Centralization of Power Quotes

At regular intervals in Chinese history it suffers complete collapse and the central government disintegrates.

The Russian Czars did a great deal that was bad. They robbed and enslaved the people. They waged wars and seized territories in the interest of landowners. But they did one thing that was good—they amassed an enormous state.

If a radical devolution of powers was possible, it would have been done before. The assumption of states' rights is gone. There's no support for it in the Supreme Court and there's no support for it in public opinion.

Progressives think progress depends upon (that is, they sometimes define progress as) the concentration of power as high as possible in government’s regulatory apparatus. Hence, between 1960 and 2019, the 900 percent increase in federal grants to states — from $70 billion (adjusted for inflation) to $700 billion — came with strings, resembling chains, attached.

Today, the Federal Government is simply trying to do too much.

If ... the taking over the tobacco trade by the state was socialistic, Napoleon and Metternich would rank among the founders of Socialism.

there is a real question as to whether "bigness" in a body politic is not an evil in itself, quite aside from the policies pursued in its name.

I am Xerxes, great king, king of kings, the king of all countries which speak all kinds of languages, the king of the entire big, far-reaching earth.

a vile law system, calculated for expense and with a design to draw by degrees all law business into the Federal Courts. The Constitution is meant to swallow all the State Constitutions by degrees.

There simply is no greater threat to individual liberty and the viability of our great nation than the threat that comes from the continued consolidation of power in Washington, a consolidation that flies in the face of the division of power between the federal government and the states that is required by the Constitution.

It we mean to found a national Govt., States must submit like individuals-the Government must be supreme—either the national, or State Government. must be so.

Regulation has crept up on us steadily…. The most alarming feature of this concentration of power in the Federal government is the creation of omnipotent commissions to exercise it. The new fields of Federal control are administered by small Boards or executive commissions, usually appointed by the President and responsible to no one but the President. They are part of the Executive Department. But their function is not executive only. They have two additional functions: one is legislative, the other is judicial. These commissions write the rules which make the laws effective. Then they administer the rules; and when the rules are violated, they it in judgment on the violations.

The absorption of all social functions by the State necessarily favored the development of an unbridled, narrow-minded, individualism.

The White House staff [under Richard Nixon] viewed Congress in much the same way that the chairman of the board of a huge corporation regards his regional sales managers.

The poor Constitution itself is hardly paid any attention to. It's necessary to ignore it because most of what government does these days is clearly unconstitutional. The original idea, as expressed by James Madison, was that states would do 95 percent of the governing. Today, they are little more than administrative subdivisions of the central empire.

What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and power into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian senate.

Ch'in Shih-huang is the first emperor of China. He united seven separate kingdoms into a single nation. He built the Great Wall and was buried with the terra-cotta soldiers. The Chinese have mixed feelings about him. They're proud of the nation he created, but he was a maniacal tyrant.

I do believe that power needs to be returned to the states. I think that we've got way too much power in Washington. This is where I'm focused: way too much power in Washington.

I noticed long ago that Amin has the tendency to concentrate power in his own hands but I did not attach any particular significance to this. However, recently this tendency has become dangerous.

PM Modi's irresponsible behaviour and an overzealous Supreme Court will damage the Indian federal structure.

Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details, which must be attended to if rules have to be adapted to different men, instead of indiscriminately subjecting all men to the same rule.

Modernization vastly increased the power of the state. It gave the rulers new tools—the powers of indoctrination, surveillance, and repression.

In the rush to become all things to all people, the federal government has lost sight of its core responsibilities. As a result we're stuck in this frustrating paradox where Washington actually neglects things it's clearly supposed to be doing, while interfering in other areas where they are neither welcome nor authorized.

George Tenet was actually a very strong centralizing force. If you met George by personality, George met with the president six days out of seven: nontrivial attribute inside the federal government. And George was head of the CIA.

All [political] parties, without exception, when they seek for power, are varieties of absolutism.