3 ms·

MMT is a wild thing ain't it.

• incomingpain 5y ago
  Yes it is. “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."
  • mullingitover 4y ago
    So interesting thing, that's a quote attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee by an op-ed piece by Elmer T. Peterson in the 9 December 1951 The Daily Oklahoman[1]. What he really did say is a bit more complicated: > "The people flatter themselves that they have the sovereign power. These are, in fact, words without meaning. It is true they elected governors; but how are these elections brought about? In every instance of election by the mass of a people—through the influence of those governors themselves, and by means the most opposite to a free and disinterested choice, by the basest corruption and bribery. But those governors once selected, where is the boasted freedom of the people? They must submit to their rule and control, with the same abandonment of their natural liberty, the freedom of their will, and the command of their actions, as if they were under the rule of a monarch" The irony is modern democracy with free speech, where the scale of your wealth directly transfers to the scale of your speech, makes the wealthy just as powerful as they would be in any standard oligarchy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fraser_Tytler,_Lord_Woodhouselee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fraser_Tytler,_Lord_...