Lost Boy wrote:The Founders originally had the idea that only landowners should be able to vote, and though an argument can be made that they were misguided in doing so, an argument can also be made that universal suffrage will inevitably lead to the downfall of a free republic. The Founders' logic in requiring a person to own land in order to vote was simple. They believed that people who had a stake in the country would take their vote more seriously, and would also be less likely to vote to appropriate the property of their neighbor. When the United States was founded, it was founded on fiercely libertarian principles, and the government was rightly feared from growing too large or powerful. Thomas Jefferson stated that any government powerful enough to provide you with everything you need also has the power to take away everything you have.
Unfortunately, when a person is on government assistance, they tend to vote for those people that promise to keep the free meal ticket funded, and increase misguided welfare programs. Furthermore, those political parties that advocate for more government benefits for the poor also have no incentive to actually help the poor improve their situation. If they become successful, they no longer need the handouts, and begin resenting the amount of taxes they must pay. Their votes then change to those who advocate for fiscal conservatism and a solvent spending strategy. This causes the tax and spend politicians to lose votes. Therefore, their political power is actually dependent upon keeping their constituency poor and dependent on the government, and actually increasing the number of people that vote and need government subsidy to survive. This is of course a doomed long-term strategy, as the parasite will eventually overcome the host. In reality, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone is paying for it, and if those receiving taxpayer funds outnumber those who actually contribute to the tax coffers, and their votes are allowed to hold as much weight, than it is only a matter of time before the economy collapses due to wasteful fiscal policies. This has historically always resulted in a dictatorship.
In short: A pure democracy is nothing more or less than two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
The founders also thought that slaves were to be counted as 3/5ths of a person. How can you say a 'free republic' when a majority of the people were denied the right to vote and have a say in how they were governed- it was only free for a select few. The rest of the 'sheep' were subjects of the land-owning 'wolf' in such a scenario. Do those land-owning wolves not have undue power over the rest of the society, holding the majority hostage to what is in their perceived best interest (usually "more for me, less for you")? Autocracy by fiat? Autocracy by any other name is just as oppressive to those left out even if you call it a 'free republic". Good that the notion was eventually abandoned, with the exception of the delay suffrage for women, followed by the suppression of the vote of black people (yeah, it's a real thing).
If you look at various models of governance around the world I'd suggest that the Scandinavian countries have the most successful outcomes overall, unless your only measure of success is how much money the richest have. They have balance between capital/free enterprise & social programs that appears to work well for societal happiness, access to education & healthcare that provides equity among all citizens. In America, is our goal that he who dies with the most wealth wins with bonus points if it is at the expense of those around them and you got away with destroying the environment that should be a common good, like clean water & air? Personally, I resent paying taxes that subsidize corporate or private profit-making, when their workers are paid so little they qualify for government social programs. The Walmarts of the world should be paying a living wage and provide full benefits to workers just as what I as a professional white collar worker would expect in a decent job. Any business, complaining if it pays its workers a living wage and provides benefits can't survive, shouldn't have a place in our marketplace. That is essentially slavery with a stipend. I support universal guaranteed healthcare for that very reason. Universal healthcare would relieve businesses of that expectation. Our current system has decreed providing healthcare should be borne by business (unless, wink-wink, they can find ways get away with not providing it). In the USA the sole end game is to generate profit, using up our human capital & natural resources at the fastest rate possible with the smallest input. In other words - socialize costs & privatize profits. Then throw in a dash of christofascist theocracracy to justify the whole mess. That seems like the definition of a failed state to me.
