dailynewsfromaolf.substack.com By Etienne de la Boetie2
by David Jäkle
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.
—attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler
In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Tytler was far from the only philosopher skeptical of popular rule. Voltaire, Edmund Burke, and John Adams all warned, in their own ways, that handing power to the uninformed masses would replace reason with passion.
How times have changed. When political problems arise in today’s West, voters blame the party in power and demand it be voted out. Everyone agrees that modern democracy is the end‑all, be‑all. Power to the people!
Many are quick to offer strong opinions about how we should live together to maintain our democracy. Few ever step back and dare to question the underlying system.
After all, Western democracies have lasted longer than any attempt at voluntary self-government without a central enforcer. Case closed!
Or so we are told…
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