things that drive peoples’ actions, ambition, fear, greed, love, etc., have not changed all that much. Given the differences in time, culture and circumstances, these will certainly work themselves out in different fashions, as different people respond to different events and conditions. But they still exist.
While the parallel between Gaius Gracchus and Franklin D. Roosevelt mentioned earlier is not all that significant in and of itself, at a deeper level there is something to worry about. As we saw, one of the things that caused Roman democracy to fail was the breakdown of law and tradition. A key difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy there are strict rules that govern what those in power can and cannot do. Thus while the superficial parallels tell us little, the deeper disregard for the rules and traditions that such actions reveal, is troubling.
This is not some new or revolutionary idea. The Founding Fathers knew very well the story of Rome. They also knew of the other democracies of history and of their failure, along with the writing of philosophers on the strengths and weakness of democracy. The resulting system they created included checks and balances.
In the chapters that follow, I will look at some of these deeper trends, and will show there is a great deal to worry about. American democracy is well into our own stroll into the desert. I don’t think we have yet reached the point of no return, but as we will see, there is at least some cause for concern.
Taxes and the Welfare State
There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy so much as the business of taxation.
Alexander Hamilton7
I t ALL SEEMED SO SIMPLE and straight forward. The war had lasted seven years, and was in fact the most expensive the country had ever waged to that point in its history. Over the course of the war, the national debt had more than doubled. The war had been fought, at least in part; to defend a remote area governed by the country, and in fact had been started by those living in that area.
Compounding the problem was the fact that those who lived in that area, while prosperous, paid only one-fiftieth of the taxes compared to the average citizen in the rest of the country. Making matters even worse, large amounts of tax money from this area were being lost each year due to tax evasion. What better way to pay off the debt incurred during the war than by raising taxes on the very people who had most benefited from it, especially given the fact they were not in any event paying their fair share to begin with.
But it wasn’t quite so simple. Taxes never are, especially to those who have to pay them, and abstract concepts of fairness normally do not have as much weight as the more concrete reality that suddenly one has to do with less because now they have to give more money to the government than they did before. Even those who did not have to pay the new taxes were split. Dr. Samuel Johnson, one of the leading thinkers of this period, wrote defending the actions of the government saying that taxation was “the supreme power of every community” and that it was, in fact, “considered, by all mankind, as comprising the primary and essential condition of all political society.”8 Yet, his close friend and biographer, James Boswell, disagreed with the government’s action, believing that the newly taxed were “well warranted to resist.”9
And resist they did, which only brought on a more determined effort to collect the taxes on the part of the government. Before long what had been a resistance to paying increased taxes, became a resistance to the government in general, and then a desire for independence from that government and then finally another war, this one a war for independence. So, what had started as a means for Great Britain to pay off its debt from the Seven Years Warc (1756-63), ended in the American War of Independence.10
A Strange Paradox
It is a strange paradox that taxes are the lifeblood of the government while at the same time they are one of its greatest dangers. During the Middle Ages, government, if it could be called that, was financed by the wealth of the king or ruler. But as the state evolved, and the need for a standing army and more consistent government services grew, the King had to seek additional sources of revenues. Taxes became the primary funding source. This was a necessary and important precursor to the establishment of democracy. After all if the King pays for the government, how can you get rid of the King? So taxes are not only important; they are required for a democracy.
Yet while they are required, taxes present one of the greatest single dangers for a democracy, particularly a democracy that seeks to better the lives of its citizens. The more a democracy tries to do, the more it costs, and the more it tries to meet those costs, the more it places itself in danger. This paradox is the reason for Alexander Fraser Tytler’s famous quote,
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 followed by a dictatorship.11
The reason for this paradox has long been recognized. Plato speaks of this process as resulting from the leaders’ desire to please. In order to please, the leader needs money to pay for programs that will help the people. To get the money one has to go to those who have it. Thus the ruler will “deprive the rich of their estates and distribute them among the people.”12
Naturally the rich will not appreciate their wealth being taken from them and as a result they will resist these taxes. Soon the citizens of the government are split into two groups: the rich, i.e., those who have the money that government wants, and the people, those who want whatever the money buys. If the rich resist too much, the ruler will “charge them with plotting against the people.” In order to defend themselves against the rich, the people always get,
some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness… This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears above ground he is a protector… How then does a protector begin to change into a tyrant? Clearly when he does what the man is said to do in the tale of the Arcadian temple of Lycaean Zeus. 13
Plato’s view does not translate directly into the 21st century. Few know what the man did in the tale of the Arcadian temple of Lycaean Zeus.d Yet while the details and specifics deal with Ancient Greece, not modern America, the underlying principles have not changed. Plato was concerned with the origin and rise of tyranny, what we would now call a dictatorship or totalitarian government. The tyrant starts out as one protecting the people, either actually or at least as one who rises to power on a claim of protecting the people. But the bottom line for Plato is that tyranny “has a democratic origin”14
The Core Problem
At its core, the problem that threatens democracy is the same one that most families face with their home budgets – there always seems to be more month than money. Except for the very rich, and perhaps even for them, there is never quite enough money to do everything that you would like. Even the rich are limited to some extent. While they can afford a lot, they can’t afford everything. At least, that is, if they wish to remain rich, as many former rich have found out.
For most this is not just a problem of luxuries, there are medical bills to pay, braces for the kids, educational costs, not to mention food, clothes, the roof over your head, utility bills, and even the cost of transportation to and from work so that you can make the money to pay all the bills. This all goes under the general heading of The Rat Race. In short, there never
