Politics & Power Quote by H. L. Mencken

Mencken doesn’t offer this as a policy memo; he throws it like a brick through the window of civic piety. “All government is evil” is calibrated absolutism: a provocation meant to short-circuit the comforting idea that the state is a neutral tool we can simply tweak into virtue. He’s attacking the Progressive Era faith that expert management and good intentions could engineer a cleaner democracy. Mencken watched reformers promise uplift while machines, moral crusaders, and wartime bureaucrats proved how quickly “public good” becomes a weapon.

The line works because it’s both cynical and strategic. Calling government “evil” isn’t metaphysics; it’s a moral insult aimed at the sanctimony of politics. Mencken’s target is the American habit of turning governance into a sermon - a place where busybodies can launder their preferences into law and then call it righteousness. The second clause, “trying to improve it is largely a waste of time,” sharpens the blade: it’s contempt for the tinkerer, the committee, the well-meaning reformist who assumes the system’s basic incentives can be civilized.

Subtext: power doesn’t get nicer; it gets better at justifying itself. Bureaucracies expand, moral panics find new statutes, and every improvement becomes an excuse for the next intrusion. Mencken’s wit is his trap: he exaggerates to force readers into an uncomfortable admission that even “good” reforms can thicken the state’s appetite. You don’t have to agree with him to feel the sting - he’s mocking the soothing story that the problem is merely bad people, not the machinery that rewards them.