University Of Chicago Faculty

"Divine law must not be confused with custom. Custom is the crystallization of the whole of a society’s habits. A people among whom custom is altogether sovereign endures the despotism of the dead. Law, on the other hand, while prescribing and fixing such habits as are essential to the preservation of society, does not bar the door to favourable variations: it acts, so to speak, as a discriminating filter."

"Historians of the sentimental school have sometimes regretted that royalty became absolute, while at the same time rejoicing that it installed plebeians in office. They deceive themselves. Royalty exalted plebeians just because it aimed at becoming absolute; it became absolute because it had exalted plebeians. It is always utterly impossible to build an aggressive Power with aristocrats. Care for family interests, class solidarity, educational influences, all combine to dissuade them from handing over to the state the independence and fortunes of their fellows. The march of absolutism, which subdues the diversity of customs to the uniformity of laws, wars against local attachments on of a concentration of loyalties on the state, douses all other fires of life that one may remain alight, and substitutes for the personal ascendancy of the notables the mechanical control of an administration – such a system is, I say, the natural destroyer of the traditions on which is founded the pride of aristocracies and of the patronage which gives them their strength Resistance is, therefore, the business of aristocracies."

"The natural requirements of Power made the fortunes of the common people. All those “little people” ...no sooner found their niche in the state than they set about advancing their own fortunes along with their employers. At whose expense? The aristocrats’. With a boldness born of obscurity they encroached progressively on the taxing rights of the barons and transferred to the royal treasury the incomes of the great. As their invasions grew, the financial machine grew larger and more complicated. There might be new posts for their relations, they discovered new duties, so that whole families take their ease in a bureacracy that grew continually in numbers and authority. Spawning a whole hierarchy of underlings – deputies, clerks, registrars. So it was that everywhere the service of the state became the road to distinction, advancement, and authority of the common people. ...What a sight it is, the rise of the clerks, this swarming of busy bees who gradually devour the feudal splendour and leave it with nothing but its pomp and titles! Does it not leap to the eye that the state has made the fortunes of all these common people, just as they have made the state’s?"

"Every historical society seems, by successive stages, to have dragged its slow length into a form of institutions in which all life is absorbed by, and all movement emanates from. Power. It is a despotic form; in it there is neither wealth, nor authority, nor even liberty, outside Power, which is in consequence the goal of all ambition; nor can its holders find shelter from the rivalry which breeds anarchy, except by buttressing themselves with divine status."

"Where will it all end? In the destruction of all other command for the benefit of one alone - that of the state. In each man's absolute freedom from every family and social authority, a freedom the price of which is complete submission to the state. In the complete equality as between themselves of all citizens, paid for by their equal abasement before the power of their absolute master - the state. In the disappearance of every constraint which does not emanate from the state, and in the denial of every pre-eminence which is not approved by the state. In a word, it ends in the atomization of society, and in the rupture of every private tie linking man and man, whose only bond is now their common bondage to the state. The extremes of individualism and socialism meet: that was their predestined course."

"We have just been seeing political power concerned to break a "clandom" which preceded it in time. Let us now see how it behaves in regard to a clandom which is its contemporary. It may be said in effect, paraphrasing Shakespeare: "Monarchy and feudal aristocracy are two lions born on the same day." There was something of an act of piracy about the foundation of the European states. The Franks who conquered Gaul, the Normans who conquered England and Sicily, and even the Crusaders who went to Palestine, all behaved like bands of adventurers, dividing the spoil. What was there to divide? First of all, the ready cash. Afterwards, there were the lands; no deserts, these, but furnished with men whose labor was to maintain the victor. To every man, then, his share in the prize. And there we have the man-at-arms turned baron. This is shown to the evolution of the world of the word baron, which in Germany meant "freeman" and in Gaul denoted the name of the class. There remains for seizure the apparatus of state, which there was one: naturally it is the share of the chief. But when a barbarian like Clovis found himself confronted with the administrative machine of the Late Empire, he did not understand it. All he saw in it was a system of suction pumps, bringing him a steady flow of riches on which he made merry with no thought for the public services for which these resources were intended. In the result, then, he divided up along among his foremost companions the treasure of the state, whether in the form of lands or fiscal revenues. In this way, civilized government was gradually brought to ruin, and Gaul of the ninth and 10th centuries, was reduced to the same condition as that in which William of Normandy was to find England of the 11th. ...By a slant common to the barbarian mind, or rather by an inclination which is natural to all men, but in barbarians encounters no opposing principle, these influential men soon confound their function with their property and exercise the former as though it were the latter. Each little local tyrant then becomes legislature, judge and administrator of a more or less extensive principality; and on the tribute paid by it he lives, along with his servants and his men-at-arms. Power thus expelled soon returns, however, under the spur of its requirements. The resources at his disposal are absurdly out of proportion to the area, which depends on it and to the population, which calls it the sovereign."

