Rudolph Rummel: Trending quotes

“The more constrained the power of governments, the more it is diffused, checked and balanced, the less it will aggress on others and commit democide. At the extremes of Power, totalitarian communist governments slaughter their people by the tens of millions, while many democracies can barely bring themselves to execute even serial murderers.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: Death by Government (1994), p. 2

People , Democracy

“Communists, when in control of a nation, have murdered more than 3.6 times the number of people killed in combat in all wars, including the two world wars.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 99

War , People , World , Time

“"The Polarity Principle:" The more government, the more violence. By ‘more government’ is meant more centralization of government power, more intervention in personal, social, and economic affairs and activities, more limits on political criticism and competition, and more narrowing of electoral choices. In other words, by ‘more government’ is meant less freedom, less civil liberties, political rights, and economic freedom.”

Rudolph Rummel

“Libertarianism, Violence within States, and the Polarity Principle,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Jul., 1984), pp. 443-462. Published by Comparative Politics, Ph.D. Programs in Political Science, City University of New York.

Freedom , Personality

“Known for centuries, a tenet of classical liberalism, the pacific nature of democracy has become largely forgotten or ignored in the last half-century. That democracy is inherently peaceful is now probably believed by no more than a few prominent peace researchers. In part this has been due to the intellectual defection of Western intellectuals from classical liberalism to some variant of socialism, with its emphasis on the competitive violence and bellicosity of capitalist freedoms. Many intellectuals, and in particularly European and Third World peace researchers, have come to believe that socialist equalitarianism is the answer to violence; others, particularly American liberals, believe that if the socialist are wrong, then at least democracies are no better than other political systems in promoting peace.”

Rudolph Rummel

“Political Systems, Violence, and War,” chap. 14 in "Approaches to Peace: An Intellectual Map", edit, W. Scott Thompson and Kenneth M. Jensen, Washington, D.C., United States Institute of Peace, 1991, pp. 347-370; and “The Politics of Cold Blood,” Society, Vol. 27 (November/December, 1989) pp. 32-40

World , Peace , Democracy , Nature

“Our century is noted for its bloody wars. WW1 saw 9 million people killed in battle, an incredible record that was surpassed within a few decades by the 15 million battle deaths of WW2. Even the numbers killed in 20th century revolutions and civil wars have set historical records. In total, about 35,654,000 people have died in this century’s international and domestic wars, revolutions, and violent conflicts. Yet, even more unbelievable than these vast numbers killed in war is a shocking fact. The number of people killed by totalitarian or extreme authoritarian governments already exceeds that for all wars, civil and international. Indeed, this number already approximates the number that might be killed in a nuclear war.”

Rudolph Rummel

“War Isn’t This Century’s Biggest Killer, The Wall Street Journal (July 7, 1986)

Death , War , People

“In a few cases, regimes have publicized their murders, often to intimidate people. For instance, Communist Chinese government newspapers would report speeches by officials in which one might boast, ‘We killed 2 million bandits in the 10th region between November and January.’ The term bandit was standard lingo for presumed counterrevolutionaries.”

Rudolph Rummel

People

“[There is an] unbridgeable chasm in the world. On one side are such criminal gangs, sanctified by the term government, and the United Nations they dominate, enforcing by their guns mass slavery, mass death, mass violence, mass impoverishment, and mass famine. On the other side are democratic countries where people are free, secure, and need not fear mass impoverishment, murder at the hands of government agents, and killing famines.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 12

Death , People , World , Fear

“By contrast, as Hayek explained in The Road to Serfdom—in his famous chapter ‘Why’ the worst get on top—centralized government power attracts aggressive, domineering personalities. They are the most likely to gain power. And the more power they have, naturally the less subject they are to restraint. The greater the likelihood such a country will pursue aggressive policies. The highest risks of war occur when two dictators face each other. There’s likely to be a struggle for supremacy.”

Rudolph Rummel

War , Nature , Personality , Country

“The more freedom a people have, the more unlikely the government will murder them. Democratically free governments do not murder their own people.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 14

People , Freedom

“In my ‘Understanding Conflict and War’ I concluded that the more freedom a state accords its citizens, the less likely it is to be involved in foreign violence; and the more freedom within two states, the less likely there will be violence between them. Moreover, war between free-libertarian-states will not occur, and other violence between them is very improbable… This conclusion about the violence-reducing effect of freedom also extends to conflict within states: ‘the more libertarian a state, the less intense its violence can and tends to become.”

Rudolph Rummel

“Libertarianism, Violence within States, and the Polarity Principle,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Jul., 1984), pp. 443-462. Published by Comparative Politics, Ph.D. Programs in Political Science, City University of New York. https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP84.HTM

War , Understanding , Freedom

“I conclude that nobody can be trusted with unlimited power. The more power a regime has, the more likely people will be killed. This is a major reason for promoting freedom.”

Rudolph Rummel

People , Freedom

“Freedom produces wealth and prosperity.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 62

Freedom , Wealth

“Possibly 20,000,000 were killed in the war against the Nazis and from Nazi occupation, but many more millions were killed in Stalin’s simultaneous war on his own people.”

Rudolph Rummel book Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917

Source: Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917 (1990), p. 152

War , People

“Then there is the common and fundamental justification of government that it exists to protect citizens against the anarchic jungle that would otherwise threaten their lives and property. Such archaic or sterile views show no appreciation of democide’s existence and all its related horrors and suffering. They are inconsistent with a regime that stands astride society like a gang of thugs over hikers they have captured in the woods, robbing all, raping some, torturing others for fun, murdering those they don’t like, and terrorizing the rest into servile obedience. This exact characterization of many past and present governments, such as Idi Amin’s Uganda, hardly squares with conventional political science.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: Death by Government (1994), p. 26

Suffering , Science , Past

“Libertarian states have no violence between themselves. The more libertarian two states, the less their mutual violence. The more libertarian a state, the less its foreign violence.”

Rudolph Rummel

“Libertarianism and International Violence”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 27, Sage Publications, March 1, 1983, p. 27-71 https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP83.HTM