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The Tyranny of Public Opinion
“There is virtually only one factor that has the power to make people unfree – tyrannical public opinion. The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs, but resistance to the despotism of public opinion.
“It is not the struggle of the many against the few but of minorities – sometimes of a minority of but one man- against the majority. The worst and most dangerous form of absolutist rule is that of an intolerant majority. Such is the conclusion arrived at by Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill.”
Ludwig von Mises, “Theory and History – An interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution” (Yale University Press 1957), pages 66 – 67.
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