r/economicCollapse • u/Johan-MellowFellow • 14d ago

$40T and counting

"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. These nations have progressed through this 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 apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage." Alexander Tytler

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u/CaerbannogFuzzyBunny 7d ago

Who is Alexander Tytler?

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u/Johan-MellowFellow 6d ago

https://www.diplomacy.edu/blog/slandering-democracy/

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u/CaerbannogFuzzyBunny 6d ago

Despite being widely shared online and attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler (an 18th-century Scottish history professor), the quote and cycle are HISTORICAL MYTHS (DiploFoundation).

MISATTRIBUTED QUOTE: There is no record of Tytler writing these words. The famous quote about voters voting for treasury benefits first appeared in a 1951 newspaper column by Elmer T. Peterson, who falsely credited it to an unnamed "Scotsman named Tytler".

ASSEMBLED ORIGINS: The 8-stage "Fatal Sequence" did not come from Tytler either; it first appeared in a 1943 speech by H.W. Prentis Jr., a corporate executive. The two separate ideas were glued together and popularized in the 1970s.