Karl Popper once advised a student that if he wanted to reap intellectual fame, he should write endless pages of obscure, high-flown prose that would leave the reader puzzled and cowed. He should then here and there smuggle in a few sensible, straightforward sentences all could understand. The reader would feel that since he has grasped this part, he must have also grasped the rest. He would then congratulate himself and praise the author.

Anthony de Jasay

Categorized in : Writing Intellectual Pages

... the smaller the domain where choices among alternatives are made collectively, the smaller will be the probability that any individual's preference gets overruled.

Anthony de Jasay

alternatives government choices

In the process of helping some (perhaps most) people to more utility and justice, the state imposes on civil society a system of interdictions and commands.

Anthony de Jasay

society justice people

Having gathered all power to itself, [the State] has become the sole focus of all conflict, and it must construct totalitarian defences to match its total exposure.

Anthony de Jasay

conflict democracy focus

Self-imposed limits on sovereign power can disarm mistrust, but provide no guarantee of liberty and property beyond those afforded by the balance between state and private force.

Anthony de Jasay

balance liberty self

People who live in states have as a rule never experienced the state of nature and vice-versa, and have no practical possibility of moving from the one to the other ... On what grounds, then, do people form hypotheses about the relative merits of state and state of nature? ... My contention here is that preferences for political arrangements of society are to a large extent produced by these very arrangements, so that political institutions are either addictive like some drugs, or allergy-inducing like some others, or both, for they may be one thing for some people and the other for others.

Anthony de Jasay

government people moving