“If we follow the progress of inequality in these various revolutions, we will find that the first stage was the establishment of the law and of the right of property, the second stage was the institution of magistrates, and the third and final stage was the transformation of legitimate power into arbitrary power.
. . .
“The growing inequality between the people and its leaders soon makes itself felt among private individuals, and is modified by them in a thousand ways according to their passions, their talents, and the circumstances of affairs. The magistrate can not usurp any illegal power without producing protégés for himself, with whom he must divide it. Moreover, the citizens of a free state suffer themselves to be oppressed merely in proportion as, hurried on by a blind ambition, and looking rather below than above them, they come to love domination more than independence. When they submit to fetters, ’tis only to be the better able to fetter others in their turn. It is very difficult to reduce to obedience someone who does not seek to command; and the most adroit politician would never succeed in subjecting men who wanted merely to be free.”
If you’re going to quote Confucius, you should at least attribute him.
“If you are not your own master then you are F******.
“If we follow the progress of inequality in these various revolutions, we will find that the first stage was the establishment of the law and of the right of property, the second stage was the institution of magistrates, and the third and final stage was the transformation of legitimate power into arbitrary power.
. . .
“The growing inequality between the people and its leaders soon makes itself felt among private individuals, and is modified by them in a thousand ways according to their passions, their talents, and the circumstances of affairs. The magistrate can not usurp any illegal power without producing protégés for himself, with whom he must divide it. Moreover, the citizens of a free state suffer themselves to be oppressed merely in proportion as, hurried on by a blind ambition, and looking rather below than above them, they come to love domination more than independence. When they submit to fetters, ’tis only to be the better able to fetter others in their turn. It is very difficult to reduce to obedience someone who does not seek to command; and the most adroit politician would never succeed in subjecting men who wanted merely to be free.”
— Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality