Early 19th century Professor Alexander Tytler described the dilemma of democracy in the following comments about ancient Athens:

"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 treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policies, always followed by a dictatorship.

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 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, and from dependency back into bondage."

-- Al T. (beware@greeks.bearing.presents), August 22, 2000

Answers

nothing-new--under-the-sun!!!--------but all is new IN THE SON!!!

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), August 22, 2000.

Alexis de Tocqueville: "The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."

-- Al T. (beware@politicians.bearing.gifts), August 22, 2000.

>> From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policies, always followed by a dictatorship. <<

So, if Professor Alexander Tytler was correct, then we are ... doomed!

But, what if I get me another Professor (one with a PhD and the whole shooting match) who says that Professor Alexander Tytler was an ass and was blowing smoke out his nose?

Maybe if I got two Professors to say Professor Alexander Tytler was an ass? Or better, yet, what if I get me one Professor with two Phds to say he was an ass?

Then we'd be ...saved, right?

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), August 22, 2000.

Ooooh, bondage! Yeah, baby!

-- (nemesis@awol.com), August 22, 2000.

Thanks Al-T,

Have been hunting for that,could not remember the name of the dude that wrote it.

"The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It has only been slumbering. The body of the American people is substantially republican. But their virtuous feelings have been played on by some fact with more fiction; they have been the dupes of artful maneuvers, and made for a moment to be willing instruments in forging chains for themselves. But times and truth dissipated the delusion, and opened their eyes." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Lomax, 1799. ME 10:123

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), August 22, 2000.

while we've been pursuing-happiness?---the enemy has built us a nice gallows---and for last-meal===twinkies!!!

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), August 22, 2000.

Al, IF I have been pursuing happiness, I'll be damned IF I have found it yet.

When I do, will ya let me know, and BTW, twinkies arent so bad, cookies are better.

xoxo,sumer

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), August 22, 2000.

let me re-phrase--->seekers of pleasure!!--of all people, i wouldn't think of yu sumer, your carrying a heavy-cross!! and your not a whiner--big--heads-up 2-u.

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), August 22, 2000.

Brian,

You don't often miss it but you're sure as hell missing it this time.

PhD's with their hands out are a dime a dozen reflection of Tytler & Jefferson's point. We breed em like hogs in ivy covered towers. PC towers of course. Try a few John Leo pieces for a headshaker.

Reread the original post. The guy ain't stupid and you're not either. Tell me why I'm not being tempted (over 55 here) by being offered my own money in return for a vote?

Best wishes, like your stuff.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), August 22, 2000.

>> Reread the original post. The guy ain't stupid and you're not either. Tell me why I'm not being tempted (over 55 here) by being offered my own money in return for a vote? <<

You are not tempted because you understand where your own best interest lies. And that is precisely the reason why Professor T is wrong. Democracy works because you can trust people to understand their own best interest.

My big objection to the quote is that it pretends to have discovered some grand rule of politics that is absolute. The good prof comes across like a pompous ass. His statement is full of "always" and "never" and "must".

I have studied the Athenian democracy, too. At least as closely as Professor T. I have read all the source material, mostly in translation, but bits of it in the original Attic Greek. That includes reading the orators like Lysias, Demosthenes, Antiphon and Aeschines. The historians Thuycidides and Herodotus. The playwrights, the philosophers. I've read Xenophon's complete corpus. I've read the epitomes from later antiquity, like Plutarch or Diogenes Laertius.

Professor T has nothing on me when it comes to this subject. He is wrong. And he is a pompous ass. Believe him if you please. He is only making assertions with the utmost tone of authority. He rings like a cracked bell to me.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), August 23, 2000.

Wouldn't suggest that Prof T is likeable but that's not the point. The easy steering of a population by appealing to its greed is most dangerous in a time of plenty. We're in that time now. Fat cats all, everybody happy. Demands on the purse go skyward because the purse is so full...for now. Entitlements, "rights" & just plain greed become enduring parts of the social fabric. When they become law they endure through the bottom of the sinewave as well as the top and the question is whether my and your "best interests" can effectively steer a democracy precisely enough to avoid collapse. T doesn't think so and neither do I.

BTW, bookshelves full here as well.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), August 23, 2000.

Don't get me wrong,books are very wonderful things but it only takes common sense to figure out that that a majority cannot feed at the public trough at the expense and labor of the minority for very long without one of two things happening,(1)the minority gets fed up with it and says fuck off,thus forcing the PTB to become even more aggressive to pacify and appease those that substain them or(2) the system collapses under the weight of its great expecations but meager apportions.

Jefferson was aware of this model and was involved personally in its inception and earlier progress but was concerned at its likely inevitability and searched and warned for ways to avert the dismantling of what many had died for and to them that which was eternally sacred.

Brian,

You will have to be more concise other than listing the books you have or have read for me to re-assess what to me is painfully obvious. Philosophy is a great thing too but it will not save us from those that aspire to achieve darker deeds.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), August 23, 2000.

greed is-the-seed--of an--evil--deed!!!

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), August 23, 2000.