“Democracy in itself does not define or guarantee a free society. History has told many stories of democratic societies that have degenerated into corruption, plunder, and tyranny.”

— Richard Ebeling

“Beware Democracy without Liberty” https://fee.org/articles/beware-democracy-without-liberty/, Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), (April 1, 2005)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 22, 2021. History

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Richard Ebeling 3

American economist 1950

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne (1911–1983) British lecturer, novelist, historian, poet and biographer

The Five faces of Corruption, p. 31 (See also: Samuel P. Huntington..)
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

“Without a free press there can be no free society. That is axiomatic. However, freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of a free society. The scope and nature of the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of the press are to be viewed and applied in that light.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

New York Times (November 28, 1954).
Judicial opinions

“How far should one accept the rules of the society in which one lives? To put it another way: at what point does conformity become corruption? Only by answering such questions does the conscience truly define itself.”

Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) English theatre critic and writer

Review of Le Misanthrope, by Molière, at the Piccadilly (1962), p. 117
Tynan Right and Left (1967)

“[A] society which is socialist cannot also be democratic, in the sense of guaranteeing individual freedom.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

As quoted in "Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy: A Symposium" https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/capitalism-socialism-and-democracy/ (1 April 1978), edited by William Barrett, Commentary

“A society is not defined as developed by the wealth it has but by the poverty it doesn’t have.”

Jorge Majfud (1969) Uruguayan-American writer

Ciencia Política newspaper, Buenos Aires, (2008)

“Without a free press there can be no free society. That is axiomatic. However, freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of a free society.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

The scope and nature of the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of the press are to be viewed and applied in that light.
New York Times (November 28, 1954).
Judicial opinions

“We have only one alternative: either to build a functioning industrial society or see freedom itself disappear in anarchy and tyranny.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1930s- 1950s, The Future of Industrial Man (1942), p. 96

“If we say that we believe in democracy, if we say that the fabric of a democratic society is one which allows for the free play of idea…then, in the name of all the gods, give that free play a chance to work within the constitutional framework.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

Opposition leader Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore Legislative Assembly, Oct 4, 1956
1950s

“This is not to underestimate the historical obstacles to the development of democratic institutions and a democratic culture. Such problems nearly destroyed our country – and that should encourage a spirit of humility and a patience with others. Freedom is not merely a political menu option, or a foreign policy fad; it should be the defining commitment of our country, and the hope of the world. That appeal is proved not just by the content of people’s hopes, but a noteworthy hypocrisy: No democracy pretends to be a tyranny. Most tyrannies pretend they are democracies. Democracy remains the definition of political legitimacy. That has not changed, and that will not change.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2010s, 2017, Speech at "Spirit of Liberty: At Home, In the World" event (2017)

“America is just the country that shows how all the written guarantees in the world for freedom are no protection against tyranny and oppression of the worst kind. There the politician has come to be looked upon as the very scum of society. The peoples of the world are becoming profoundly dissatisfied and are not appeased by the promise of the social-democrats to patch up the State into a new engine of oppression.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

Speech (26 September 1891); as quoted in Peter Kropotkin : From Prince to Rebel (1990) by George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, p. 269

“Democracy in itself does not define or guarantee a free society. History has told many stories of democratic societies that have degenerated into corruption, plunder, and tyranny.”

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