That’s interesting and while the numbers are a bit skewed with the Roman republic and empire, it still offers an interesting theory.
Something similar, but even more concrete, might be the Tytler cycle of democracies that no democracy lasts longer than around 200 years. He includes any form of democracy, like our constitutional republic, that has been devolving further towards full democracy since at least 1913.
About the same time that Sam Adams was organizing the Boston tea party and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, 18th century Scottish professor Alexander Tytler connected the dots in forming his theory of the cycle of democracies, taking Socrates/Plato/Aristotle’s ideas that warned why democracies never last (essentially too many ignorant voters make up an uneducated electorate).
Good points. I think democracies are critically flawed to begin with, but, even within the flawed democracy model I think if you restrict the franchise rather than opening it up to everyone, you’d get better results.
I’ve theorized before that if voting were restricted to people who had children (so they care about the future and might want to avoid wars) and who have an income (so they care about taxes and aren’t just trying to get benefits), and who own real estate, the results might be significantly better. Once you open it up to everyone, the priorities of the average voter shift from financial conservancy and future-thinking to “ME! ME! ME!” thinking which crashes the country.
Whoever thought that universal franchise was a good idea were very, very wrong.
Agreed. I think it's a conflict of interest to be able to vote (for the polititian giving free stuff) and not pay taxes. But, to take it further, in order to vote, we could require the passing of a civics test - even the citizenship test legal immigrants take - but that would mean either amending the Constitution or having all states do that and with all those socialists out there, that idea will not happen or end well.
Good idea about the test, though of course people can easily lie on that just to pass it too.
I think at the end of the day the U.S. government is too far-gone, and we need to focus on exiting and building and forming local communities that can exist in parallel with whatever is happening in the broader country, not trying to reform a system that's so broken and with so many vested interests that don't want it fixed.
Yes, it sure does feel like it's un-reformable. But, as long as we are forced to pay into the system, it feels pretty hopeless. I wish we could opt out, like the Amish.
We might have to pay into it to avoid prison time, but that doesn't mean we can't build alternatives too. Sooner or later, the system will collapse, and the people who didn't invest in alternatives (whether that's alternative currencies, off-grid homesteads, local food production networks, etc.) will face a dramatic living standards decline.
Interesting article about Brutus! I hadn't heard of him.
That’s interesting and while the numbers are a bit skewed with the Roman republic and empire, it still offers an interesting theory.
Something similar, but even more concrete, might be the Tytler cycle of democracies that no democracy lasts longer than around 200 years. He includes any form of democracy, like our constitutional republic, that has been devolving further towards full democracy since at least 1913.
About the same time that Sam Adams was organizing the Boston tea party and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, 18th century Scottish professor Alexander Tytler connected the dots in forming his theory of the cycle of democracies, taking Socrates/Plato/Aristotle’s ideas that warned why democracies never last (essentially too many ignorant voters make up an uneducated electorate).
History has shown us that no democracy lasts:
https://lizlasorte.substack.com/p/history-tells-us-that-democracies?r=76q58
Good points. I think democracies are critically flawed to begin with, but, even within the flawed democracy model I think if you restrict the franchise rather than opening it up to everyone, you’d get better results.
I’ve theorized before that if voting were restricted to people who had children (so they care about the future and might want to avoid wars) and who have an income (so they care about taxes and aren’t just trying to get benefits), and who own real estate, the results might be significantly better. Once you open it up to everyone, the priorities of the average voter shift from financial conservancy and future-thinking to “ME! ME! ME!” thinking which crashes the country.
Whoever thought that universal franchise was a good idea were very, very wrong.
Agreed. I think it's a conflict of interest to be able to vote (for the polititian giving free stuff) and not pay taxes. But, to take it further, in order to vote, we could require the passing of a civics test - even the citizenship test legal immigrants take - but that would mean either amending the Constitution or having all states do that and with all those socialists out there, that idea will not happen or end well.
Good idea about the test, though of course people can easily lie on that just to pass it too.
I think at the end of the day the U.S. government is too far-gone, and we need to focus on exiting and building and forming local communities that can exist in parallel with whatever is happening in the broader country, not trying to reform a system that's so broken and with so many vested interests that don't want it fixed.
Yes, it sure does feel like it's un-reformable. But, as long as we are forced to pay into the system, it feels pretty hopeless. I wish we could opt out, like the Amish.
And, I wish we had listened to Brutus in 1787 because our current reality is proving that Brutus was right about everything: https://lizlasorte.substack.com/p/brutus-was-right-about-everything?r=76q58
We might have to pay into it to avoid prison time, but that doesn't mean we can't build alternatives too. Sooner or later, the system will collapse, and the people who didn't invest in alternatives (whether that's alternative currencies, off-grid homesteads, local food production networks, etc.) will face a dramatic living standards decline.
Interesting article about Brutus! I hadn't heard of him.