Bread and Circuses

[Wake-up!]

From: To Sail Beyond The Sunset
A science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein

Jubal Harshaw said, "The America of my timeline is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a 'warm body' democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self restraint of citizens . . .  which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it . . . . which for the majority translates to 'Bread and Circuses'.

'Bread and Circuses' is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition that state succumbs to an invader." Jubal shrugged and looked sad, "Mine was a lovely world, until the parasites took over."


Indeed, the parasites have arrived. The Founding Fathers understood the point Heinlein drives home about democracies. And that is exactly why they did NOT form a Democracy, they formed a Republic. Heinlein may not have understood this, or he might have, and was just taking literary freedom. To avoid bread and circuses, the Founding Fathers expected the plebs to elect wise representatives to stay the course of a free society. Today, we have very few wise representatives, the parasites infest the bowels of D.C., the seats of Congress, and the Oval Office; the course of freedom is gone.

BTW, any who like Sci-fi and enjoy quips about the idiocy of bureaucracy should give Heinlein a read.