Is Democracy forever?

��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 dependency back again to bondage."


Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813)
Scottish jurist and historian


This was sent to me a while ago and I��ve kept it to reflect. It makes frightening sense but can it be true?

I��m a history fan but my knowledge is obviously limited. However I can��t remember the existence of a democracy as similar as today��s democracies before at least the 1800��s.

Therefore, unless I��m proven wrong with arising facts (please correct my ignorance if you can) I think it��s an interesting speculating though that arouses mostly deep concerns for our world��s growing apathy, but not foretelling based on evidence.

It is however this apathy of though, concern for issues and intellectual debate that we should look out for and continuously share views even when they may seem vague, anecdotic, unfounded or simple minded.

I do agree that by not doing this we become hostages of some else��s mind �V bondage.