{"id":58939,"date":"2026-04-09T01:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T05:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=58939"},"modified":"2026-04-08T10:31:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:31:49","slug":"qotd-diffuse-versus-concentrated-state-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2026\/04\/09\/qotd-diffuse-versus-concentrated-state-power\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Diffuse versus concentrated state power"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 25px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>We have seen in the twentieth century the dire consequences when all power is concentrated in the hands of the state. When power is widely diffused, it is difficult and normally impossible for any one man or a few to turn it all at once to evil use. But when all power is concentrated in the hands of the state, it is a simple matter for one man or a few men having control of the state mechanism to turn all that concentrated power in any direction they please; an unhappily their pleasure has usually been in the direction of evil.<\/p>\n<p>Ivor Thomas, <em>The Socialist Tragedy<\/em>, 1951.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have seen in the twentieth century the dire consequences when all power is concentrated in the hands of the state. When power is widely diffused, it is difficult and normally impossible for any one man or a few to turn it all at once to evil use. But when all power is concentrated in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,7,41],"tags":[76],"class_list":["post-58939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-history","category-quotations","tag-socialism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-fkD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58939"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101773,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58939\/revisions\/101773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}