"All command other than its own, that is what irks Power. All energy, wherever it may be found, that is what nourishes it. If the human atom which contains this energy is confined in a social molecule, then Power must break down that molecule. Its levelling tendency, therefore, is not in the least, as is commonly thought, an acquired characteristic which it assumes on taking democratic form. It is a leveller in its own capacity of state, and because it is state. The leveling process need find no place in Power's programme: it is embedded in its destiny. From the moment that it seeks to lay hands on the resources latent in the community, it finds itself impelled to put down the mighty by its natural tendency as that which causes a bear in search of honey to break the cells of the hive. How will the common people, the dependents and the laborers, welcome Power's secular work of destruction? With joy, inevitably. Its work is that of demolishing feudal castles; ambition motivates it, but the former victims rejoice in their liberation. Its work is that of breaking the shell of petty private tyrannies so as to draw out the hoarded energy within; greed motivates it but the exploited rejoice in the downfall of their exploiters. The final result of this stupendous work of aggression, does not disclose itself till late. Visible, no doubt, is the displacement of many private dominions by one general dominion, of many aristocracies by one "statocracy." But at first, the common people can but applaud: the more capable among them are, in a continuous stream, enrolled in Power's army - the administration - there to become the masters of their former social superiors. It is the most natural thing, therefore, that the common people should be Power’s ally, should do its work in the expansion of the state—a process which they facilitate by their passivity and stir up by their appeals."

"Power is linked with war, and a society wishing to limit war's ravages can find no other way than by limiting the scope of Power."

"[A]ttempts at the limitation of armaments are, it is clear, a vain thing. Armaments are merely an expression of Power. They grow because Power grows. And yet those parties are loudest in demanding their limitation which, with unperceived inconsequence, are the most ardent supporters of Power’s expansion!"

"As every advance of Power is useful for war, so war is useful for the advance of power; war is like a sheep-dog harrying the laggard Powers to catch up their smarter fellows in the totalitarian race."

"If there is in Power's make-up an egoistical urge combined with the will to serve society, it is a natural supposition that, the weaker the former, the stronger will be the latter: perfection of government would consist in the complete elimination of the egoistical principle. The chimera of elimination has been unceasingly pursued by minds whose limited range is only equalled by their good intentions. They do not realize that the nature of man and the nature of society combine to make any such project chimerical. For without the egoistical principle Power would lack the inner strength which alone enables it to carry out its functions."

"Command is a mountain top. The air breathed there is different, and the perspectives seen there are different, from those of the valley of obedience. The passion for order and the genius of construction, which are part of man’s natural endowment, get full play there. The man who has grown great sees from the top of his tower what he can make, if he so wills, of the swarming masses below him."

"Ransack the history of revolutions, and it will be found that every fall of a regime has been presaged by a defiance which went unpunished. It is as true today as it was ten thousand years ago that a Power from which the magic virtue has gone out, falls."

