I found this idea, quote today…
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.
Tyler was an 18th century historian/economist who wrote ‘The Cycle of Democracy’
in 1778. This quote is the central thesis from his work.
It was being used in reference to the current situation of the US government, though I’m not sure personally where the US is at… maybe selfishness. Whereas the UK is probably beyond that and already into apathy. Not long for us here before we end up back in a dictatorship, so maybe the US is better off.
Mind you I’ve always thought that the best form of government was a benevolent dictatorship anyway, so hopefully one is around to pop up soon. Though I did have a thought that if every one was free to move you should just have anyone who wanted to be a dictator pop up and anyone who liked them would move there. Then you could have the size of the country dependent on the number of people in it, and jostle around till everyone found a nice place to stay, where they liked the regime, and maybe even the climate. The only rule you need to have is that people can leave or move around as they feel fit. Then the dictatorships are self selecting, whether benevolent or not. People will find the place they like the most. A much better form of democracy, where you can vote by your presence.
