In 1787 when the United States drafted its constitution for a democratic government of the people, for the people and by the people, Professor Alexander Tyler (University of Edinborough –circa 1787) wrote about the stages of birth and death of democracy. According Alexander Tyler it takes an average of two hundred years for a democracy to mature, reach its crescendo and then revert back to bondage.

There are eight stages of democracy he observed:

From bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance;

From abundance to complacency;

From complacency to apathy;

From apathy to dependence;

From dependence back into bondage