Politics is who gets what, when, how.
Interpretation
This quote defines politics as the distribution of resources and power in society.
Harold Lasswell's quote encapsulates the essence of political dynamics by emphasizing the mechanisms of distribution within a society. It highlights that politics is fundamentally about the allocation of resources and power among individuals and groups, determining not only who benefits but also the timing and methods through which these benefits are realized. This perspective reveals the strategic nature of political interactions and the significance of understanding these processes to engage effectively in political discourse.
In practice
In a political debate, one might say, 'As Harold Lasswell pointed out, politics is about who gets what, when, and how.'
So great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations, that every war must appear to be a war of defence against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about whom the public is to hate. Guilt and guilelessness must be assessed geographically and all the guilt must be on the other side of the frontier.
No modern nation has ever constructed a foreign policy that was acceptable to its intellectuals
It is an axiom of political science in the United States that the sole means of neutralizing the effects of newspapers is to multiply their number.
The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.
Democracy was regarded as entering into a crisis in the 1960s. The crisis was that large segments of the population were becoming organized and active and trying to participate in the political arena.
Communism didn't fall. It was pushed.
Nothing can be more evident, than that an exclusive power of regulating elections for the National Government, in the hands of the State Legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at their mercy . . . . It is to little purpose to say that a neglect or omission of this kind [not letting the feds have elections], would be unlikely to take place. The constitutional possibility of the thing, without an equivalent for the risk, is an unanswerable objection.
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