"As we shall see, theories like those of Divine Right and Popular Sovereignty, which pass for opposites, stem in reality from the same trunk, the idea of sovereignty—the idea, that is, that somewhere there is a right to which all other rights must yield. It is not hard to discover behind this juridical concept a metaphysical one. A supreme Will, it runs, rules and disposes human societies, a Will which, being naturally good, it would be wrong to resist: this Will is either the Divine Will” or the “general will.” Power in being must be the emanation of this supreme sovereign, be it God or society; it must be the incarnation of this will. And its legitimacy is proportionate to its satisfaction of these conditions. Whether as delegate or mandatory, it can then exercise the right to rule. It is at this point that the two theories, in addition to their divergent conceptions as to the nature of the sovereign, become much differentiated. As to how, for instance, and to whom, and, above all, to what extent the right to rule is given. ...When can it be said, and by what signs can it be known, that Power, by betraying its trust, has lost its legitimacy, and, having now become no more than an observable fact, can no longer claim a right transcendent?"

"In later times, Power's growth has continued at an accelerated pace, and its extension has brought a corresponding extension of war. And now we no longer understand the process. We no longer protest, we no longer react. The quiescence of ours is a new thing for which Power has to thank the smokescreen in which it has wrapped itself. Formally, it could be seen manifest in the person of the king, who did not disclaim being the matter he was, and in whom human passions were discernible. Now masked in anonymity, it claims to have no existence of its own, and to be but the impersonal and passionless instrument of the general will. But that is clearly a fiction."

"Barbarian invasions would be superfluous: We are our own Huns."

"Power changes its appearance but not its reality. Politics are about power; we cannot evade that truth or its consequences. We dream of a better world but it is in Utopia – that is, nowhere."

"The Führer will be impressed only if the British and the French nations cure themselves of their present laxity and slovenliness. What has been achieved by Germany has been achieved only because the ceaseless effort of every German, man, woman, and child, has built up that platform of strength from which Herr Hitler speaks. If we do not show ourselves the equals of the Germans in patriotism, we shall be neither worthy foes nor desirable friends. The only logical sequel to Munich is the 52-hour week in French factories and conscription in England. Then we can talk as great nations. But not till then."

"So there we were finally at the western gate, waving the crescent-and-star and shouting the familiar slogans: Pakistan Zindabad... Quaid-e-Azam Zindabad... Na'ra-e Takbir, Allah-o-Akbar... Hans ke liya hai Pakistan, Lar ke lenge Hindustan. In front of us was the low boundary wall, behind which was the front yard of the school where we could see our fellow students assembling and forming rows. Most of them came through the eastern gate, for it was closer to most of the city, but quite a few also went past us. Given the population of the city, most of them were Hindus -- at the time there were only two Sikh families in the city and only one Sikh boy in our school. But, Muslim or Hindu, none of the boys going in challenged us. (We, on the other hand, probably accosted the Muslim boys and tried to stop them from going in. We had plenty of practice of doing that the previous year, during the provincial assembly elections, much to the discomfort of the numerically fewer kangresi Muslim boys.)"

"I woke up early, probably on my own. More likely I was awakened by the voices of the Congress boys who went around the city that morning -- as they had been doing for more than a week -- loudly chanting nationalist songs. I imagine I was quite excited. The previous afternoon we -- all my friends in the Muslim Students Federation (MSF) and I -- had celebrated the creation of Pakistan by holding a rally in front of our small office-cum-library. The crescent-and-star-on-green flag of the Muslim League was raised and saluted, poems were sung, and speeches were listened to. Later, as we were dispersing, someone had suggested that we should further display our commitment to the Muslim League and the Quaid-e Azam by "boycotting" the ceremonies at the school the next day. There was an immediate agreement. We were fearless Muslims. Hadn't we just won Pakistan "laughingly?" (After the announcement of the Partition and the acceptance speeches of the leaders on 3 June 1947, some enthusiastic slogan-maker of the Muslim League had come up with a hot one: hans ke liya hai Pakistan / lar ke lenge Hindustan.)"

"The defectiveness of [the Christ myth theory's] treatment of the traditional evidence is perhaps not so patent in the case of the gospels as it is in the case of the Pauline epistles. Yet fundamentally it is the same. There is the same easy dismissal of all external testimony, the same disdain for the saner conclusions of modern criticism, the same inclination to attach most value to extremes of criticism, the same neglect of all the personal and natural features of the narrative, the same disposition to put skepticism forward in the garb of valid demonstration, and the same ever present predisposition against recognizing any evidence for Jesus' actual existence... The New Testament data are perfectly clear in their testimony to the reality of Jesus' earthly career and they come from a time when the possibility that the early framers of tradition should have been deceived upon this point is out of the question."

