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Editor’s note: History is a mirror for present-day reality. Those who still blindly believe in Western democracy should find its true nature, though in somewhat different forms of manifestation, in that of Rome, which built up its grandeur and prosperity by conquering other peoples with military might and exploiting slaves from all over Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. And this is the version of “democracy” that the American Empire today is trying to impose on all other countries under the threat of its military might by stirring up violence all over the world in the names of "liberty", "human rights", and “universal values”.
We know that, though the people of Rome assumed to themselves the right of raising plebeians to public offices, yet they never would exert this power; and though, at Athens, the magistrates were allowed, by the law of Aristides, to be elected from all the different classes of inhabitants, there never was a case, says Xenophon, that the common people petitioned for employments which could endanger either their security or their glory. (Book II, Chap. II)
…Intriguing in a senate is dangerous: dangerous it is also in a body of nobles; but not so in the people, whose nature is to act through passion. In countries where they have no share in the government, we often see them as much inflamed on the account of an actor, as ever they could be for the welfare of the state. The misfortune of a republic is, when intrigues are at an end; which happens when the people are gained by bribery and corruption: in this case they grow indifferent to public affairs, and avarice becomes their predominant passion. Unconcerned about the government and every thing belonging to it, they quietly wait for their hire. (Ibid.)
The people fall into this misfortune when those in whom they confide, desirous of concealing their own corruption, endeavour to corrupt them. To disguise their own ambition, they speak to them only of the grandeur of the state; to conceal their own avarice, they incessantly slatter theirs.... We must not be surprized to see their suffrages given for money. It is impossible to make great largesses to the people without great extortion: and, to compass this, the state must be subverted. The greater the advantages they seem to derive from their liberty, the nearer they approach towards the critical moment of losing it. Petty tyrants arise, who have all the vices of a single tyrant. The small remains of liberty soon become insupportable; a single tyrant starts up, and the people are stripped of every thing, even of the profits of their corruption. (Book VIII, Chap. II) |
