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Comment by edg5000

11 hours ago

We'd have to look at the longest-running democracies and observe how they handled periodic refactorings

22 comments

edg5000

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kingleopold  9 hours ago

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse 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 policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this 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 apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”

― Alexander Fraser Tytler

  • kergonath  6 hours ago

    > the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

    Except, of course, that this is historically wrong. Transitions from democracy to dictatorship are common, but I cannot think of one that happened because of "loose fiscal policy".

    • hluska  4 hours ago

      If the Central Intelligence Agency’s definition of ‘loose fiscal policy’ is good enough, Pinochet’s rise is a good example.

    • tolciho  4 hours ago

      Athens spending like drunken sailors during the Peloponnesian War and the subsequent Oligarchical Coup d’Etat comes to mind. Or must the dictator be just one person and not a bunch of Orwell's pigs?

  • ineedasername  4 hours ago

    Pithy. But a made up quote by Tytler, he never said or wrote that.

    Tyler expressed some skepticism of Democracies but nothing like this. The too on-the-nose nature of this often passed along bit of propaganda should also be the giveaway that it might be one of those rare things on the internet that someone may have been less than honest about the origins, and go look and see.

  • xpe  7 hours ago

    "A witty saying proves nothing." ― Voltaire 1767

    Tytler's quote is trying to say too much. It might be acceptable as historical commentary, but it carries little weight to me; it seems overly confident about what the future might hold.*

    Tytler died in 1813. We have learned much since then: much about human nature, institutions, experimentation, statistics, evidence, constructing good theories, and governance.** Sure, the quote is worth some reflection; it has grains of truth, but it should not be given undue weight.

    * I am not saying "we can predict nothing"! Far from it. I am ok with predictions (even bold ones) to the extent they are deeply rooted in the best understandings and models we have available.

    ** I'm talking about what motivated people figure out through careful reasoning and evidence, not simply how the median person funnels information from their ears to their mouth. And I'm certainly not commending the effort and thought that the median person puts into stewarding their democracy (if they have one). While we (in the USA, for the time being?) have something like one.

  • epsteingpt  6 hours ago

    The whole reason the US founding fathers are amazing is that they proved him concretely incorrect. US will celebrate 250 years of democracy this year.

    • jkaplowitz  6 hours ago

      That doesn’t disprove him at all: if the average one lasts 200 years and not all last exactly 200, then some will necessarily last more than 200. This is a mathematical consequence of what an average means.

    • convolvatron  5 hours ago

      what better way to celebrate the democracy by combining it with a celebration of the birthday of the Great Leader, with a soviet style military parade and an admonition that any protest will be met with the harshest of consequences.

    • hluska  4 hours ago

      I know that math makes it harder to come up with political zingers but if there are two civilizations; one lasted 150 years and the other lasted 250 years the average is 200.

    • a022311  6 hours ago

      If that's what you call a democracy, sure... I don't think most people will agree with you though.

  • mpalmer  8 hours ago

    You know, it's very funny. This is the most reproduced quote from Tytler, and yet you also have these chestnuts:

        While man is being instigated by the love of power—a passion visible in an infant, and common to us even with the inferior animals—he will seek personal superiority in preference to every matter of a general concern.

    The people flatter themselves that they have the sovereign power. These are, in fact, words without meaning. It is true they elected governors; but how are these elections brought about? In every instance of election by the mass of a people—through the influence of those governors themselves, and by means the most opposite to a free and disinterested choice, by the basest corruption and bribery. But those governors once selected, where is the boasted freedom of the people? They must submit to their rule and control, with the same abandonment of their natural liberty, the freedom of their will, and the command of their actions, as if they were under the rule of a monarch.

    • hammock  6 hours ago

      Relevant quote today but seems to misunderstand the U.S. framers’ idea of what the U.S. govt was set up to be, namely by consent of the governed.

        It is not enough that a law is just, nor that the judge should be convinced of its justice; those from whom obedience is expected should have that conviction too. -Tertullian, 1st century.

  The power used by government…is justified merely because it is a better way of protecting natural right than the self-help to which each man is naturally entitled -Sabine explaining John Locke

      Therefore if the governors ever fail the criteria of said justification, the consent is removed by default, irrespective of their elected term length or anything else.

      One particular democratic election or another is not the contract. The Constitution itself is the contract, countersigned by the 50 U.S. states.

  • mpalmer  8 hours ago

    The quotee would be surprised to see how little voting is being done by the people receiving the largesse in the last 20 years.

    Not to mention how little voters had to do with the decisions which caused the deficit to rise the most. The Iraq war, poor handling of COVID, tax cuts for the wealthy.