“We must recognise that the absolutely free working of such a system cannot now be accepted. We are living too closely knit a structure of society in which the very complication of our immense programme of social reform and industrial development necessitates strong powers being retained at the centre. It will be necessary to use the organising power and majesty of the State in a variety of ways. The State will have to be the grand arbiter between competing interests.”

Fundamental Issues (Conservative Political Centre, 1946), p. 7.

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Rab Butler18

British politician 1902–1982

Khem Veasna (1971) Cambodian politician

Quoted on his facebook profile (21 April 2015)

“What is actually happening now is that monoploy capitalism needs the state to disempower ordinary people's institutions and lives. What we are actually developing in modern Europe is a post-democratic society. We are creating an oligarchical elite structure where moneyed elites, the elites of industry cohabit with political elites and they move into each other's regimes and spaces. So we have now produced what I would call a market state, and the market state really just exists for the benefit of those in the top. And there is clear economic and social evidence for this, it is very clear that only those at the very top of society in the developed world have really benefited from the last thirty years.”

Phillip Blond (1966) British philosopher

“The vast individual and corporate fortunes, the vast combinations of capital which have marked the development of our industrial system, create new conditions, and necessitate a change from the old attitude of state and the nation toward property.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, Speak softly and carry a big stick (1901)

“We should have a State in which we could live and breathe as free men and which we could develop according to our own lights and culture and where principles of Islamic social justice could find free play.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Address to Civil, Naval, Military and Air Force Officers of Pakistan Government, Karachi (11 October 1947)

“The reform of our enormous state indeed demanded decentralization and redistribution of powers between the centre and the regions. But the local elites tried to paint this need in the exaggerated colours of 'national survival.'”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

It worked!
1990s, Memoirs (1995)

“The ultimate of taxation-for-social-purposes is absolutism, not only because the growing fiscal power carries an equal increase in political power, but because the investment of revenue in the individual by the State gives it a pecuniary interest in him. If the State supplies him with all his needs and keeps him in health and a degree of comfort, it must account him a valuable asset, a piece of capital. Any claim to individual rights is liquidated by society's cash investment. The State undertakes to protect society's investment, as to reimbursement and profit, by way of taxation. The motor power lodged in the individual must be put to the best use so that the yield will further social ends, as foreseen by the management. Thus, the fiscal scheme which begins with distribution is forced by the logic of events into control of production. And the concept of natural rights is inconsistent with the social obligation of the individual. He lives for the State which nurtured him. He belongs to the State by right of purchase.”

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker

“Taxation is Robbery,” Chicago: Human Events Associates (1947)

“All these problems constantly come in the work of political and social development. But they stand for a vast progression toward better conditions, a better society, a better economic system. In approaching them, we need to have in mind the Federalist's analysis of our constitutional system: — The powers delegated to the Federal Government are few and defined; those to remain in the hands of the State government are numerous and indefinite.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

“We use power, of course, in the international fields in a way which is the exact contrary to the way in which we use it within the state.”

Norman Angell (1872–1967) British politician

Peace and the Public Mind (1935)
Context: We use power, of course, in the international fields in a way which is the exact contrary to the way in which we use it within the state. In the international field, force is the instrument of the rival litigants, each attempting to impose his judgment upon the other. Within the state, force is the instrument of the community, the law, primarily used to prevent either of the litigants imposing by force his view upon the other. The normal purpose of police — to prevent the litigant taking the law into his own hands, being his own judge — is the precise contrary of the normal purpose in the past of armies and navies, which has been to enable the litigant to be his own judge of his own rights when in conflict about them with another.

“But all of us understand that the standards for government surveillance must be higher. Given the unique power of the state, it is not enough for leaders to say: Trust us, we won’t abuse the data we collect. For history has too many examples when that trust has been breached. Our system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power; it depends on the law to constrain those in power.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Review of Signals Intelligence Speech (June 2014)
Context: There was a recognition by all who participated in these reviews that the challenges to our privacy do not come from government alone. Corporations of all shapes and sizes track what you buy, store and analyze our data, and use it for commercial purposes; that’s how those targeted ads pop up on your computer and your smartphone periodically. But all of us understand that the standards for government surveillance must be higher. Given the unique power of the state, it is not enough for leaders to say: Trust us, we won’t abuse the data we collect. For history has too many examples when that trust has been breached. Our system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power; it depends on the law to constrain those in power.

“The introduction of free competition is thus public declaration that from now on the members of society are unequal only to the extent that their capitals are unequal, that capital is the decisive power, and that therefore the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, have become the first class in society. Free competition is necessary for the establishment of big industry, because it is the only condition of society in which big industry can make its way.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

(1847)

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