Lawrence Lessig Quotes

The real power in America is held by a fast-emerging new Oligarchy of pimps and preachers who see no need for Democracy or fairness or even trees, except maybe the ones in their own yards, and they don't mind admitting it.

It's the tyranny of an oligarchy that I'm concerned about.

In our political system, money is power. And that means a few can have a lot more power than the rest. That's bad news for everyone else - and for our democracy itself.

The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty

The good government of one man is the bad government of another

The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.

If people cannot limit government they will not for long be free.

The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy.

Democracy cannot long survive when the people permit their lives to be dominated - economically or politically - by a powerful few.

Government has within it a tendency to abuse its powers.

The fear is that we'll move in the direction from being a democracy to an oligarchy.

Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others - only to lose it over themselves.

But on the other hand government takes away a certain amount of liberty and in some countries it takes away all of liberty. And it will, everywhere, if people who fight government do not fight government any longer.

Every one of the world's dictatorships can and does claim to be acting in the name of the people.

The American citizen must be made aware that today a relatively small group of people is proclaiming its purposes to be the will of the People. That elitist approach to government must be repudiated.

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.

Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party - though they are quite numerous - is no freedom at all.

I've never been an oligarch. The definition of an oligarch is someone who has co-operated with the government, and I never did.

Our tribunals — unlike those in the United States — have been traditionally subordinated to political power. Mexico has a history of corrupt elections where the will of the people has been subverted by the wealthy and powerful.

The paradox of American democracy has been that its slogan of equal opportunity has meant, often, equal opportunity to get power over your fellows.

Government exists to protect the interests of the powerful from the will of the people.

A heavy aristocracy and corruption are two bridles in the mouths of a people which will prevent them from making any effectual efforts against their masters.

Either force or corruption has been the principle of every modern government.

Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses.