Heinlein on Democracy

“The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a “warm body” democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction…. Once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader — the barbarians enter Rome.”

To Sail Beyond the Sunset
Robert A.Heinlein

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4 Responses to Heinlein on Democracy

  1. Mark says:

    Can you say “hope and change”?

  2. Thomas says:

    I can read Tocqueville and Hayek.

  3. John says:

    I can say “hope and change.” Neither of these are a solution without direction from within. The individual without self direction is nothing more than an animatronic automaton of the state.

  4. Steve says:

    Glad to know I’m not the only one who sees the folly and danger of letting everyone in this country vote.

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