Category: Thought

Labour produces its effects only by conspiring with the laws of nature.

James Mill, Elements of Political Economy (1821).

It is axiomatic that men who know little are often intolerant of a point of view that is contrary to their own. The bitterness that has been brought about by arguments on public questions is proverbial. Lovers have been parted by bitter quarrels on theories of pacificism or militarism; and when an argument upon an abstract question engages opponents they often desert the main line of argument in order to abuse each other.

Edward L. Bernays, Crystalizing Public Opinion (1923).

Wages are a speculation. The laborer who offers his labor to a trader or a contractor, argues thus with him: ‘I deliver to you so much labor. It is true that you run the risks of the enterprise. You are obliged to make advances of capital. You may gain or lose. That does not concern me. I do my work, I make it over to you at a certain price; you pay this to me whatever happens. Whether it redounds to your benefit or causes you loss is not my affair.’

Yves Guyot, The Tyranny of Socialism, Laissez Faire Books, 2015, LFB.org.

Dying societies accumulate laws like dying men accumulate remedies.

Fanfare, bandiere, parate.
Uno stupido è uno stupido. Due stupidi sono due stupidi.
Diecimila stupidi sono una forza storica.

Fanfare, flags, parades.
One fool is one fool. Two fools are two fools. Ten thousand fools are a historical force.

Leo Longanesi, Parliamo dell’Elefante: Frammenti di un Diario (1947). With a few revisions, this came to be misattributed to Franz Kafka.

Somehow people always forget that it’s much easier to install a dictator than to remove one.

Garry Kasparov, Winter Is Coming (2015), Foreword, p. xiv.

Propaganda is of no use to the politician unless he has something to say which the public, consciously or unconsciously, wants to hear.

Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928).

As you’d expect, this whole structure of decision making answers basically to the transnational corporations, international banks, etc. It’s also an effective blow against democracy. All these structures raise decision making to the executive level, leaving what’s called a “democratic deficit” — parliaments and populations with less influence.
Not only that, but the general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.

Noam Chomsky, “The New Global Economy,” How the World Works (2013).

Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.

Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928).

The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.