A concrete example of this mechanism is found in one of the most alarming phenomena of the last thirty years: the enormous increase in the police force of all countries. The increase of population has inevitably rendered it necessary. However accustomed we may be to it, the terrible paradox should not escape our minds that the population of a great modern city, in order to move about peaceably and attend to its business, necessarily requires a police force to regulate the circulation. But it is foolishness for the party of "law and order" to imagine that these "forces of public authority" created to preserve order are always going to be content to preserve the order that that party desires. Inevitably they will end by themselves defining and deciding on the order they are going to impose- which, naturally, will be that which suits them best.
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About Ortega y Gasset
Ortega y Gasset was a 19th-century Spanish philosopher and essayist. José Ortega y Gasset was a Spanish philosopher and essayist. He worked during the first half of the 20th century while Spain oscillated between monarchy, republicanism and dictatorship. Read more on Wikipedia →
Themes
- Politics — Governance, civic duty, and the structures of power