“Society determines how long and in what manner the individual organism shall live. This determination may be institutionally programmed in the operation of social controls, as in the institution of law. Society can maim and kill. Indeed, it is in its power over life and death that it manifests its ultimate control over the individual.”

— Peter L. Berger, book The Social Construction of Reality

1991; p. 202
The Social Construction of Reality, 1966

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Peter L. Berger45

Austrian-born American sociologist 1929–2017

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“Life-expectancies of lower-class and upper-class [vary] …society determines how long and in what manner the individual organism shall live…”

Peter L. Berger book The Social Construction of Reality

1991, p. 202
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“You could make a good case that the history of social life is about the history of the technology of memory. That social order and control, structure of governance, social cohesion in states or organizations larger than face-to- face society depends on the nature of the technology of memory--both how it works and what it remembers… In short, what societies value is what they memorize, and how they memorize it, and who has access to its memorized form determines the structure of power that the society represents and acts from.”

Eben Moglen (1959) American law professor and free software advocate

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“Now, state socialism, by objecting to one form of ownership, mainly the right of individual ownership over the means of production, in effect, placed the lives and liberty of all its citizens in the hands of a government clique and does this very simply because no liberty could be achieved in society. If the state apparatus alone has control over means of production like printing presses and the broadcast medium of the airwaves, this control of the means of production is a control over the ends that people in society can seek.”

Roy A. Childs, Jr. (1949–1992) American libertarian essayist and critic

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“The way in which a society organizes the life of its members … is one “project” of realization among others. But once the project has become operative in the basic institutions and relations, it tends to become exclusive and to determine the development of the society as a whole.”

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“The large industrial enterprise is... the representative institution of an industrial society. It determines the individual's view of his society.”

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“The semimetaphysical problems of the individual and society, of egoism and altruism, of freedom and determinism, either disappear or remain in the form of different phases in the organization of a consciousness that is fundamentally social.”

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“Liberalism is the philosophy of the individual. Its ethic is liberty and its characteristic is autonomy — the freedom of the will from external constraint. It says "I shall…".
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Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority”

Danny Kruger (1974) British politician and Conservative MP

the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says "we should…".
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Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 33
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

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Peter L. Berger45

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