Democracy

Francis Fukuyama predicted in his book The End of History

that democracy is the end of human political development,

while Alexis de Tocqueville believed that socialism would

menace democracy. In my 2005 book Socialism in America,

I argued that socialism supplants democracy. Indeed, a

decade later, socialist Bernie Sanders became a frontrunner

for the Democratic presidential nominee. This book argues

that Fukuyama is wrong because democracy carries the

seeds of its own destruction--of which socialism is just

one kernel--by illustrating the reasons why democracy

will fail in America from a broader perspective.

The ideals of freedom, equality and justice in early

democracy change due to the nature of democracy

itself, resulting in loss of freedom, inequality, injustice,

concentration of power, relative morality and divisiveness.

From this, single-mindedness, intolerance and loss of

civility emanate--traits that are endemic in America today.

There is an inevitable collusion between majority rule and

humankind's inability to control passion that propels

democracies through a natural lifecycle and explains why

history shows us that democracies are rare, are short-lived,

and usually end in dictatorships.

History is cyclical, and democracy is just one of the cycles

that naturally becomes something it once was not, which

is why America's Founding Fathers would not recognize

democracy in our country today. This book describes why

history's longest experiment with democracy will end and

how it may become a dictatorship.

This is the story of democracy in America.