On the record
I believe it would be despotic if it were clever, or rather if its representatives were so, but it has a fixed device to make them stupid.
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Walter Bagehot
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gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “I believe it would be despotic if it were clever, or rather if its representatives were so, but it has a fixed device to…”
Editor's note · Context
Here, Bagehot argues that the lack of intelligence among representatives prevents the landed interest from becoming despotic.
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No doubt this momentary gain is bought at a ruinous after-cost.
Now it is not conceivable that a race of beings with valuable instincts supporting their existence and supplying their wants would need these simple tools.
They are above corruption because they are the corruptors.
But the Jewish advantage never did so; beginning in religion, contrary to a thousand analogies, it remained religious.
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