Preserving Democracy. Elgin L Hushbeck

can go. So with each step our intrepid adventurer takes, he comes closer to death.

      Now early on this is hardly even worth thinking about. He is so close to the resort that he can easily make it back. But the more distance he walks away from the resort, the less of a safety margin he will have. If we assume that our adventurer always walks in a straight line, the point of no return is half the maximum distance he can travel. If he goes beyond the halfway point, then the resort will be too far away to reach and he will die before getting back.

      The real problem however is that body functions do not decline in a linear or straight line fashion. The halfway point of our perceived energy is not the same as the halfway point of the distance we can travel. In short, our adventurer can cover ground much faster when he starts his trek across the desert, than at the end when he has only the strength left to crawl.

      As a result, when our explorer reaches the point of no return, the point beyond which the resort is too far away to make it back, he does not even realize it. He does not understand the danger. Sure, he may feel tired and thirsty, but it is not all that bad, and he feels that he can go a little more before turning back to the safety of the resort.

      And so he continues on, not realizing that from the moment he crossed the halfway point, he was a dead man. By the time he does decide there is a problem and that he should go back, it is already too late. His body begins to run down fast. Each step becomes harder until he can only crawl, and then he can’t even do that. And so he dies.

      This story illustrates the problems of democracies. They likewise do not proceed in a straight line fashion. Changes that will threaten a democratic system may not show any problems, and in fact may even seem beneficial until it is already too late. Farmers who eat all of their crop, including the part that should have been set aside as seed for next year, will for a while seem to be better off, as they will have more to eat. Yet when next year comes and there is no seed to plant and thus no crop, it is already too late; the seeds for next year’s crop have already been eaten.

      Now in theory, any change in a democracy can always be undone. Any bad law can always be repealed. This is true in theory; but reality is vastly different for a number of reasons. For one there is the natural resistance to change, and in a democratic system getting a majority to approve of a change is difficult. Even when the problem is recognized by all, getting a majority to agree on a particular solution can be very difficult.

      For example, today virtually everyone agrees that Social Security has problems. While there is some disagreement concerning the exact date, there is general agreement that the Social Security system is going to run out of money at some point in the future. There is also agreement that the sooner we address this issue, the easier it will be to fix. Still, while there is a general agreement on the problems, there is no agreement on how to fix Social Security. It is working at the moment, and so nothing is done, and the system continues its stroll into the desert.

      There is the further problem that the root cause may be recognized only by a few, or may not even be recognized at all. The apparent problem may be a severe economic slowdown, and demand may be for more government intervention to fix the problem. But if government intervention is what caused the problem in the first place, more government intervention may only exacerbate the slowdown, leading to even more demands for even more intervention, the point of no return having already been long passed.

      While, as was the case in Florence, things can spin out of control very quickly, collapse does not always happen this way. A democracy can pass the point of no return, and still function as a democracy for decades before the system collapses. Such was the case with the Roman Republic.

      The Fall of the

       Roman Republic

      When most people think of the fall of Rome, they think of the end of the Roman Empire some 400 years after the birth of Christ. In fact for many, Rome was always ruled by Caesars, without much thought as to how Rome was governed before the first Caesar, Julius, came to power.

      In its earliest days, Rome was ruled by kings.³ At the time Rome was little more than just another city on the Italian peninsula. But the Romans quickly tired of the rule of kings. They wanted liberty, and so overthrew the monarchy, setting up a Republic in its place. They kept the king’s body of counselors, or Senate. But instead of a king, the new republic was to be ruled by two consuls, sharing power, and limited to ruling a single year; as a single ruler, able to rule year after year, could easily become a new king.

      It was not a perfect democracy by any means. Class played a huge role in Rome, as did class struggles. At the top were the patricians, the ruling class from which came the consuls, and most of the Senate. Next were the equites, often businessmen, their distinguishing feature being, at least initially, that they were rich enough to be able to afford a horse. It is from the equites that we get the word equestrian. These two groups were called the good and were the people of Rome, at least at first. Next in line were the plebs, which included all the rest, except of course for those in the lowest category: the slaves.

      The plebs did have the vote, at least in theory, but they were often instructed how they should vote. Still they did have some political power, and the early history of Rome is marked by periods of unrest that resulted in expanded political power for the plebs in the form of new offices, written laws, and eventually the opening of existing offices to plebs, including even consul, though again this was often more in theory than in practice.

      One of the most significant changes was also the earliest. Following a revolt in 494 B.C the office of Tribune, to represent the plebs, was created. Like consuls, two were elected and their term was limited to a single year. Over time the office of tribune grew in power to rival even that of consul as a Tribune could veto any bill.

      For nearly 400 years, through many changes, the delicate balance of power was maintained, and the Republic was preserved. The power of the Consuls and Tribunes was balanced off with a mixture of the power of the Senate, the force of tradition, and the fact that they only ruled for a year. While in office they were immune from prosecution, but once their term was over they could be brought before the courts to answer for any illegal actions while in office.

      But problems were growing. The expansion of Rome opened up access to new areas, and Italian farmers began to find it increasingly difficult to compete with crops grown by slave labor in these other areas. Not only was slave labor in the new areas a problem, but many of those captured were sent back to Rome as slaves. One result of this increase in slave labor was that only the largest farms, farms that could afford many slaves, could survive. With no work in the countryside, the plebs came to Rome where they were struggling for what little work could be found. Yet, in the cities things were not much better as likewise most of the jobs were done by slaves.

      At the same time attitudes were changing in subtle but very significant ways. Its conquests had brought Rome not only great wealth, but also an influx of new ideas, not the least of which were those from Greece. ‘Rome’ as a shared collective idea was weakened. In its place was a new idea: the importance of the individual. One side effect of this change was that people began to look more to individuals, instead of the institutions such as the Senate, to deal with problems. Thus individuals had a greater ability to gain political power, and likewise began to think more of themselves than the state. In many ways, while it was Rome that had conquered the world, it would be a series of individuals who ended the Republic.

      The old saying^a, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, pretty much sums up the start of the downfall of the Roman Republic. In 133 B.C. Tiberius Gracchus was elected one of the two Tribunes for that year. Tiberius’ ambition was combined with what appears to be a genuine concern for the problems he saw. But while Gracchus saw the problems that were developing, he did not see the root cause of the problem as slavery. Slavery was so ingrained into the culture of the times that to deal with it would have been literally unthinkable. It was only with the fall of the Roman Empire 500 years later and the subsequent rise of Christianity that a new set of values would come to dominate the culture and slavery would be questioned.^b

      Instead of the root cause, Tiberius saw the results; large farms displacing smaller ones forcing the smaller farmer off the land and into the city where there