“The real problem is that "limited government" invariably leads to unlimited government. If history is to be any guide and current experience is to be any guide, we in the United States 200 years ago started out with the notion of limited government - virtually no government interference - and we now have a massive quasi-totalitarian government.” IfsYearsRealStatesProblemGovernmentUnitedUnited StatesYears AgoNotionCurrentsGuidesMassiveUnlimitedInterferenceLimited GovernmentReal ProblemsTotalitarian Government Author:Murray Bookchin
“I feel that if people investigate the emergence of government, of State power - if they examine the logic of State power historically, and more specifically in the United States - they will find that the concept of limited government is not tenable once they adopt some type of libertarian principle.” PeopleIfsFeelsStatesGovernmentUnitedPrinciplesUnited StatesTypeConceptsLogicLibertarianLimited GovernmentEmergence Author:Murray Bookchin
“If the State does not enjoy a monopoly of violence, which then gives it the power to order people's lives and to compel them to obey decisions over which they have no control, or just limited control, then I think you have a consistently libertarian society.” PeopleIfsThinkingGivingDoeStatesOrderEnjoyDecisionViolenceLibertarianConsistentlyMonopoly Author:Murray Bookchin
“The State is a professional apparatus that sets itself apart from the people and apart from the institutions that the people themselves create. It's a monopoly on violence that manages and institutionalizes social activities. The people are perfectly capable of managing themselves and creating their own institutions.” PeopleStatesSocialViolenceActivityCreatingCapableInstitutionsManageMonopoly Author:Murray Bookchin
“I find it perfectly consistent for libertarians to operate on the municipal or county level, where they are close to the people and where they may have a party or a federation that is made up of the social institutions, the residual social institutions that still remain, over and beyond what the State has managed to preempt and absorb.” PeopleMayMadeStillsStatesSocialLevelsPartyInstitutionsLibertarianConsistentCountyFederationSocial InstitutionsResidual Author:Murray Bookchin
“I say this ironically, not because I favor the State, but because people are not in the state of mind right now where they feel that they can manage themselves. We have to go through an educational process - which does not involve, in my opinion, compromises with the State. But if the State disappeared tomorrow by accident, and the police disappeared and the army disappeared and the government agencies disappeared, the ironical situation is that people would suddenly feel denuded.” PeopleIfsFeelsMindDoeStatesGovernmentProcessSituationOpinionTomorrowRight NowArmyPoliceEducationalAccidentsFavorsManageCompromiseAgencyState Of MindGovernment Agencies Author:Murray Bookchin
“I categorically deny that. The American left today as I know it - and believe me, I am very familiar with the American left - is going toward authoritarianism, toward totalitarianism. It's becoming the real right in the United States.” KnowsBelieveRealStatesTodayLeftUnitedUnited StatesBecomingDenyFamiliarBelieve In MeTotalitarianismAuthoritarianism Author:Murray Bookchin
“We don't have an appreciable American left any more in the United States. What I saw of the SDS in the '60s was very abhorrent to me: Marxism, Leninism, almost the KGB mentality - a police politics that I found completely totalitarian in nature.” StatesFoundLeftUnitedUnited StatesSawsPoliceMentalityMarxismKgbAbhorrentMarxism Leninism Author:Murray Bookchin
“I would say that today the real support for State power and totalitarianism comes from the Communist parties and the Socialist parties and, where they are sizable, the Trotskyist groups. They are the ones that really frighten me.” RealStatesTodayPartySupportGroupsCommunistSocialistTotalitarianismCommunist PartySocialist Party Author:Murray Bookchin
“People who resist authority, who defend the rights of the individual, who try in a period of increasing totalitarianism and centralization to reclaim these rights - this is the true left in the United States.” PeopleTryingStatesIndividualLeftUnitedUnited StatesRightsPeriodsAuthorityTotalitarianismCentralization Author:Murray Bookchin
“The State certainly played a decisive role. I also believe that it may have stemmed from the rivalry itself. Grow or die, devour or die. That's the one problem that I have to wrestle with. I have to wrestle with whether or not rivalry in the free market does not ultimately lead to concentration, corporatism, and finally totalitarianism.” BelieveMayDoeStatesProblemDiesGrowsRolesConcentrationFree MarketTotalitarianismRivalryCorporatism Author:Murray Bookchin
“[Ayn] Rand accepts that when she supports military conscription, even indirectly. Also, she starts her politics from the premise that the State must have police power. She fails to take into account the inevitability that once you start with police power you're going to have a police State.” StatesAcceptingSupportFailingMilitaryAccountsPolicePremisesInevitabilityPolice StateConscriptionPolice Power Author:Murray Bookchin
“In some instances even certain social services that normally were supplied, or pre-empted by the state. Take the United States, the [Ronald] Reagan administration is withdrawing assistance, all kinds of welfare programs, and if people don't improvise their own resources to cope with problems of the ageing, problems of the sick, problems of the young, problems of the poor, problems of tenant rights, who will?” PeopleIfsKindStatesProblemYoungCertainSocialPoorUnitedUnited StatesRightsResourcesProgramSickAll KindsInstanceAdministrationWelfareAssistanceAgeingSocial ServiceTenantsWithdrawingWelfare Programs Author:Murray Bookchin
“New England has a strong tradition of localism. What is ordinarily called election day in most of the United States is called town meeting day in Vermont.” StatesStrongUnitedUnited StatesTraditionEnglandTownsElectionMeetingsNew EnglandElection DayVermont Author:Murray Bookchin
