Quote Origin: Democracy Is the Worst Form of Government Except For All Others Which Have Been Tried

Posted byquoteresearch

Winston Churchill? Guy Henson? Plato? Israel Zangwill? William Ralph Inge? Robert Briffault? Herbert Hoover? Anonymous?

Illustration of a ballot box from Unsplash

Question for Quote Investigator: The flaws in the democratic form of government are numerous, yet the alternatives such as oligarchy and autocracy inevitably become oppressive and tyrannical. A famous saying states that democracy is the worst form of government except for all others which have been tried.

Winston Churchill popularized this notion, but I do not know who should receive credit for originating it. Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In November 1947 Winston Churchill delivered a speech to the U.K. House of Commons. He made a memorable remark about democracy, but he employed the prefatory phrase “it has been said”. Thus, he signaled that the remark was already in circulation. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters.

Churchill was correct that the saying was circulating before his remark. QI has located a match written by Canadian educator Guy Henson in May 1946 within “A Report On Provincial Support of Adult Education in Nova Scotia”. Henson did not take credit; instead, the attribution was anonymous:2

This dilemma in education depends for solution on the meaning of democracy in practice. This is commonly called the most difficult form of government in the world; it has even been called the worst form of government, except for all others which have been tried. Certainly it is the form of government which our people are agreed to make work.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

The thematically related claim that democracy is sometimes the worst form of government and sometimes the best can be traced back to ancient times. Plato’s stance on democracy was complex. He made a distinction between governments that were lawful versus lawless. The following excerpt is from an English translation of “The Statesman” in which a democracy is called the “government of the multitude”:3

But the government of the multitude is weak in all respects and able to do nothing great, either good or bad, when compared with the other forms of government, because in this the powers of government are distributed in small shares among many men; therefore of all these governments when they are lawful, this is the worst, and when they are all lawless it is the best; and if they are all without restraint, life is most desirable in a democracy, but if they are orderly, that is the worst to live in . . .

In 1894 Robert Flint published “Socialism” which included a passage suggesting that a well-operating democracy was the best form of government, but a dysfunctional democracy was the worst:4

A great deal of labour, and wisdom, and virtue, in fact, are needed in order that Democracy may be a success. Although at its conceivable best Democracy would be the best of all forms of Government, it may not only be the worst of all Governments, but is certainly the most difficult form of Government to maintain good, and still more to make nearly perfect.

In 1906 Ernest Barker published “The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle” which contained the following thematically related passage:5

Further, the classified States were arranged in an order of merit, according to which monarchy was the best of the good States, and tyranny the worst of the bad; while good democracy was the worst of the good, and bad democracy the best of the bad. Aristotle is obviously indebted to Plato for this scheme . . .

In 1919 Robert Briffault published “The Making Of Humanity”. Briffault highlighted the defects of democracy, but he still considered it to be the only admissible form of government:6

Democracy is the worst form of government. It is the most inefficient, the most clumsy, the most unpractical. No machinery has yet been contrived to carry out in any but the most farcical manner its principles. It reduces wisdom to impotence and secures the triumph of folly, ignorance, clap-trap and demagogy. . . . But there is something even more important than efficiency and expediency—justice. And democracy is the only social order that is admissible, because it is the only one consistent with justice.

In 1923 British author Israel Zangwill used the cogent phrase “Democracy is the least bad form of government” during a speech. This statement differed from the quotation under examination. Yet, it presented a concise expression of the same insight. Here is an excerpt from Zangwill’s speech:7

For my part I am not a die-hard Democrat. I have always, indeed, more or less humorously defined myself as a Democrat with a profound mistrust of the people. But I recognize that Democracy is the least bad form of government. It is, of course, peculiarly liable to be exploited by demagogues, who, instead of uplifting the masses, use them as a means for lifting themselves up. But whereas there is no way of correcting a maleficent autocracy save by smashing it, a maleficent Democracy contains the cure for its own evils. For the people has a sound instinct in the long run.

In 1940 a letter in a Amarillo, Texas newspaper gave credit for a concise version of the insight to Professor of Divinity William Ralph Inge:8

It was Dean Inge—the gloomy dean of London—who said that a democracy was the “least worst” form of government yet discovered.

