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. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, 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 dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.
Thanks for sharing the relevancy of Bork's book (I read his "Tempting of America, the Political Seduction of the Law" which helped inspire me to go after a law degree.)
I also see these truths prophesied in the Bible:
Chapters 2 & 3 of the Book of Revelation lay out the seven ages of what would be the next 2000 years. I believe the Philadelphia age (Philadelphia church age) ended around 1900. In the period before 1900 America and in a sense the whole world began to go "from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance."
Since around 1900, I believe have we entered into (and are now in) the seventh and last age, the Laodicean age. This is the age where people say to themselves "I am rich and my wealth is increasing and have need of nothing" (Rev 3:17). It is truly astonishing the industrial and technological advances we have seen in the last 100 years, never before seen in the history of the world. We can do and have things now that people even 200 years ago could hardly even dream about. You can basically go anywhere and do anything you want to in air conditioned comfort.
This is the period where people have gone "from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage." Likewise, Jesus in response to these people's thoughts says, "[You] do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked" (Rev 3:17) and then in love and grace counsels them what to do.
Having look that quote up in the past, it was once attributed to some writings by Alexander Tytler or De Tocqueville. However, it was first quoted in 1951 by the Daily Oklahoman regarding a book that Tytler supposedly wrote, but has never been found to exist. It's a myth, but none the less true. Even Benjamin Franklin has been attribute to the saying, while he paraphrased it. The above is what historians call the "Why Democracies Fail" (WDF). The below is called the "Fatal Sequence" (FS). "Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, 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 dependence, from dependence back again to bondage."
"Wikipedia: Its earliest confirmed use is by Henning Webb Prentis, Jr., President of the Armstrong Cork Company. It was during a speech entitled "Industrial Management in a Republic," delivered in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria at New York during the 250th meeting of the National Conference Board on March 18, 1943."
I've seen the above statement on other sites in so many words.
Prentis did not use the "fatal sequence" quotation in conjunction with the "why democracies fail" quotation. But they have later been published together and both attributed to Tytler, as in the queries column of American Notes & Queries in April 1979. Nobody can find any work by Tytler with the Fatal Sequence quotation, and it appears to be original to Prentis."
Other people that historians attributed for the Fatal Sequence are: Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975), Ezra Taft Benson (1899-1994), Davis Paschall (1911-2001), Bernard Weatherill (1920-present) and Robert Muntzel (?-?).
FYI, I've researched the above quotations at many sites and they all same the same thing as above. No one is sure who said the quotes above, except for maybe the "Fatal Sequence by Prentis that most agree with, but not all. I was curious after reading that Franklin said that while cataloging quotes from our Founding Fathers.
Again, both quotes apply to political civilizations.