A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.
We all know variations of this (it\’s sadly unsourced) but it appears that this isn\’t the real danger.
It can only exist until the bureaucracy discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury.
That\’s the more correct formulation. As this article describes.
An American custom is to attribute miscellaneous wisdom to Ben Franklin.
e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_who_would_give_up_Essential_Liberty
(hat tip, today’s Daily Politics)
Tim, was this the quote you were looking for?
Bill, thanks for the evidence.
I’m looking around, but I really don’t see a lot of democracies collapsing or becoming monarchies, formal or informal.
Am I missing something? Is the point that we don’t live in a ‘real’ democracy? (sounds a bit ‘Guardian cif’ to me, that view…)
Evidence in support of this proposition?
I think Robert Heinlein had something close to the money quote, using vote for bread and circuses instead.