Is Democracy Doomed? The Far Right Certainly Hopes So
Then again, so does the left
A kind but rather cynical, misguided, and perhaps anti-democratic reader wrote to me last week to share with me a quote from an eighteenth-century Scottish historian named Alexander Fraser Tytler:
“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 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 civilisations 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.”
Hmm.
Neat.
Where to start?
First things first:
It’s fake.
The “quote” was actually two pieces concocted in 1943 and 1951, mashed together in the 1970s.
According to Snopes:
There is no reliable record of Alexander Tytler’s having written any part of the text.
The first half was written by a right-wing professor named Elmer T. Peterson.
The second half was written by a right-wing industrialist named Henning Webb Prentis Jr.
The combined quote was then popularized in support of Republican Presidential candidates George Bush and John McCain to the detriment of Al Gore and Barack Obama.
Alexander Fraser Tytler was a monarchy-loving aristocrat member of the British House of Lords — his official title was the pompous Lord Woodhouselee — so he was an easy mouthpiece in which to shove this anti-democratic rhetoric.
The same quote(s) have also been attributed to a French count named Alexis de Tocqueville, yet another elite aristocrat who believed in the centralization of power.
Why are people so easily duped?
Whatever happened to critical thinking?
Whatever happened to basic fact-checking?
There’s no such thing as permanence
The purpose of this quote is obvious: To undermine democracy.
And to be clear: To be against democracy is to commit treason against the nation. It is to declare war against one’s neighbors and community.
But the phrase “democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government” can apply to any system of power and control.
Corporatism cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
Monarchy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
Anarchy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
Oligarchy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
There’s no such thing as permanence.
Even the sun will eventually burn out.
Even the universe will eventually collapse in on itself.
Humans love change, everyone is always in flux, and people with power want more power and control. That’s why no political system has remained static for all-time.
If you’re trying to make an argument to undermine democracy, why would you start with an assertion so easily applicable to all forms of government?
Whatever happened to persuasion and logic?
It’s naive (or malevolent) in the extreme
“Voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.”
Is there any thinking homo sapien — even one — who genuinely believes the voting public ever gets what the majority wants?
Wake up, sheeple!
The idea is laughable.
The majority of Americans want basic gun protection.
The majority of Americans want affordable housing.
The majority of Americans want affordable healthcare for all.
The majority of Americans want better schools for their kids.
The majority of Americans want the hyper-rich to pay more taxes.
What the majority want literally doesn’t matter.
Politicians don’t give voters what they want because politicians don’t work for voters.
As we’ve discussed on Surviving Tomorrow before, there has never been a democracy even once in human history.
It misdirects the blame
The part of this quote that makes me see red is the idea that “the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.”
Since when?
What reality are believers of this quote living in?
This quote is nothing more than a malicious right-wing corporatist trope — scapegoating the “greedy masses” for wanting their fair share of the proceeds of the civilization they built, instead of the greedy corporate elites who have always milked the state for private profit.
It’s lazy and uncritical thinking.
It’s the exact opposite of reality.
The voters don’t get to vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.
The Federal Reserve is literally owned by JP Morgan and a handful of other private banks.
And don’t forget: The treasury is filled with taxpayer money — why the heck shouldn’t taxpayers get to decide how to spend it?
In reality, the rich and powerful discovered they could vote themselves largesse from the public treasury in the form of tax breaks, government contracts, money-printing, and protection for their corporate monopolies and monopsonies.
Whatever happened to the clear-eyed evaluation of actual facts?
Peterson and Prentis aren’t wrong
Sham democracies do eventually get devoured by monarchy — the fancy name for dictatorship.
Tyranny is the natural state of human politics in this fallen world.
The rich do what they will and the poor suffer what they must.
But this isn’t democracy’s fault.
If a woman is being beaten by her husband, do you blame the woman or the man?
If a democracy is demolished by a corporate oligarchy, that’s not the people’s fault.
Nice try, right-wingers.
You don’t get to blame the powerless for the decisions of the powerful.
As for the Prentis Cycle (bondage → faith → courage → liberty → abundance → selfishness → apathy → dependence → bondage)… it correctly addresses the symptoms but blames the wrong disease.
Prentis blames democracy — he blames you — for all the problems that his corporate class has laid upon you.
But, good news, for thinking people anyway: His statement ironically and accidentally betrays the exact opposite of what anti-democratic right-wingers would have you believe.
It shows how, despite the fact that moneyed elites are currently forcing us into corporate dependence for food and shelter and heat and energy, there will come a day when the people — democracy — will rise up, take courage, and rid themselves of the parasites and tyrants that put them in bondage in the first place.
The reality is that the closest humanity has ever come to a real democracy — the thirty years in America following WWII — created the most wealth and well-being for the middle class than at any other time in human history.
Now the powers are ramming us back into feudalism.
And those with eyes to see are watching it happening in real-time.
In conclusion
The current “middle class,” which is just the deeply indebted class but in denial, thinks they are currently somewhere between selfishness and apathy in the Prentis cycle. They, like the truly poor, are actually already in dependence and bondage, but because they have never made a move towards progress and democracy, have yet to feel their chains.
Our response should not be that of the fatalist, the anti-democrat, and the sycophants of the pro-monarchic aristocorporate tyrants. They are traitors to the causes of human freedom and widest-spread well-being.
We should think harder and think clearer. We should place the blame where blame is due — not treating a democracy that has never existed as a scapegoat, but pointing out the clear perpetrators of our ever-growing economic bondage.
Long live democracy. May she someday reign.
But first — and we will never have the latter without the former — long live critical thinking.
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