“The "government of all the people", if we have to have government, can at best be only the government of the majority.”

— Errico Malatesta

Neither Democrats, Nor Dictators: Anarchists (1926)
Context: The "government of all the people", if we have to have government, can at best be only the government of the majority. And the democrats, whether socialists or not, are willing to agree. They add, it is true, that one must respect minority rights; but since it is the majority that decides what these rights are, as a result minorities only have the right to do what the majority wants and allows. The only limit to the will of the majority would be the resistance which the minorities know and can put up. This means that there would always be a social struggle, in which a part of the members, albeit the majority, has the right to impose its own will on the others, yoking the efforts of all to their own ends.
And here I would make an aside to show how, based on reasoning backed by the evidence of past and present events, it is not even true that where there is government, namely authority, that authority resides in the majority and how in reality every "democracy" has been, is and must be nothing short of an "oligarchy" – a government of the few, a dictatorship. But, for the purposes of this article, I prefer to err on the side of the democrats and assume that there can really be a true and sincere majority government.
Government means the right to make the law and to impose it on everyone by force: without a police force there is no government.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The "government of all the people", if we have to have government, can at best be only the government of the majority." by Errico Malatesta?

Errico Malatesta 24

Italian anarchist 1853–1932

Related quotes

“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

“[Iraq is] not Vietnam, we have a government that has a support of the majority of the people.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

Late Show with David Letterman, June 16, 2005
2000s

“I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

White House Correspondents' Association Dinner (2006)

“We have not been pushed around either abroad or at home and we are not going to be. This is government of the people; it is government for all the people, and the accent is on government.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (28 September 1965), quoted in The Times (29 September 1965), p. 5.
Prime Minister

“We cannot have government for all the people until we first make certain it is government of and by all the people.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Special message to Congress on the right to vote (1965)

“The government have only a small majority in the House of Commons. I want to make it quite clear that this will not affect our ability to govern. Having been charged with the duties of Government we intend to carry out those duties.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Television broadcast (October 1964), after winning the general election, quoted in David Butler, Coalitions in British Politics (Macmillan, London, 1978), p. 99.
Prime Minister