The biggest problem with democracy…
Maybe the problem is us…
Is this actually constitutional?
Dear Reader,
“Democracy never lasts long,” warned old Johnny Adams long ago.
“It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself,” added Mr. Adams.
Yet is it necessarily in the nature of democracy to waste itself? To exhaust itself?
Indeed… to murder itself?
Today I contend that democracy itself may not be at fault.
Rather, individual democracies may be at fault.
The Virtue of Athenian Democracy
Consider: Golden Age Athens — famously a democracy — amassed a vast public treasury.
This fantastic hoard remained unmolested outside of wartime.
The democratic citizens of Athens were free to vote themselves the manna.
Yet they did not.
Author Freeman Tilden, from his 1935 masterwork A World in Debt:
At one time the Athenians had in their citadel more than 10,000 talents of silver [roughly $206 million in 2024 dollars]; and what is more significant, they did not tap the resources until forced by the necessity of war.
What a People!
Here Mr. Tilden cites 18th-century British philosopher David Hume:
What an ambitious and high-spirited people was this, to collect and keep in their treasury a sum which it was every day in the power of the citizens, by a single vote, to distribute among themselves!
Nor did Athens — to its everlasting praise — take to swindle when it was in a bad way.
It did not clip coins, for example. Tilden:
The most brilliant democrats that ever lived, the Athenians… never, as free men, indulged in the final madness of debasing their currency: They never became swindlers… Athens rose in trade by means of establishing good credit and by safeguarding the honor of her coin.
In the most terrible years of her history, when the treasury was empty… she was indeed obliged to strike emergency coins of gold and bronze, but never consented to debase her coinage.
The American Example
Has the United States safeguarded the honor of its coin?
To ask the question is to answer the question.
Yet the question arises:
Were the ancients stamped from nobler metal? Had they greater virtue than us moderns?
Imagine the United States Treasury loaded to the gunwales with gold.
Next imagine its doors thrown open to the American public — with its golden contents theirs for the asking.
Then imagine the American people refusing the invitation… and walking away.
Can you imagine it? I cannot imagine it.
Nor can I guarantee I would refuse the invitation and walk away.
Many and oft are the times I shoo-shooed the angel of conscience from her perch upon my shoulder.
Why should I hold my fellow citizens to a separate standard?
Not All Democracies Are Equal
The capital fact nonetheless remains: Athenians amassed, in dollar terms, a $206 million surplus.
Americans, meantime, have amassed a $36.7 trillion debt.
Both the United States and Athens share democracy in common.
Yet the one saved. The other consumes.
Can we then claim that democracy — by its nature — wastes itself, exhausts itself and murders itself?
If we consider the Athenian example we cannot.
Henry Louis Mencken once claimed that “every election is an advanced auction on stolen goods.”
I believe there is vast justice here. Not in the Athenian context perhaps. Yet in the American context.
We the People Should Look in the Mirror
It is easy to say the rascal American politician has sunk the nation $36.7 trillion in debt.
Yet if we haul the politician into the dock… We the People must go with him.
That is because the politicians are simply We the People’s mirror.
Could politicians humbug us into a $36.7 trillion debt absent our consent?
Only under a very, very strange species of democracy.
We demand a glistening military machine with every whistle and bell… heaping doses of Social Security… Medicare… a Rolls-Royce education… a million gaudy baubles.
Yet we do not wish to pay for them in full.
Hand it over, we bark from one corner of our mouths. But don’t dare raise my taxes, we bellow from the other.
Gimme!
We claim we are heart and soul for limited government. Yet are we simply heart and soul for ourselves?
Give me that tax break, says the one. No, give it to me, says the other.
You can both go scratching, says the third. I deserve it more.
A fourth files a claim of his own.
Meantime, the hard-luck farmer wants his back scratched. The hard-pressed businessman wants his belly rubbed. The hard-worked teacher wants her apple.
Millions more are hard at the business.
It is the triumph of “special interests” when the other fellow’s parsnips are buttered.
Yet it is “democracy in action” when our own parsnips are buttered.
Once again, I do not judge.
I myself am in possession of parsnips. I am all for their buttering — and a good buttering.
American Democracy: No Greater Show on Earth
American democracy, at times — perhaps even at most times — resembles a circus.
Have you been observing American democracy of late?
Yet who does not laugh at a circus? Well, then why not laugh at American democracy?
I concede at once that American democracy may lack the virtue of Athenian democracy.
Yet I request you concede that Athenian democracy lacked the humor of American democracy.
And what is life without humor?
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News