Democratic Capitalism: Is Bondage Inevitable?
March 31, 2006
A politically-involved friend recently forwarded to me an email string with a story that has been floating around the internet for a couple of years or more. According to the story, in 1787, about the time the U.S. Constitution was adopted, a professor of history at the University of Edinburgh claimed that:
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. . . . 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:
1. From bondage to spiritual faith.
2. From spiritual faith to great courage.
3. From courage to liberty.
4. From liberty to abundance.
5. From abundance to complacency.
6. From complacency to apathy.
7. From apathy to dependence.
8. From dependence back into bondage.”
