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.
