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We should never take democracy for granted. Democracy can emerge and develop, but it can also decay.

If the condition of Government stands still, it just makes no sense and must die, so, therefore, the improvement within that democracy must be the greater and greater equalization of rights and opportunities to the people as those people grow up.

So I think one can say on empirical grounds - not because of some philosophical principle - that you can't have democracy unless you have a market economy.

I don't see democracy getting better. I see democracy diminishing. More rules, more legislation. Eventually governments will see everything.

Let me say again that the relationship is asymmetrical: there's no democracy without a market economy, but you can have a market economy without democracy.

Of course democracy is good, but it is a process, not a prescription.

Democracy may not prove in the long run to be as efficient as other forms of government, but it has one saving grace: it allows us to know and say that it isn't.

Democracy, despite its limitations, is in the end the only way to ensure that policies do not simply benefit the privileged few.

Our democracy is not a product but a continual process. It is preserved not by monuments but deeds. Sometimes it needs refining; sometimes it needs amending; sometimes it needs defending. Always, it needs improving.

But democracy isn't a state of perfection. It has to be improved, and that means constant vigilance.