Peter Singer Quotes

When a nation is over-reliant on one or two commodities like oil or precious minerals, corrupt government ministers and their dodgy associates hoard profits and taxes instead of properly allocating them to schools and hospitals.

When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place.

I am convinced that Nigeria would have been a more highly developed country without the oil. I wished we'd never smelled the fumes of petroleum.

Societies that depend on natural resources tend to have certain inherent problems. The limited concentration of wealth - whether from oil, coal, diamonds, or bauxite - often leads to corruption and authoritarianism.

From such beginnings of governments, what could be expected, but a continual system of war and extortion?

ON the decline of the Roman power, about five centuries after Christ, the countries of Northern Europe were left almost destitute of a national government.

This part of Brazil offered the curious spectacle of a great evil, which has been long suffered to exist and is now advancing, gradually yet surely, to that state which must entail inevitable destruction on the existing Government of the country.

There is, of course, always the possibility, that two such powerful and well--financed agencies as CIA and DIA will become rivals and competitors.

The Cabinets who rule the destinies of nations from the various capitals of Europe are but the tools of the moneyed interest. Their quarrels are not dictated by sentiments of national pride or honor, but by the avarice and lust of power on the part of the class to which they belong.

What has commonly been called rebellion has more often been nothing but a glorious struggle in opposition to the lawless power of rebellious kings and princes

New politicians try to displace old ones by changing the electoral laws, while entrenched politicians defend outworn electoral systems when they feel that the new laws might weaken their positions and perhaps even abolish their sinecures.

Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, masses about central powerhouses. The conflict is no longer between the men, but between the motors that drive men [i.e. governments], and the men who succumb to their own motive forces.

The military in all these struggling democracies is an important player. They can take over the leadership or determine the leadership.

The great question which, in all ages, has disturbed mankind, and brought on them the greatest part of those mischiefs which have ruined cities, depopulated countries, and disordered the peace of the world, has been, not whether there be power in the world, nor whence it came, but who should have it.

One thing, and one thing only, prevents the establishment of a stable Central Government at Peking, and this is the insatiable greed of money which possesses every Chinese who attains to public office.

You may rely upon one thing — I'll never engage in creating kings again; it's too great a strain.

No government in the world fights Fascism to the death. When the bourgeoisie sees power slipping from its grasp, it has recourse to Fascism to maintain itself. The Liberal Government of Spain could have rendered the Fascist elements powerless long ago. Instead it compromised and dallied. Even now at this moment, there are men in this Government who want to go easy on the rebels. You can never tell, you know, the present Government might yet need these rebellious forces to crush the workers' movement ...

Experience has taught that a divided power in the state is impotent and at odds with itself.

We can destabilize your government and make a horrible example out of you

Most of the oil rich exporting countries were not really helped in the long run by their oil resources. Oil wealth distorted the development of the country. Corruption, the concept of something for nothing, the lack of development of a manufacturing or agricultural base, the resources to keep a dictator in power without depending on the people—all were problems.

The problem is … that many African states lack the capacity to establish the crucial conditions for capital accumulation and, additionally, act in economically irrational ways. This non-developmental or even anti-developmental thrust is manifest in the mismanagement, inefficiency, and pervasive corruption of the public sector as well as political instability and the inability to prevent widespread evasion of laws and regulations.

Both sides are so corrupt in Haiti that it doesn’t matter which one wins.

War and democracy have never been happy bedfellows…. War has always threatened democracy.

Secrecy helps give oil wealth its democracy-repelling powers: citizens are satisfied with low taxes and seemingly generous benefits only when they do not realize how much of their country’s wealth is being lost to theft, corruption, and government incompetence.

The non-democratic governments of petro-states, … use the wealth of at their disposal to resist pressure for more democratic government. In effect, they bribe the people they rule, persuading these citizens to forgo political liberty and the right to decide who governs them.