France and Greece elections - Austerity fails?

[kandrathe]

Traditional societies lead to wealth which leads to leisure which leads to people with too much time on their hands which leads to liberalism which leads to collapse and the cycle starts anew. Just like Rome.

This claim does not appear to hold up to the empirical evidence. Look at today's wealthy and poor countries. The wealthiest are also the most liberal. The poorest are more "traditional" than the rich, and have been for a long time. No rich society has collapsed in ages.

Do I have this wrong somehow?

-Jester

<mumbles> ... democracy works until people figure out they can vote themselves money from the treasury... </mumbles>

I'm still not sure that they understand that they cannot continue to fund their government on the backs of debt. The lenders have stopped lending, unless they agree to bring their spending into balance with their revenues. Or, they can look for new lenders who are willing to throw risk money on a failing state. It's looking dubious to me that Greece will remain on the Euro.

I'm still holding to my domino theory on human nature and European debt. Spain appears to be next in line to toss out their austerity hawks. Then who? Italy? Ireland? Portugal?