"When all the evidence brought against Jesus' historicity is surveyed it is not found to contain any elements of strength."

"The other exception has to do with a rather peculiar case of psychic phenomena, one which I find myself unable to classify, and which I would like very much to narrate more fully …. I was brought in contact with it, in the summer of 1911, and I have had it under my observation more or less ever since, having been present at probably 250 of the night sessions, many of which have been attended by a stenographer who made voluminous notes. … This man is utterly unconscious, wholly oblivious to what takes place, and, unless told about it subsequently, never knows that he has been used as a sort of clearing house for the coming and going of alleged extra-planetary personalities. … The communications which have been written, or which we have had the opportunity to hear spoken, are made by a vast order of alleged beings who claim to come from other planets to visit this world, to stop here as student visitors for study and observation when they are en route from one universe to another or from one planet to another. … Its philosophy is consistent. It is essentially Christian and is, on the whole, entirely harmonious with the known scientific facts and truths of this age."

"We decided to start out with questions pertaining to the origin of the cosmos, Deity, creation, and such other subjects as were far beyond the present-day knowledge of all humankind. The following Sunday several hundred questions were brought in. We sorted out these questions, discarding duplicates, and in a general way, classifying them. Shortly thereafter, the first Urantia Paper appeared in answer to these questions. From first to last, when the Papers appeared, the questions disappeared. This was the procedure followed throughout the many years of the reception of the Urantia Papers. No questions—no Papers."

"It could be that one of the reasons that Dr Sadler was chosen for his service to the revelation was that his mind was already prepared for some of the revelatory concepts in The Urantia Book as a result of his association with the Adventist church. His mind-set made him the perfect person to accept these new concepts, as he had fewer elements of traditional and authoritarian Christianity to transcend."

"After examining all of the evidence, the conclusion that makes the most sense is that Sadler was the channel for The Urantia Book. No other person was present, led the group, had the skill set, or spoke about being connected to the cosmic mind as Sadler."

"Among elderly Urantians who knew Sadler, several legends have taken shape about miraculous ways in which some UB documents came into Sadler's possession. Instead of being written or spoken by Wilfred, then typed by a secretary, it is claimed that Sadler once wrote down some questions and put them in his desk drawer. The next day, to his astonishment, the questions had been mysteriously replaced by answers. … It is said that Sadler checked the handwriting against the scripts of those in the Contact Commission and the Forum. There were no matches."

"The archaism of the Gāthās would incline us to situate Zarathuštra in the very beginning of the first millennium BCE, if not even earlier."

"Since the classical Greeks already, it has been common to date Zarathuštra to the 6th century BC, hardly a few generations before the Persian wars. In popular literature, this date is still given, but scholars have now settled for an earlier date: “The archaism of the Gāthās would incline us to situate Zarathuštra in the very beginning of the first millennium BCE, if not even earlier.” (Varenne 2006) But how much earlier? According to leading scholar SkjaervØ, “Zoroastrianism (…) originated some four millennia ago”."

"The economics of the famous Chicago core curriculum had taken place during that first quarter. So to make up for my deficiency, I was put in an old-fashioned introductory course in economics. That worked out very well because the teacher was Aaron Director. He was a person who has never published anything important, but he was very influential. He really was the one who converted the first Chicago School of Frank Knight, Jacob Viner and Paul Douglas, which was pretty eclectic, into the second one, with Milton Friedman and so forth. I guess with Gary Becker et al. we’re at the third right now. So there I was, completely by chance, and I discovered the subject that interested me and that I would be good at. Economics is a subject which is quite attractive to somebody who is both interested in statistics, analysis, metrics, but also in people and policies. And so I became a very good student there."

"We live in a hot, expanding Universe. We also live in a Universe that on 'large' scales is homogeneous, the same at every point, and isotropic, the same in every direction. There is an ample (and growing) body of evidence for homogeneity and isotropy. The isotropy and homogeneity of the Universe is the most fundamental principle in modern cosmology. In fact, it is called the Cosmological Principle."

