In the eighteenth century, a professor in England named Alexander Tyler wrote about the inherent flaw of democracies in the context of the fall of the Athenian Republic. He said: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves, at will, money from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority votes for candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, usually followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through certain definite sequences. From courage by revolution to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency, from complacency to apathy, and back to dependency." 

Professor Tyler accurately predicted the developmental path of modern democracy. Today, civilization is blessed with the prospect of avoiding a dark future of despotism through supersession of this elderly system with another that more fully achieves the dreams of the American founding fathers.