In May 1946 Guy Henson who was Director of Adult Education in Nova Scotia, Canada published the earliest close match for the saying located by QI:

. . . democracy . . . it has even been called the worst form of government, except for all others which have been tried.

In November 1947 Winston Churchill employed the saying during a speech in Parliament:

Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

In 1957 former U.S. President Herbert Hoover employed a variant during a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors:9

Philosophically, Hoover observed:
“In recent years I have often remarked that ours has become the worst mechanism of Government in the world—except all others on earth.”

In 1968 an anonymous instance appeared in “20,000 Quips and Quotes” compiled by Evan Esar:10

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other forms that have already been tried.

In 1996 “The Washington Post” published a piece by journalist Robert J. Samuelson which referenced the saying:11

It can be said of capitalism what Winston Churchill once said of democracy—it is the worst possible system, except for all the others.

In conclusion, this saying was employed by Guy Henson in May 1946, but he disclaimed credit. The saying was also employed by Winston Churchill in November 1947. He also disclaimed credit. The originator remains anonymous. A concise version of a similar notion was spoken by Israel Zangwill in 1923.

Image Notes: Illustration of a ballot box from Element5 Digital at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and retouched.

Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Tomasz Radko, Dick Margulis, Stephan McCrea, John Duz Dusenbury, and Nigel Rees whose inquiries led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Additional thanks to Rees whose reference work “Cassell’s Humorous Quotations” contains an entry for the quotation ascribed to Churchill. Further thanks to Fred R. Shapiro whose reference work “The New Yale Book of Quotations” contains entries for the quotations ascribed to Churchill and Robert Briffault. Special thanks to the kind librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign who retrieved “A Report On Provincial Support of Adult Education in Nova Scotia” from storage to help verify the citation.

  1. UK Parliament Hansard, Commons, Volume 444, Date: November 11, 1947, Orders Of The Day, Parliament Bill, Speaker Winston Churchill (Woodford), London, England. (UK Hansard) link ↩︎
  2. 1946 May, A Report On Provincial Support of Adult Education in Nova Scotia by Guy Henson (Director of Adult Education), Appendix C to the Journal of Education, Part I: The Goals of Adult Education, Section 3: The Democratic Principle of Freedom with Purpose, Quote Page 25, Published by Department of Education, Halifax, Nova Scotia. (Verified with scans; thanks to a librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign) ↩︎
  3. 1925, Plato – The Statesman With an English Translation by Harold N Fowler, Volume 3, Remark from Stranger, Quote Page 165, William Heinemann, London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  4. 1894, Socialism by Robert Flint (Professor in the University of Edinburgh), Chapter 9: Socialism and Democracy, Quote Page 322, Isbister and Company, London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  5. 1906, The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle by E. Barker (Sir Ernest Barker), Chapter 7: The State as a Compound, Quote Page 320, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  6. 1919, The Making Of Humanity by Robert Briffault, Part 3: Evolution of Moral Order, Section 2: Primary and Secondary Genesis of Morality, Sub-Section 5: Ethics and Politics, Quote Page 295, George Allen & Unwin London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  7. 1923, “Watchman, What of the Night?” by Israel Zangwill, Note: Address delivered before The American Jewish Congress, Carnegie Hall, New York City, October 14, 1923, Quote Page 12, Published by The American Jewish Congress, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  8. 1940 August 20, Amarillo Daily News, Letters to Editor Roll In, Letter Title: In God We Trust, Quote Page 8, Column 6, Amarillo, Texas (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  9. 1957 July 12, San Francisco Examiner, Hoover’s Warning, Continuation title: Hoover: Challenge to U.S. Told, Start Page 1, Quote Page 18, Column 5, San Francisco, California. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  10. 1968, 20,000 Quips and Quotes, Compiled by Evan Esar, Subject: Democracy, Quote Page 213, Doubleday, Garden City, New York. (Verified on paper) ↩︎
  11. 1996 May 1, The Washington Post, Capitalism Under Siege by Robert J. Samuelson, Quote Page A19, Column 1, Washington, D.C. (ProQuest) ↩︎