The point that Alexis De Toqueville(sp) made back when the founding fathers were alive is coming to roost. The republic will only last until those in power find they can bribe the people with their own money. (paraphrased of course but the thoughts the same).
This is a valid point and it certainly resonates with us when we see the current state of our government and social structure. As a point of interest, this basic quotation has also been attributed to everyone from DeTocqueville and Tytler to Marx and Aristotle in an effort to legitimize it and magnify the inherent truth it conveys.
DeTocqueville was an interesting man and his seminal work, "Democracy in America," although somewhat tedious, is a "must read." Interestingly, it is notoriously misrepresented by people across the political spectrum to support their own position. Recent election cycles have seen it quoted by Conservatives and Hillary Clinton alike as it suited their political needs.
DeTocqueville's basic premise revolved around his firm belief that democratic governance could not succeed without an educated electorate. In fact, he spends a good deal of time in "Democracy" emphasizing the fact that every log cabin he entered in the American Wilderness had a copy of the Bible...more often than not accompanied by literary works of Shakespeare, Milton, etcetra...which really impressed him. As a French Noble, he also wrestled with the role of property rights in a democratic society...and his ideas about land ownership and property rights may seem a little foreign to the 21st Century reader.
Basically, DeTocqueville was spot on. Self governance requires education, knowledge and understanding of the issues, and sobriety (and, as in all matters, a little bit of integrity is a plus). My feeling is that we were pretty good at this in the beginning, but around the time of the Civil War we started to change the rules of the game. As we expanded the electorate through almost universal suffrage, we lost our high degree of education, knowledge/understanding of issues, and, most importantly, sobriety...because we lost the attitude that the decisions we made impacted us all and we went from being an electorate of taxpayers to being an electorate of government service consumers.
In a nutshell, we have expanded the electorate to the point that the self interest of the majority now clearly conflicts with the best interests of the country. The simplest solution is to revert to a system where only those who contribute vote, as it was in the most places in the early days of the Republic when only landowners could vote.
