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Front Page  Quotations Other Quotes Week of 9 May, 2010
About this Quotation:
For a couple of thousand years it was clear to those who observed the behavior of politicians that they acted quite differently from the promises they made to their supporters or those they represented. They might mouth the pious sentiments all politicians do of “serving the public interest” or putting “the needs of the people first” or “sacrificing their own interests” in order to promote “the common good”. It was obvious to the roman lawyer and politician Cicero that the endemic political corruption he saw around him in the late Roman Republic violated the precepts of moral duty which philosophers like Plato had advocated. He reminded his contemporaries of these precepts but to no avail. We had to wait until the 1960s before the American economists Gordon Tullock and James Buchanan explored the institutional and motivational reasons why all politicians and bureaucrats would tend to behave this way.
Other quotes from this week:Other quotes about Presidents, Kings, Tyrants, & Despots:- 2013: Shaftesbury opposes the nonresisting test bill before the House of Lords as a step towards “absolute and arbitrary” government (1675)
- 2012: Madison on “Parchment Barriers” and the defence of liberty II (1788)
- 2012: James Mill on the “sinister interests” of those who wield political power (1825)
- 2012: Viscount Bryce on how the President in wartime becomes “a sort of dictator” (1888)
- 2012: Tocqueville on the “New Despotism” (1837)
- 2011: Madame de Staël on the tyrant Napoleon (1818)
- 2011: John Adams on how absolute power intoxicates those who excercise that power (1814)
- 2011: Thomas Paine on the absurdity of an hereditary monarchy (1791)
- 2011: Paine on the idea that the law is king (1776)
- 2010: Milton on the ease with which tyrants find their academic defenders (1651)
- 2010: Jefferson’s list of objections to the British Empire in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence (1776)
- 2010: Tocqueville on the form of despotism the government would assume in democratic America (1840)
- 2010: Milton argues that a Monarchy wants the people to be prosperous only so it can better fleece them (1660)
- 2010: Cato denounces generals like Julius Caesar who use success on the battlefield as a stepping stone to political power (1710)
- 2010: Madame de Staël argues that Napoleon was able to create a tyrannical government by pandering to men’s interests, corrupting public opinion, and waging constant war (1817)
- 2010: Jefferson on how Congress misuses the inter-state commerce and general welfare clauses to promote the centralization of power (1825)
- 2010: Livy on the irrecoverable loss of liberty under the Roman Empire (10 AD)
- 2009: Jefferson feared that it would only be a matter of time before the American system of government degenerated into a form of “elective despotism” (1785)
- 2009: Lao Tzu discusses how “the great sages” (or wise advisors) protect the interests of the prince and thus “prove to be but guardians in the interest of the great thieves” (600 BC)
- 2009: Macaulay argues that politicians are less interested in the economic value of public works to the citizens than they are in their own reputation, embezzlement and
“jobs for the boys” (1830)
- 2009: Althusius argues that a political leader is bound by his oath of office which, if violated, requires his removal (1614)
- 2009: Richard Overton shoots An Arrow against all Tyrants from the prison of Newgate into the prerogative bowels of the arbitrary House of Lords and all other usurpers and tyrants whatsoever (1646):
- 2008: Lord Acton writes to Bishop Creighton that the same moral standards should be applied to all men, political and religious leaders included, especially since “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (1887)
- 2008: Edward Gibbon gloomily observed that in a unified empire like the Roman there was nowhere to escape, whereas with a multiplicity of states there were always gaps and interstices to hide in (1776)
- 2008: Thomas Hodgskin wonders how despotism comes to a country and concludes that the “first step” taken towards despotism gives it the power to take a second and a third - hence it must be stopped in its tracks at the very first sign (1813)
- 2008: Thucydides on political intrigue in the divided city of Corcyra caused by the “desire to rule” (5thC BC)
- 2008: George Washington warns that the knee jerk reaction of citizens to problems is to seek a solution in the creation of a “new monarch”(1786)
- 2008: Plato warns of the people’s protector who, once having tasted blood, turns into a wolf and a tyrant (340s BC)
- 2007: George Washington warns the nation in his Farewell Address, that love of power will tend to create a real despotism in America unless proper checks and balances are maintained to limit government power (1796)
- 2006: After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 John Milton was concerned with both how the triumphalist monarchists would treat the English people and how the disheartened English people would face their descendants (1660)
