About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tytler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.”
“A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”
“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequences:
1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6. from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. from dependence back into bondage”
Given the nature of our elections, it’s evident we’re somewhere in complacency/ apathy/dependence stage. Is free healthcare, government run education, welfare, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and perhaps one day soon, a free Soviet-style bread line worth it?
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The “about the author” includes “hedge fund manager” and “humanist”. Why in the world are you espousing the life cycle of civilization, which always includes spiritual faith? Surely, you’d want to replace that with something man can do. Where DO you get your ground floor? As a hedge fund manager, perhaps spiritual faith, which involves ground rules from outside man-made things, could certainly be replaced with man-made creation of collateralized debt obligations, and relaxation of rules, and other really neat monetary basics which have proven so valuable in today’s economic situation.
@Luke – I’m sorry, I’m having a tough time understanding your position. What does managing money, founding a charity, and reviewing the academic position of Tyler’s “Lifecycle of Civilizations” have to do with spirituality?
Certainly I believe in the power of mankind and human rationality, but never have I written a word against spiritual faith.
No fair minded person could question the life cycle as explained so clearly.
Must I write a "progressive" comment?