I think it's called 'Bread and Circuses'Originally Posted by Zigzagman
"The
America of my time line 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 as ‘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 the 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 the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter
Rome." ~ Robert Heinlein
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