism, they are working for a living wage.
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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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Totalitarianism surpasses autocracy.
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The unique character of political activity lies, quite literally, in its publicity.
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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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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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Politics is a way of ruling in divided societies without undue violence…politics is not just a necessary evil; it is a realistic good.
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Democracy is perhaps the most promiscuous word in the world of public affairs.
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Where government is impossible, politics is impossible.
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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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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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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.
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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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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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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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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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Free men stick their necks out.
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The politician has no more use for pride than Falstaff had for honour.
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Politics has rough manners, but it is a very useful thing.
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The agony of international relations is the need to try to practice politics without the basic conditions for political order.
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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.
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BOREDOM with established truths is a great enemy of free men.
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Since the business of politics is the conciliation of differing interests, justice must not merely be done, but to be seen to be done.
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Quite apart from the prestige of technology, people do, after all, prefer a simple idea to a complex one.
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In an abstract but real sense, Marxism arose through the breakdown first of religion and then of ‘reason’ as single sources of authority.
BERNARD CRICK