Quote of the day—Samuel P. Huntington

If the railing cry of the English Parliament was no “taxation without representation” today’s slogan ought to be “no representation without taxation” since it is the latter that best incentives participation.

Samuel P. Huntington
From The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama.
[I only have the one QOTD from this book. And then it was only when the author quoted someone else. But it is an excellent book. I found it fascinating.—Joe]

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7 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Samuel P. Huntington

  1. “no representation without taxation”

    Sounds a lot like He who has the gold, makes the rules. It’s called a tax because calling it an outright purchase of a legislator might ruffle the peasants feathers.

  2. Two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner; they all might be equally represented and equally taxed but, barring any other standards, the outcome will be the same, regardless.

    The title of the book is rather bizarre in that it culminates with the French Revolution. Thoughbeit “part 1 of two”, that is a strange choice.

    Your posted quote, “no representation without taxation” on the surface, would appear to refer to a welfare state, something which would be banned in any free society. In any case, I as a person, or anyone else, would require “representation” only in extremely rare cases, so long as certain standards and principles were upheld. If the standards and principles are not upheld, then politics is nothing but gang warfare.

    There may be Political Order without liberty, and there may be liberty without much Political Order, so what exactly is it we’re discussing here? I wonder whether there can be any relationship between liberty and politics other than a mutually destructive one.

    Religion and politics have of course been closely related for all time. They’re both authoritarian systems, with central command, hierarchy and doctrine. I point out however that Christianity is the one exception, being that it is fundamentally anti-authoritarian. By that definition it is not a religion, and so religions (having leadership and command structure, bases of operations, bank accounts and doctrine), whatever the pretexts, are therefore anti-Christian.

    • No time for a detailed response right now but I think you need to reevaluate the exception you claim for Christianity, unless you don’t regard Catholicism as Christianity.

        • Not clear. And what about Judaism?
          I suspect there are some lesser known religions that fit the “non-authoritarian” label as well. American Indian ones? Various forms of animist religions as used to exist all over the world and still remain in some places?

  3. To slightly restate your proposal, I’d be happy to support a change that said “you cannot vote in a federal election if you have not paid NET FEDERAL INCOME TAX in at least three of the previous five years,” and a similar one for state and county.

  4. “no representation without taxation”

    Oh, my, yes. Anyone receiving welfare support in any form from the government should not be allowed to vote.

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