
Alfred de Zayas' aphorisms http://www.alfreddezayas.com/aphorisms.shtml.
( Speech http://www.pacificforum.fiji.gov.fj/speeches/02.html delivered to the 33rd Pacific Pacific Islands Forum, 15 August 2002, Nadi, Fiji) - excerpts.
Alfred de Zayas' aphorisms http://www.alfreddezayas.com/aphorisms.shtml.
“Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself.”
As quoted in World Marxist Review : Problems of Peace and Socialism (1958), p. 40
Context: Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself. We talk of the good of society. Is this something apart from, and transcending, the good of the individuals composing it? If the individual is ignored and sacrificed for what is considered the good of the society, is that the right objective to have?
It was agreed that the individual should not be sacrificed and indeed that real social progress will come only when opportunity is given to the individual to develop, provided "the individual" is not a selected group but comprises the whole community. The touchstone, therefore, should be how far any political or social theory enables the individual to rise above his petty self and thus think in terms of the good of all. The law of life should not be competition or acquisitiveness but cooperation, the good of each contributing to the good of all.
1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)
“Democracy sometimes looks like an end in itself, but in fact it is merely a means to an end.”
Directives on the Cultural Revolution (1966-1972)
“Self-determination is an expression of the individual and collective right to democracy.”
Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order on the right of self determination http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx.
2015, Report submitted to the UN General Assembly
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
Des MacHale, Wit, Andrews McMeel Publishing, Kansas City (KS), 2003, ISBN 978-0-7407-3330-7, page 197 https://books.google.ca/books?id=Dhlgd_Af1C4C&pg=PA197
Misattributed
Source: The Political Doctrine of Fascism (1925), pp. 108-109
Angela Carter Expletives Deleted: Selected Writings (London: Chatto & Windus, 1992) p. 9
Criticism
Interview with The Guardian (29 March 2010)