The Source and Aim of Human Progress (1919)
Essays on the Higher Education (1899), page 7
“We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future.”
[NewsBank, Lily Kuo, Bill Nye the Science Guy: - Creationism not good for kids, The Chronicle, Willimantic, Connecticut, August 28, 2012, Reuters]
“There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”
Letter http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1407&Itemid=283 to Mandell Creighton (5 April 1887), published in Historical Essays and Studies, by John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton (1907), edited by John Neville Figgis and Reginald Vere Laurence, Appendix, p. 504; also in Essays on Freedom and Power (1972)
Paraphrased variant: All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Context: I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means.
section 11, p. 421
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: A Study of Machine Production (1906), Ch. XVII Civilisation and Industrial Development
Socialism (1922), Epilogue (1947)
Context: State and government are the social apparatus of violent coercion and repression. Such an apparatus, the police power, is indispensable in order to prevent anti-social individuals and bands from destroying social co-operation. Violent prevention and suppression of anti-social activities benefit the whole of society and each of its members. But violence and oppression are none the less evils and corrupt those in charge of their application. It is necessary to restrict the power of those in office lest they become absolute despots. Society cannot exist without an apparatus of violent coercion. But neither can it exist if the office holders are irresponsible tyrants free to inflict harm upon those they dislike.
Source: Fugitive Essays: Selected Writings of Frank Chodorov (1980), p. 237, “Why Free Schools Are Not Free,” analysis, (October 1948)
The Source and Aim of Human Progress (1919)
My Autobiography by Mussolini, New York: NY, Charles Scribner’s Sons (1928) p. 280.
1920s
Bill Nye, "Science Guy," Open to Jail Time for Climate Change Skeptics http://reason.com/blog/2016/04/15/bill-nye-science-guy-open-to-jail-time-f in Reason.com (15 April 2016)
section 11, p. 422
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: A Study of Machine Production (1906), Ch. XVII Civilisation and Industrial Development
