# Has there been a democracy destroyed by handouts? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 31, 2008, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-democracy-destroyed-by-handouts/443430 "2008-03-31T19:20:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2008, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-democracy-destroyed-by-handouts/443430/1 "2008-03-31T19:20:08Z")
Surely everyone knows of the quote that democracy lasts only so long until the people figure out they can vote themselves money from the public trough. Except that I can’t think of an example. Weimar Germany is the closest. The hyperinflation of the early 20’s caused at least partially by handing out money to striking workers surely contributed to the fall of democracy by instilling lack of faith in it, but the actual fall didn’t occur till at least 10 years later, arguably due to the Great Depression which was not caused by government handouts. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2008, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-democracy-destroyed-by-handouts/443430/2 "2008-03-31T19:25:24Z")
Actually, the Depression was pretty much over in Germany before Hitler came to power. I recall a Heinlein quote from _Time Enough for Love:_ “One of the chinks in the armor of any democracy is that when the plebs find out they can vote themselves bread and circuses, they do – until there is no more bread and no more circuses.” Which puzzled me when I first read it, because I can’t think of a single real-life example – not even the Roman Republic, which was definitely **not** destroyed by having too-democratic or too-generous a state. Nor the Athenian (or any other Greek) democracy, which ticked along just fine for centuries until the Romans took it over. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2008, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-democracy-destroyed-by-handouts/443430/3 "2008-03-31T20:59:31Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Nor the Athenian (or any other Greek) democracy, which ticked along just fine for centuries until the Romans took it over. [/QUOTE] There are some theories that the lower classes in Athens voted for war very often because that was how they made their money. They were the ones who were the rowers, at least initially, and therefore they weren’t going to make any money unless Athens was at war with someone. The hoplites were landowners who would have had a reason to fight defensively but less of a reason to start wars overseas. Also, didn’t Athenian democracy pretty much end in 404 when they surrendered to the Spartans? Marc ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2008, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-democracy-destroyed-by-handouts/443430/4 "2008-03-31T22:26:30Z")
[QUOTE=MGibson] There are some theories that the lower classes in Athens voted for war very often because that was how they made their money. They were the ones who were the rowers, at least initially, and therefore they weren’t going to make any money unless Athens was at war with someone. The hoplites were landowners who would have had a reason to fight defensively but less of a reason to start wars overseas. [/quote] If so, it’s still not an instance of “handouts.” [QUOTE=MGibson] Also, didn’t Athenian democracy pretty much end in 404 when they surrendered to the Spartans? Marc [/QUOTE] Not exactly. Athens was ruined as a superpower and temporarily placed under the rule of the [Thirty Tyrants,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Tyrants) but a revolution restored the [democracy,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy) which continued until the Macedonians (not the Romans, sorry) suppressed it in 322 B.C. It was later revived, at least in form. (For a fascinating fictional treatment of the Peloponnesian War and its aftermath in Athens, see [_The Last of the Wine,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_the_Wine) by Mary Renault. 'Ware gayness!) ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2008, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-democracy-destroyed-by-handouts/443430/5 "2008-04-01T01:00:37Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] If so, it’s still not an instance of “handouts.” [/quote] I hate to be pedantic but I think you might want to consider broadening the definition of a handout. It might not have literally a handout for doing nothing but at the very least they would have been using the state to line their own pockets with money. Marc ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2008, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-democracy-destroyed-by-handouts/443430/6 "2008-04-01T01:22:32Z")
[QUOTE=Ludovic] Surely everyone knows of the quote that democracy lasts only so long until the people figure out they can vote themselves money from the public trough. [/QUOTE] (Covered in [this thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=360521&highlight=scottish)) The quote in question is spurious, according to [Snopes:](http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp) > [@](#): > > 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 that 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 from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: > From bondage to spiritual faith; > From spiritual faith to great courage; > From courage to liberty; > From liberty to abundance; > From abundance to complacency; > From complacency to apathy; > From apathy to dependence; > From dependence back into bondage. In an e-mail that circulated in 2000, this is attributed to “Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinborough [sic])” in 1787 in a book or essay called “The Fall of the Athenian Republic.” The person referenced actually appears to be [Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Tyler) Wikipedia