"In the past few years the search for a consistent quantum theory of gravity and the quest for a unification of gravity with other forces have led to a great deal of interest in theories with extra spatial dimensions. These extra spatial dimensions are unseen because they are compact and small, presumably with typical dimensions of the Planck length, lPl = 1.616 × 10-33 cm. If the “internal” dimensions are static and small compared to the large “external” dimensions the only role they would play in the dynamics of the expansion of the Universe is in determining the structure of the physical laws. However, if the big bang is extrapolated back to the Planck time, then the characteristic size of both internal and external dimensions were the same, and the internal dimensions may have had a more direct role in the dynamics of the evolution of the Universe."

"Leon and I used to tease each other, because he's an experimentalist and I'm a theorist. And experimentalists are jealous of theorists, because theorists are smarter."

"The precision cosmological measurements have lead to the latest cosmological model, usually called the standard cosmological model, or ΛCDM, where Λ indicates Einstein’s cosmological constant (or more generally, dark energy), and CDM stands for cold dark matter. ... The most remarkable feature of the standard cosmological model is that it seems capable of accounting for all cosmological observations; i.e., it seems to work!"

"Without need any longer of religious backing, capitalism may now have the power to shape people in its own image. Its conduct-forming spirit may be its own production. ... Capitalism brings along with it, as part of its normal functioning, cultural forms affecting how subjects relate to themselves and to others. Capitalism has cultural concomitants—beliefs, values and norms—that help direct conduct—that get people to do willingly what capitalism requires of them—by encouraging them to see what they are doing and what they must do to get ahead as meaningful, valuable, or simply inevitable."

"We now know how to produce, how to fight, how to administer social affairs, public or private, on a massive scale; and no modern group is unmindful of the technical tools available for this purpose. Masses of men and women-millions of them-now know more about organization, its meaning and apparatus, than ever before in human history. Its cult is no longer secret or magic. What now appears is a reasonable expectancy by those concerned that under such and such conditions such and such an outcome will follow, in an organizational pattern, of which they are parts, and in which they share responsibility."

"The development of American political theories has received surprisingly little attention from students of American history. Even the political ideas of the Revolutionary fathers and the tenets of such important schools as those represented by Jefferson and Adams have not been carefully analyzed or put in their proper perspective. The political theory of the controversies over slavery and the nature of the Union has generally been presented from the partisan point of view, while recent tendencies in political thought have received no adequate notice."

"This volume is an analysis of the American party system, an account of the structure, processes and significance of the political party, designed to show as clearly as possible within compact limits what the function of the political party is in the community. My purpose is to make this, as far as possible, an objective study of the organization and behavior of our political parties. It is hoped that this volume may serve as an introduction to students and others who wish to find a concise account of the party system; and also that it may serve to stimulate more intensive study of the important features and processes of the party. From time to time in the course of this discussion significant fields of inquiry have been indicated where it is believed that research would bear rich fruit. In the light of broader statistical information than we now have and with the aid of a thorough-going social and political psychology than we now have, it will be possible in the future to make much more exhaustive and conclusive studies of political parties than we are able to do at present. The objective, detailed study of political behavior will unquestionably enlarge our knowledge of the system of social and political control under which we now operate. But such inquiries will call for funds and personnel not now available to me."

"The technical apparatus of modem organization is far more complicated, elaborate, and scientific than that of preceding generations."

"In modern industry the managerial groups in many areas rise to a position more significant than that of the owners or the workers. Decision often rests largely in their hands, providing, of course, they are able to point to a generous measure of financial success in their particular enterprise. Wages to the workers, profits to the owners, prices and goods to the consumers--these are allocated in great measure by the managers of the concern and tolerated on the terms just stated."

"It is not necessary to conclude that the managerial groups have assumed complete domination over the concerns in which they are found, although this may be the fact in various instances, but only to reckon with the undoubted truth that the managerial factor in public and private enterprise has taken on a far more significant role than before."

"The earlier political thinkers used the term "organization" in the broadest sense of the term, that is, with reference to the widest aspects of the patterns of political forces in a given state. Thus a political society might be organized as a monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, as a city-state, feudal state, a national state, imperial state, or a world state. Emphasis was also placed on the organs of organization. These came to be standardized in the course of time under the categories of legislative, executive, and judicial organs, the combination of which in some form of balance was held to be the indispensable basis of sound organization."

