Quote #138
The 'social contract,' in the only sense in which it is not completely mythical, is a contract among conquerors, which loses its raison d'etre if they are deprived of the benefits of conquest.
More from Bertrand Russell
- In democratic countries, the most important private organizations are economic. Unlike secret societies, they are able to exercize their te…
- Among human beings, the subjection of women is much more complete at a certain level of civilisation than it is among savages. And the subj…
- We thus have a kind of see-saw: first, pure persuasion leading to the conversion of a minority; then force exerted to secure that the rest …
- An individual may perceive a way of life, or a method of social organisation, by which more of the desires of mankind could be satisfied th…
- In former days, men sold themselves to the Devil to acquire magical powers. Nowadays they acquire those powers from science, and find thems…
- The love of power is a part of human nature, but power-philosophies are, in a certain precise sense, insane. The existence of the external …
- I greatly doubt whether the men who become pirate chiefs are those who are filled with retrospective terror of their fathers, or whether Na…
- It is not altogether true that persuasion is one thing and force is another. Many forms of persuasion - even many of which everybody approv…