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"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:
from bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependency;
from dependency back again to bondage."

--Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813) Scottish jurist and historian

Since most great economic movements are driven by a relatively small portion of any society (even though most participate in the endeavor), I suspect that the apathy of some is enabled by the abundance generated by others and occurs in concert with the “abundance” phase of this quote.
This apathy turns into “selfishness” (by my definition it is those who want something for nothing that make “selfish” a negative term. Those who take care of themselves and their families are selfish, too, but that is a good thing. Their selfish tendencies will often include charity, as that makes many people happy. It is their selfish need to be happy that drives their generosity/charity. I do not think that is these people who are described by the word “selfishness” in the above quote).
It is those who vote for their share of the abundance who never realize that you cannot force productivity/abundance. They take the abundance for granted and expect it to continue whether the producers like it or not.

T. Finney

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