"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can
only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves
money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority
always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the
public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses
over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age
of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These
nations have 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
selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to
apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."
--Lord Alexander Tytler on the fall of the Athenian republic