- 2006: Benjamin Constant argued that mediocre men, when they acquired power, became “more envious, more obstinate, more immoderate, and more convulsive” than men with talent (1815)
- 2005: Thomas Jefferson opposed vehemently the Alien and Sedition Laws of 1798 which granted the President enormous powers showing that the government had become a tyranny which desired to govern with "a rod of iron" (1798)
- 2005: John Milton laments the case of a people who won their liberty “in the field” but who then foolishly “ran their necks again into the yoke” of tyranny (1660)
- 2005: Adam Ferguson notes that “implicit submission to any leader, or the uncontrouled exercise of any power” leads to a form of military government and ultimately despotism (1767)
- 2005: Edward Gibbon believed that unless public liberty was defended by “intrepid and vigilant guardians” any constitution would degenerate into despotism (1776)
- 2005: Montesquieu states that the Roman Empire fell because the costs of its military expansion introduced corruption and the loyalty of its soldiers was transferred from the City to its generals (1734)
- 2005: John Milton believes men live under a “double tyranny” within (the tyranny of custom and passions) which makes them blind to the tyranny of government without (1649)
- 2005: Vicesimus Knox tries to persuade an English nobleman that some did not come into the world with “saddles on their backs and bridles in their mouths” and some others like him came “ready booted and spurred to ride the rest to death” (1793)
- 2004: James Bryce believed that the Founders intended that the American President would be “a reduced and improved copy of the English king” (1885)
- 2004: Thomas Gordon believes that bigoted Princes are subject to the “blind control” of other “Directors and Masters” who work behind the scenes (1737)
- 2004: Algernon Sidney’s Motto was that his Hand (i.e. his pen) was an Enemy to all Tyrants (1660)
- 2004: Thomas Gordon compares the Greatness of Spartacus with that of Julius Caesar (1721)
9 May, 2010Read the full quote in context here. For 2,000 years, ever since the roman lawyer Cicero (106-43 BC) warned politicians in “On Moral Duties” to serve the interests of those they represent ahead of their own private interests, politicians have done the very opposite. We had to wait until the development of the Public Choice school of economics in the late 20th century to explain why this would be the case:
… [L]et those who are to preside over the state obey two precepts of Plato, — one, that they so watch for the well-being of their fellow-citizens that they have reference to it in whatever they do, forgetting their own private interests; the other, that they care for the whole body politic, and not, while they watch over a portion of it, neglect other portions. For, as the guardianship of a minor, so the administration of the state is to be conducted for the benefit, not of those to whom it is intrusted, but of those who are intrusted to their care.
The full passage from which this quotation was taken can be be viewed below (front page quote in bold):
- In fine, let those who are to preside over the state obey two precepts of Plato, — one, that they so watch for the well-being of their fellow-citizens that they have reference to it in whatever they do, forgetting their own private interests; the other, that they care for the whole body politic, and not, while they watch over a portion of it, neglect other portions. For, as the guardianship of a minor, so the administration of the state is to be conducted for the benefit, not of those to whom it is intrusted, but of those who are intrusted to their care. But those who take counsel for a part of the citizens, and neglect a part, bring into the state an element of the greatest mischief, and stir up sedition and discord, some siding with the people, some with the aristocracy, and few being equally the friends of all. From this cause arose great dissensions among the Athenians, and in our republic it has led not only to seditions, but also to destructive civil wars. Partiality of this kind, a citizen who is substantial and brave, and worthy of a chief place in the state, will shun and abhor, and will give himself wholly up to the state, pursuing neither wealth nor power; and he will so watch over the entire state as to consult the well-being of all its citizens. Nor will he expose any one to hatred or envy by false accusation, and he will in every respect so adhere to justice and right as in their behalf to submit to any loss however severe, and to face death itself rather than surrender the principles which I have indicated. Most pitiful in every aspect is the canvassing and scrambling for preferment, of which it is well said by the same Plato, that those who strive among themselves which shall be foremost in the administration of the state, act like sailors who should quarrel for a place at the helm. The same writer exhorts us to regard as enemies those who bear arms against us, not those who desire to care for the interests of the state in accordance with their own judgment, as in the case of the disagreement without bitterness between Publius Africanus and Quintus Metellus.
[More works by Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC) and on Public Choice] |
