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The Cycle of Freedom

June 27, 2018

The Cycle of Freedom

Periodically, I offer up a statement by Scottish economist Alexander Tytler, who, in 1787, was reported to have commented on the then-new American Republic as follows:

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 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 has been about 200 years. These nations always progressed through this sequence:

From Bondage to Moral Certitude;

from Moral Certitude to Great Courage;

from Great Courage to Liberty;

from Liberty to Abundance;

from Abundance to Selfishness;

from Selfishness to Complacency;

from Complacency to Apathy;

from Apathy to Dependency;

from Dependency to Bondage.

Tytler had it right. There is a Freedom Cycle. It’s not an accident. It’s based upon human nature, which is perennial. And it’s not something that can be manipulated to suddenly reverse itself, just because the citizens of a country are unhappy when they find themselves living in the declining stages. It has to play itself out.

Tytler was quite a scholar and had come to his conclusion, based upon the rise and fall of many nations, over the ages, with particular emphasis on the Athenian Republic.

Since Tytler’s time, we’ve been able to witness many formerly free countries slide inexorably into their final stages of decline. For example, the countries in the EU are further gone than the countries in North America, and Venezuela is further gone, still.

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