Now, for a very long time we have tried to find out, very often in vain, what obsessed or ailed somebody or something-what was making them nervous and why they’d suddenly revolt and do things and cut their own throats and that sort of thing. And there are quite a few dead men on the backtrack, quite a few dead men on the backtrack-there really are.

And how’d they get that way? What had happened? Was there any international group that was closely and devotedly opposed to the advance of Dianetics or Scientology? And the answer is no. There are a few psychotic activities around on the planet that would be as antipathetic to the grocer’s goodwill as to ours. There would be as many people affected adversely across the planet as ourselves if some of these happy philosophies were put into terrific use; political philosophies.

There’s another one which says anything you have should be-if you are working hard-anything you have should be shared with somebody who won’t help you. That’s socialism. That’s a nutty philosophy. If you work real hard, then somebody else won’t have to work. And of course, this is represented as “everybody will have leisure.” Except those, of course, who are keeping the society going and keeping the leisure possible.

Well, this of course is dead in the teeth of even Pavlov. It’s the non-reward philosophy, you see. If you work, you are fined and if you loaf, you are rewarded. Well, what will that turn mankind into but a bunch of loafers? You see? I mean if you-if you know Pavlov’s philosophy of the reward theories and so forth-how to make the dog slaver at the right times-if man is an animal and if that works, why, this would be death in the teeth of it.

There are political philosophies about, of course, which are the extreme of this. And that is to say that one man should own everything and everybody else should be in total poverty. Now, that philosophy is highly antipathetic to the greater good of the people too.

A capitalistic system where you have a group of fifteen or twenty people in a country . . . Well, Mexico: They’re very rich in Mexico; they’re extremely rich. But South American countries just love this philosophy - there’s the ricos and the pobres - and boy, the ricos are really rico, and the pobres are mmmmmm - really pobre. And the gap is so tremendous. There’s no middle class; there’s no anything. And you’re either a slave or a king with no gradient scale between them and of course that’s a highly false philosophy too.

And there are others. There’s a philosophy of democracy, so that the mean opinion is valid. Oh, I don’t know, you take a whole bunch of uninformed people and take the mean of their opinion and then say that that mean is valid and therefore disregard it and then do things and tell them it’s their fault. That’s democracy in actual practice, see.

It’s the perfect mechanism to prevent revolt. No better one has ever been invented. It’s a self - perpetuating machine that is pure idiocy - an American president - they put up two goons which you wouldn’t let clean out your chicken coop - and you’re told you’re free because you can vote for one or the other of them. And then if everything goes wrong it’s your fault. See? It’s a great philosophy.

Well frankly, all government, of course, is merely a substitute for the disability of a people. Government is a substitute for the disability of the individuals in the population.