Tyler Cowen Quotes

Authority, as you usually think of it, is merely the excuse the strong use to make others conform to what they want.

religion and morality are a much better whip to keep people in submission than even the club and the gun.

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

When people say 'let's do something about it', they mean 'let's get hold of the political machinery so that we can do something to somebody else.' And that somebody is invariably you.

I call the discourse of power any discourse that engenders blame, hence guilt, in its recipient.

There are certain things that they say you can't do, there are all these secret people behind the scenes who make things available for you to do. That's why you have so much crime and violence.

The concept of power we admire is power over someone else.

Why do you all push us around?

Nothing for the Left, nothing the government does is ever about its superficial reason; it's only and always about expanding government power and control over you.

Domination delegates the physical violence on which it rests to the dominated.

One of the main ways that leadership stays in power is by, in various ways, convincing people that they should just let those who are in government govern: 'Trust us. Trust me. Just let us take care of things. Stay out of it.' Your opinions don't really matter. You are isolated. You are insignificant.

And this is the Anarchistic definition of the State: the embodiment of the principle of invasion in an individual, or a band of individuals, assuming to act as representatives or masters of the entire people within a given area.

We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend you should get a dog.

Today the tyrant rules not by club or fist, but disguised as a market researcher, he shepherds his flocks in the ways of utility and comfort.

When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick.

In the larger life of society, the people are made to submit to the orders of those who were originally meant to serve them—the government and its agents.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.

It is necessary to be very intelligent in the work of oppression.

The effect of dominance is not always the result of an intention to dominate.

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

People who are divided are easier to control.

The fear tactic is a tactic that's used by people who want to maintain control, and it's very effective.

The worst forms of tyranny, or certainly the most successful ones, are not those we rail against but those that so insinuate themselves into the imagery of our consciousness, and the fabric of our lives, as not to be perceived as tyranny.

It's easier to control people when they're afraid.