"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."
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Philosophers from FranceUniversity of Oxford facultyEconomists from FranceUniversity of Chicago facultyUniversity of California, Berkeley faculty
Original Language: English
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pp. 159-160
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bertrand_de_Jouvenel
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Bertrand de Jouvenel
Bertrand de Jouvenel des Ursins (31 October 1903 – 1 March 1987), a late French aristocrat, was a philosopher, political economist, and futurist. Among other places, he taught at Oxford, the Cambridge, Yale
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