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… is from page 60 of the 2009 edition of H.L. Mencken’s 1926 Notes on Democracy [2]; of course, by “laws” Mencken here means what is properly called “legislation”:
Public policies are determined and laws are made by small minorities playing upon the fears and imbecilities of the mob – sometimes minorities of intelligent and honest men, but usually minorities of rogues.
No better summary of modern government has ever been penned.