Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee (15 October 1747 - 5 January 1813) was a Scottish
lawyer, writer, and professor. Tytler was also a historian, and for some years
was Professor of Universal History, and Greek and Roman Antiquities, in the
University of Edinburgh. Tytler's other titles included Senator of the College
of Justice, and George Commissioner of Justiciary in Scotland. Tytler was a
friend of Robert Burns, and prevailed upon him to remove
lines from his poem "Tam o' Shanter" which were
insulting to the legal
and clerical professions. His son was Patrick Fraser Tytler, traveler and
historian.
Misquotation -
Tytler Cycle
The following unverified quotation has
been attributed to Tytler, most notably as part of a longer piece which began
circulating on the Internet shortly after the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election.
A democracy is always temporary in
nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy
will continue to exist 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 every democracy will finally collapse
due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average
age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has
been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed
through the following 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 dependence;
- From dependence back into bondage.
There is no reliable record of
Alexander Tytler's having made the statement. In fact, this passage actually
comprises two quotations, which didn't begin to appear together until the
1970s. The first portion (italicized above) first appeared on December 9, 1951,
as part of what appears to be an op-ed piece in The Daily Oklahoman
under the byline Elmer T. Peterson. The original version from Peterson's op-ed
is as follows:
Two centuries ago, a somewhat obscure
Scotsman named Tytler made this profound observation: "A democracy cannot
exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority
discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that,
the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with
the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing,
always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."
The list beginning "From bondage
to spiritual faith" is commonly known as the "Tytler Cycle" or
the "Fatal Sequence". Its first known appearance is in a 1943 speech
"Industrial Management in a Republic" by H. W. Prentis, president of
the Armstrong Cork Company and former president of the National Association of
Manufacturers, and appears to be original to Prentis.
Now, with the realization
that we never learn from our past, and as such, are doomed to repeat it, just
how long do we have with this experiment called democracy? If, indeed, 200
years is about the limit of a democracy’s existence, we’ve outrun the meter.
There is every indication that we fall into the “From apathy to
dependence” bracket. That leaves us with one more bracket to go
before we are all up the creek without a paddle. Is it possible to recover the
disciplines that made us the envy of the entire Planet? I think it will be much
“easier” to let democracy come crashing down around us, before we feel the need
to reorganize. At my ripe old age, I certainly won’t have to experience the
fall, but my children, and their children, will be left to pick up the pieces.
And, the way things are going, there won’t be too many pieces left to pick up.
So, what then? Will there be a nuclear winter, as some have predicted? Will
cooler heads prevail in time to at least save humanity? Right now, I have to
say no to the cooler heads, and yes to the nuclear winter scenario.
Nobody likes to hear about the fact we have become a
Welfare State, but just look at the numbers. Consider what is defined as
Welfare:
1] Of course
there is Welfare, itself, and the prescribed list
of
auxiliary entitlements that go with it.
2] We are
all aware of Medicaid.
3] Student
loans are in there, too.
4] And, you
can nit-pick the details down to the last food
stamp.
What is not Welfare:
1] Social
Security; we pay for that.
2] Medicare;
we pay for that, too.
Some other, less talked about forms of Welfare:
1] Have you
ever considered that subsidies to Corporations,
complete
business sectors, Agriculture, and Individual
Tax
subsidies? Corporate Welfare, alone, costs this
Country
5-6 trillion dollars a year.
2] How about
those Public Sector pensions that are tied into
Union
Contracts and the last year’s salary of the
recipient?
That looks like another trillion, or so, out of the
Treasury.
It’s no wonder we have to borrow from China, South
America, Europe, Russia, and, not in the least, the Federal Reserve. When does
this stop? It may all come down to the prediction, based on History, that we
will need a Dictatorship, or Monarchy, to save us from ourselves. It seems such
a waste.
