“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

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 "By contrast, as Hayek explained in The Road to Serfdom—in his famous chapter ‘Why’ the worst get on top—centralized gov…" by Rudolph Rummel?

Rudolph Rummel 57

American academic 1932–2014

Related quotes

“Every relationship is fundamentally a power struggle, and the individual in power is whoever likes the other person less.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“The less free the people within any two nations are, the bloodier and more destructive the war between them; the greater their freedom, the less likely such wars occur. Free people do not make war on each other.”

Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic

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

“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 (1932–2014) American academic

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

“You can't have pride without humility. Aggression without tolerance. Strength without compassion. Power without restraint.”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

“Imperialist war arises not merely because of bitter economic competition among industrialists and financiers of various nations, but because of the dominance of government by powerful vested interests who use the armed forces of the nation to increase their private gains in other lands. To the degree that the power of these groups is broken by socialization and equalization of economic privilege, the likelihood of war is thereby reduced.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Property (1935)

“Democracy is good for you when you are not in power and worst when you are in power and that’s why it is best form of government.”

Zaman Ali (1993) Pakistani philosopher

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9672840-democracy-is-good-for-you-when-you-are-not-in

“All struggles
Are essentially
Power struggles.
Who will rule,
Who will lead,
Who will define,
refine,
confine,
design,
Who will dominate.
All struggles
Are essentially
Power struggles,
And most
are no more intellectual
than two rams
knocking their heads together.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 8 (p. 94)

“The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball — the further I am rolled the more I gain.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=8HI_AQAAMAAJ&rdid=book-8HI_AQAAMAAJ&rdot=1: Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many from Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years, Volume 2 (1 January 1898) by Ida Husted Harper, published by Bowen-Merrill Company

“The power grid's exposure risk is greater than that of power plants during natural disasters.”

Lee Chih-kung

Lee Chih-kung (2017) cited in " Taipower to improve electricity towers http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2017/08/04/2003675856" on Taipei Times, 4 August 2017

“Governments are by their nature aggressive and dominating. No society is safe if its neighbor is a state.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 2. Recuperation is How We Lose

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Rudolph Rummel 57

Related quotes

Related topics