The Time Capsule: Democracy: Temporary, doomed for failure?
Not long ago a letter to the editor appeared on this page, one from a lady who wrote that our country was “going down the drain,” primarily due to a disregard for God and constitution.
Andrew Fraser Tytler (1747-1813), formally known as Lord Woodhouselee, would have agreed. Tytler, though, had a somewhat more complex theory regarding just what has been taking place.
Tytler was a Scottish history professor, judge advocate, writer and deep thinker. Living during the time of this nation’s founding fathers, he was skeptical of democracy—particularly a democratic republic. This nation was born, in Tytler’s view, to fail.
Exactly what he wrote, as opposed to what others did and attributed to him, is a matter of conjecture. Some say he detailed the “Tytler Circle,” while others maintain he laid out the basics, and those who followed him more clearly defined the thought. His ‘circle,’ also known as the “fatal sequence,” goes like this: in the beginning there is bondage (in our case, under English rule). Bondage leads to spiritual faith. Faith leads to courage. Courage is a stepping stone to liberty (the Declaration and Revolutionary War). Liberty encourages individual incentive, and incentive leads to abundance. Abundance is followed by selfishness and complacency. Complacency brings about apathy and loss of faith. Apathy is followed by dependence. Dependence takes us back to bondage, and the cycle is completed.
Tytler, who was discussed in the classroom back in my college days, is credited by some with writing this: A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist only up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that the democracy will always collapse from loose fiscal policy.”
Whether the precise words were Tytler’s, or just a sentiment he and others shared, matters little. A better question is whether or not the theory has validity.
I’ve been researching a southwest Iowa family that, possessed of great faith, came here in 1857 to obtain liberty. A son of that family, with only a dollar in his pocket, had the courage to go west, worked on the U.P. Railroad, fought Indians, then returned and bought an 80-acre farm. He and his wife had the incentive to work hard, saved, bought more land, worked harder and eventually owned 3,000 acres of choice southwest Iowa land, plus a ranch in Nebraska, another in California and a sizeable tract which is now part of Phoenix.
His children carried on, although they inherited in abundance and lacked incentive. They were inclined to complacency, and the expansion of the farming operation reversed. The third generation sons, both dependent and apathetic, lacked the will to work. They lived well by selling land until there was none left. The fourth generation started over.
While this cycle has happened with families and businesses, exceptions abound. A nation as diverse and possessed with the resources of ours (including the ability to print money as needed) is hardly comparable.
The doomsday projection is not something I worry about. If Tytler was right, we’re on the left side of the circle and there’s not a thing I can do. And, while he was skeptical about democracy, no one has proposed a better form of government.
Best to make this work—even if it means voting for candidates who encourage incentive rather than dependency.
Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.