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Quote by Murray Bookchin

“I think that people who believe in limited government would benefit greatly by studying the logic in government itself and the role of power as a corruptive mechanism in leading finally to unlimited government.”

Quote by Murray Bookchin

Author

Murray Bookchin

Murray Bookchin was an American author, philosopher, and social theorist known for his work in social ecology and anarchism. His most famous book, 'The Ecology of Freedom', explores the relationship between ecology and social theory. more

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“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.”

People Ifs Feels States Government United Principles United States Type Concepts Logic Libertarian Limited Government Emergence

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.”

People Ifs Thinking Giving Doe States Order Enjoy Decision Violence Libertarian Consistently Monopoly

Author:Murray Bookchin

“I'm not sitting in judgment on whether or not libertarians can participate in a political process whose very nature they oppose.”

Political Process Judgment Sitting Libertarian

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.”

People States Social Violence Activity Creating Capable Institutions Manage Monopoly

Author:Murray Bookchin

“Take a very striking case in point: the Russian Bolsheviks. [Vladimir] Lenin created an alleged workers' party, which in every way reflected the Czarist machine, in order to deal with Czarism. And the danger and the hazards of trying to accommodate libertarian principles to the political process as we know it today is that one begins to dissolve the libertarian principles. So I would say that there is an inconsistency there that should be explored.”

Knows Way Should Trying Today Political Order Process Deals Party Principles Cases Danger Machines Workers Libertarian Hazards Accommodate Inconsistency Bolsheviks

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.”

People May Made Stills States Social Levels Party Institutions Libertarian Consistent County Federation Social Institutions Residual

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.”

“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.”

Knows Believe Real States Today Left United United States Becoming Deny Familiar Believe In Me Totalitarianism Authoritarianism

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.”

States Found Left United United States Saws Police Mentality Marxism Kgb Abhorrent Marxism 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.”

Real States Today Party Support Groups Communist Socialist Totalitarianism Communist Party Socialist Party

Author:Murray Bookchin