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RECENT POSTSochlocracy
aw-KLAW-kruh-see
noun
control of a government by criminal elements; the rule of the mob
1849Alton Locke: Tailor and PoetRemember always that Democracy means a government not merely by numbers of isolated individuals, but by a Demos—by men accustomed to live in Demoi, or corporate bodies, and accustomed, therefore, to the self-control, obedience to law, and self-sacrificing public spirit, without which a corporate body cannot exist: but that a 'democracy' of mere numbers is no democracy, but a mere brute 'arithmocracy,' which is certain to degenerate into an 'ochlocracy,' or government by the mob, in which the numbers have no real share: an oligarchy of the fiercest, the noisiest, the rashest, and the most shameless, which is surely swallowed up either by a despotism, as in France, or as in Athens, by utter national ruin, and helpless slavery to a foreign invader.1867The Rise of the Dutch Republic 1574-84The Prince had not power enough, however, nor the nascent commonwealth sufficient consistency, to repress the disorganizing tendency of a fanatical Romanism on the one side, and a retaliatory and cruel ochlocracy on the other.1905Moral PhilosophyBy such perversion monarchy passes into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into ochlocracy or mob-rule.Labels: Charles Kingsley, John Lothrop Motley, S. J. Joseph Rickaby
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