“Less immediately significant but of greater importance for totalitarian governments was the other experience in Africa's race society, that profit motives are not holy and can be overruled, that societies can function according to principles other than economic, and that such circumstances may favour those who under conditions of rationalised production and the capitalist system would belong to the underprivileged”
― The Origins of Totalitarianism
― The Origins of Totalitarianism
“Capitalism is unnatural.
Democracy is unnatural.
Human rights are unnatural.
The world we live in today is unnatural, and we stumble into it more or less by accident.
The natural state of mankind is grinding poverty punctuated by horrific violence terminating with an early death.
It was like this for a very very long time.”
― Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy
Democracy is unnatural.
Human rights are unnatural.
The world we live in today is unnatural, and we stumble into it more or less by accident.
The natural state of mankind is grinding poverty punctuated by horrific violence terminating with an early death.
It was like this for a very very long time.”
― Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy
“Authoritarianism appeals, simply, to people who cannot tolerate complexity: there is nothing intrinsically “left-wing” or “right-wing” about this instinct at all. It is anti-pluralist. It is suspicious of people with different ideas. It is allergic to fierce debates. Whether those who have it ultimately derive their politics from Marxism or nationalism is irrelevant. It is a frame of mind, not a set of ideas.”
― Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
― Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
“The great tragedy of the drive to centralization, as of the drive to extend the scope of government in general, is that it is mostly led by men of goodwill who will be the first to rue its consequences”
― Capitalism and Freedom
― Capitalism and Freedom
“For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial: it is not only the inscriptions on their graves in their own country that mark them out; no, in foreign lands also, not in any visible form but in people's hearts, their memory abides and grows. It is for you to try to be like them. Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.”
― History of the Peloponnesian War
― History of the Peloponnesian War
James’s 2025 Year in Books
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