Response: Alexander Tyler’s temporary Democracy

Though I am certainly skeptical (at best) about Obama’s heavy spending plan and incurring of an even larger national debt, I, like Dennis, am not sure about a few of the leaps Tyler makes in his statement quoted in the last posting. Initially, I really liked this quote, but after reading it again, I find some issues.

My first quip is Tyler’s main thesis which says that a Democracy cannot exist once “voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.” Given the natural party platforms of Democrat vs. Republican, it is pretty reasonable to say that in the great majority of elections, there has been a candidate who campaigns on the promise of giving ‘largesse (n:generous bestowal of gifts.)’ in the form of 1) tax cuts, which would favor the people keeping their money rather than giving it to the ‘public treasury,’ or 2) this ‘largesse’ comes from higher taxes on some to give to others who are less fortunate. Now, let’s also assume that the average American voter is not entirely ignorant, and is aware that they could vote purely based on which candidate proposed a greater amount of $$ for that particular voter. Now, granted we have not seen a bailout plan as huge as Obama’s, I still think it is safe to say that most Americans realize that their vote could potentially bring them ‘largesse’ from the public treasury. If this is a reasonable assumption, then it is equally reasonable to say that Tyler’s primary argument immediately breaks down because our ‘Democracy’ in the U.S. has, in fact, not yet broken down.

However, let’s assume I’m wrong. Let’s say that the massive new stimulus package being enacted completely overshadows any such offering of ‘largesse’ in the past.

So, moving on in Tyler’s argument, I have a smaller, but still substantial issue. When creating his cyclical chain of events from bondage and back, I can follow along clearly with nearly every step. However, I’m not so sure about his jump from abundance to selfishness. The way I interpret it now is that as people become more abundant, they in turn are instinctively forced to fight for own personal advancement in an overpopulated world, and this makes them selfish. This conclusion seems rigid, but it could be a poor interpretation on my part. Let’s assume the latter.

Even after disregarding my first two arguments, there is still one big problem I see; not with the quote itself, but the application of the quote to the present day situation / administration. By associating it with recent events, it infers that people voted for Obama because they had the idea in mind that they would be receiving a ‘generous bestowal of gifts,’ compliments to the public treasury. Although this may certainly have been a deciding factor for some, I think the overall success of Obama can be more accurately attributed to the extremely wide and deep-rooted disapproval, if not disdain, of the passing Bush administration and the Republican party in general. In an article I wrote for the Review earlier, I touched on this as the anti-Republican and Obama snowball effect which garnered many, many, votes among moderates and conservatives.

So, in a worst-case scenario, Tyler’s statement begins with an overly simplistic thesis statement and a weak support, and is generally not applicable to the current state of the Union. In a best case scenario, it is a legitimate, insightful and scary concept which is slowly becoming closer to a reality – although not quite yet.