"Much attention has been given in recent years to what might be called the "higher organization" of the state, both in the practical experimentation of modem nations and in the domain of theoretical analysis. In almost every country in the world there has been experimentation with and discussion of the emerging evolution of political-economic forms and forces, now everywhere challenging the peace and security of mankind technology, cartels, unions, business and agricultural associations, armies, professions, churches, schools. The problem of a socialistic or a mixed economy has led to vigorous debate not only upon economic principles but upon the whole political setting of economics."

"Charles E. Merriam... attributed a decisive position to the managers of a democratic society. As Chairman of the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago between the two World Wars, Professor Merriam inspired a generation of students and practitioners of public administration. As a local political leader in Chicago and as a national adviser to liberal American Presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt, Merriam recognized the practical significance of public management. In his overall treatise on Systematic Politics, Merriam devoted the final but perhaps the most significant section of his chapter on "The Organs of Government" to what he calls "the managerial organ.""

"The man instrumental in the creation of the Brookings Institution, Charles E. Merriam, sought to move toward a “science of politics.” In his presidential address to APSA in 1921, he spoke of what he called a pressing problem, the reconstruction of the methods of political study (Merriam 1921, 174). Thus began a trend that placed increasing emphasis on the development of theories and testable hypotheses."

"Political science is the study of the authoritative allocation of values for a society."

"Frank Knight wrote some polemics against Slichter's textbook in The Journal of Political Economy in the early 1930s. He smelled some kind of heresy in Slichter. But Knight's discussion was methodological. He argued that old Slichter was a do-gooder who thought he could change human nature, and that governments can do some good. Hardened, experienced people, by contrast, know that people are cussed. I think there's a lot of merit in Knight, but a lot of demerit, too. Whether his total effect on me was more bad than good I'm not sure. But from 1932 to 1936 I was besotted on Frank Knight. It's not true, I'll say categorically, what Milton Friedman at one time tried to sell: that there was a very subtle Chicago oral tradition on the demand for money and monetary theory. Read Robertson's handbook on Money, and you will have plumbed the depths of Chicago's monetary sophistication."

"Like Mises, Knight owes his original reputation to a theoretical monograph; notwithstanding an early lack of recognition, the latter’s Risk, Uncertainty and Profit (1921) eventually became, and for many years continued to be, one of the most influential textbooks on economic theory, although it had not originally been designed as such. Knight has since written a great deal on questions of economic policy and social philosophy— mostly in articles the majority of which have since been republished in book form. The best-known, and perhaps also the most characteristic, volume is The Ethics of Competition and Other Essays (1935). Knight’s personal influence, through his teaching, exceeds even the influence of his writings. It is hardly an exaggeration to state that nearly all the younger American economists who really understand and advocate a competitive economic system have at one time been Knight’s students."

"Knight's monograph The Economic Organization (1933) was prepared in the mid-1920s while Knight was at the University of Iowa and was later duplicated for student use at Chicago... It contains the elements of theory that helped to establish for Chicago its pre-eminence in neoclassical economics. While, according to Buchanan, there was little in the monograph that was wholly original, its value was in its emphasis on key points, its clarification of ambiguous concepts and notions, and its integrated approach to the economy as a social organization. According to Buchanan, several generations of undergraduate students at Chicago obtained their vision of the totality of the economic process only after encountering Knight (and Simons)."

"Knight is the first to use the circular-flow diagram as a means of explaining the way in which the interaction of individuals and businesses in goods and factor markets simultaneously solve all the functions required for effective social organization (Knight 1951, pp. 61–6). Prices provide a measure of the social importance of goods and services (albeit ‘not a true index of social importance according to any recognized ethical standard’), ensure that productive resources are allocated to the production of goods and services which place the highest value on them, and simultaneously distribute income across the productive resources accordingly. ‘The principal connection between the price system and social progress’, meanwhile, ‘is mediated by the phenomenon of interest on capital’ (pp. 63–5)."