says: > [@](#): > > This passage actually consists of two quotes (the first paragraph being one, and the second paragraph and list, known as the Tytler cycle, being the other). Both can be traced back to the 1950’s, and they began to appear together in the 1970’s. No original author can reliably be determined for either quote. [Bartleby’s](http://www.bartleby.com/73/425.html) attributes only one actual quotation to Tytler: > [@](#): > > AUTHOR: Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747–1813) > QUOTATION: It is not, perhaps, unreasonable to conclude, that a pure and perfect democracy is a thing not attainable by man, constituted as he is of contending elements of vice and virtue, and ever mainly influenced by the predominant principle of self-interest. It may, indeed, be confidently asserted, that there never was that government called a republic, which was not ultimately ruled by a single will, and, therefore, (however bold may seem the paradox,) virtually and substantially a monarchy. > ATTRIBUTION: ALEXANDER FRASER TYTLER, LORD WOODHOUSELEE, University History, vol. 1, book 2, chapter 6, p. 216 (1838). Very different from the UL version. Also wrong. Tytler should have known that many states of classical Greece were real democracies – governed by what amounted to an elite citizen caste, perhaps, but generally not by a “single will.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2008, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-democracy-destroyed-by-handouts/443430/7 "2008-04-01T01:30:41Z")
The 2000 e-mail covered by Snopes, BTW, links the pseudoquote to an argument that the results of the 2000 election signalled American democracy was entering the final meltdown stage of the Tytler cycle. The problematical doom-portending results being, not that Bush became president, but that Gore won the popular vote. Not kidding. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2008, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-democracy-destroyed-by-handouts/443430/8 "2008-04-01T12:30:16Z")
Well, of course, because Gore would spend too much. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2008, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-democracy-destroyed-by-handouts/443430/9 "2008-04-01T12:41:28Z")
The bread-and-circuses problem in the late Roman Republic was one facet of a larger political dysfunction. Urban mobs loyal to whoever offered them the most boodle were an auxiliary to politically ambitious generals whose troops were more loyal to them than to the Senate, but the former couldn’t have outright overthrown the Republic without the latter. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2008, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-democracy-destroyed-by-handouts/443430/10 "2008-04-01T13:05:40Z")
[QUOTE=MGibson] I hate to be pedantic but I think you might want to consider broadening the definition of a handout. It might not have literally a handout for doing nothing but at the very least they would have been using the state to line their own pockets with money. [/QUOTE] Well, then what you’re talking about is **corruption** , which can be the instrument not just of “the people” but of particular special interests (who will tend to portray themselves as being what the people want, but that’s abother story). In any case, modern liberal democracies (be they republics or constitutional monarchies) have been around for relatively little time, and those that have fallen have tended to do so through invasion or insurrection or extremist takeover (not so much voting themselves money, but voting themselves **power** to crush the faction they did not like) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2008, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-democracy-destroyed-by-handouts/443430/11 "2008-04-01T13:31:33Z")
Oh, and BTW, [Ben Franklin never really called for keeping the Jews out, either.](http://www.adl.org/special_reports/franklin_prophecy/franklin_intro.asp) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2008, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-democracy-destroyed-by-handouts/443430/12 "2008-04-01T13:34:00Z")
Not by handouts, but there are some who claim that Urokagina, last king of Lagash in Sumer effectively ruined that city-state by alleviating taxes. It’s been argued that he came into power not by inheriting the throne but as the result of a tax revolt. Certainly he is immortalized in inscriptions for lowering the taxes on the commoners – which was unheard of in that era. This, claim his modern detractors, resulted in the underfunding of the army, and allowed the neighboring Ummaites to invade. (Others think that the loss of the aristocracy caused a drain on knowledge and talents that caused the downfall). How much of this is clear and how much is due to modern and partisan interpretation, I do not know: > **[Urukagina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urukagina)** > > Uru-ka-gina, Uru-inim-gina, or Iri-ka-gina (Sumerian: 𒌷𒅗𒄀𒈾 URU-KA-gi.na; c. 24th century BC, middle chronology) was King of the city-states of Lagash and Girsu in Mesopotamia, and the last ruler of the 1st Dynasty of Lagash. He assumed the title of king, claiming to have been divinely appointed, upon the downfall of his corrupt predecessor, Lugalanda. > He is best known for his reforms to combat corruption, which are sometimes cited as the first example of a legal code in recorded history. Althoug... [http://faculty.mdc.edu/jmcnair/joe2pages/Mesopotamia%20Kings%20List.htm](http://faculty.mdc.edu/jmcnair/joe2pages/Mesopotamia%20Kings%20List.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2008, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-democracy-destroyed-by-handouts/443430/13 "2008-04-01T19:11:36Z")
I wonder if this is a Wikigraffito: > [@](#): > > His wife was probably Queen Shagshag .