16 November 2008

Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1801):

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.  From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.  The average age of the world's great 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 complacency

From complacency to apathy

From apathy to dependency

From dependence back again to bondage."

Looking at "democracies" in today's world one has to question how democratic many of them really are/were: imperfections have  enabled bypassing  steps in some cases.  Tytler didn't have all that many examples to view, and I suggest he omitted an important one: anarchy.

Consider the classic examples being presented in Africa, among them Somalia that  is already sliding into anarchy, as are, perhaps, several other central African states.  Anarchy, however, is not a natural state that can last for long, since before too long one or another of the war lord clans/gangs becomes stronger than the others and forms some semblance of dictatorship, until another topples it.  And others, such as Russia, that only became a quasi-democracy.; Iran skipped that step.  So is Tytler wrong?  Merely a little too general, and  a little too theoretical perhaps.  And, after all, the first four steps are relative.   So where would we place Somalia?  And does this apply to Europe?  He provides plenty to think about on the economic side, but maybe not enough in terms of greatly imperfect democracies, those that have voting, but little else that is required.  And  it leaves out the power of clans and gangs.  What effect, for example, drug cartels?  

The testing of Tytler's theory is underway, and probably is entering the make another hypothesis stage.  For awhile we thought democracy was going to be the answer from which we would never go back.  We do that a lot, think we have finally arrived.  But that is not the way things progress.  Democracy is too nebulous a term; but then so is dictatorship.  Complacency, apathy and selfishness are not, however; they exist always in some form or other.  And anarchy?  I would contend that it, in some form, is a fairly common state between democracy and dictatorship.  Surely the world will be roiled with democracies, dictatorships and anarchies all trying to exist on the same stage; a fascinating unfolding if you are observing from a distance far enough.

Bernard le Bouvier de Fontenelle (died 1757):

"A philosopher sees the earth as a large planet, traveling through the heavens, covered by fools."

Just so.