Rudolph Rummel: Quotes about freedom

“"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

“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

“The more democratic freedom a people have, the less severe their internal political violence.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 63

People , Freedom

“It should be underlined that while the democratic or state socialist believes that socialist governments will be peaceloving and nonviolent, the Marxist-Leninist believes this true of only the final, communist stage of stateless anarchy. The socialist transition period may well involve war with capitalist states, but while this inter-state war is to be avoided if at all possible in this age of nuclear weapons, the world-wide struggle against capitalism must be pursued by all means short of inter-state war. This would involve not only the arts of deception, disinformation, subversion, and demoralization, against capitalist states, but also terrorism and domestic wars through ‘national liberation fronts’. For the Marxist-Leninist, then, it is the communist system that is inherently peaceful, not the socialist intermediary state. This socialist stage means the purposeful, aggressive use of force and violence to pursue the final, global stage of communist peace and freedom.”

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

War , Age , World , Peace

“The more people are free, the greater their human development and national wealth. In short, freedom is the way to economic and social human security.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 13

People , Way , Freedom , Wealth

“The less freedom people have the more violence, the more freedom the less violence. I put this here as the Power Principle: power kills, absolute power kills absolutely.”

Rudolph Rummel

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

People , Freedom

“Socialism aside, there also has been a rejection of Western values, of which individual freedom is prominent, and acceptance of some form of value-relativism (thus, no political system is better than any other). In some cases this rejection has turned to outright hostility and particularly anti-Americanism, and thus opposition to American values, such as freedom. To accept, therefore, that democratic freedom is inherently most peaceful, is to the value-relativist, to say the unacceptable—that it is better.”

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

Hostility , Peace , Freedom

“Since advancing freedom of the press furthers democracy, spreading freedom of the press promotes world peace. And the reverse logic is also true. Without democracies, there will be war; without freedom of the press, democracies cannot exist.”

Rudolph Rummel

“Freedom of the press—a way to peace,” ASNE Bulletin (February 1989), p. 27. ASNE stands for the American Association of Newspaper Editors

War , World , Peace , Democracy

“The evidence on this question is persuasive: the best way of eliminating war between nations, of minimizing domestic political violence, and of virtually making genocide and mass murder a horror of the past, is by fostering political freedom. Politically free nations do not make war on each other, have minimum domestic political violence, and virtually no genocide and mass murder. I call this the miracle that is freedom.”

Rudolph Rummel

“Democide: Rudy Rummel Interviewed” by Alberto Mingardi, The Laissez Faire City Times, August-September 1998 https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/INTERVIEW.ITALY.HTM

War , Way , Question , Freedom

“Democratic freedom is a method of nonviolence and an antidote to war.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p.16

War , Freedom

“Most of the world's people have been robbed of their freedom by tyrants… In the last century alone, 272,000,000 were shot, burned, stabbed, tortured, beaten, starved to death, blasted to death, buried alive, or whatever other ways of murdering their slaves these thugs could imagine. This horrific and evil toll of bodies could head-to-toe circle the earth more than ten times. It is as though a catastrophic nuclear war had happened, but its mountain of deaths spread over each day of the last century”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 11

Death , War , People , World

“The way to virtually eliminate genocide and mass murder appears to be through restricting and checking Power, i. e., through fostering democratic freedom.”

Rudolph Rummel

Source: Death by Government (1994), p. 27