Maybe more so if we studied it.
As is standard procedure, I was reading a book and the other day I came across the two paragraphs which I have included below. Not only did it strike me that what was written was about the struggles we have been and still do face in this country concerning middle class, balance of power, money corruption to influence society and political decisions, etc., but also that one might ask when was this written?
Was this book written about events occurring in 2013? How about 1913? 1813? Let me tell you this. The book was written in 1891 by A.T. Jones, titled – The Two Republics. But, the real shocker in this is that this is describing the struggles taking place in 146 B.C.
What do we learn from history?
And as these two classes were constantly growing farther apart, – the rich growing richer and the poor, poorer, – there ceased to be any middle class to maintain order in government and society by holding the balance of power. There remained only the two classes, the rich and the poor, and of these the rich despised the poor and the poor envied the rich. And there were always plenty of men to stir up the discontent of the masses, and present schemes for the reorganization of society and government.
Some of these were well meaning men, men who really had in view the good of there fellow-men, but the far greater number were mere demagogues, – ambitious schemers who used the discontent of the populace only to lift themselves into the places of wealth and power which they envied others, and which, when they had secured, they used as selfishly and as oppressively as did any of those against whom they clamored. But whether they were well meaning men or demagogues, in order to hold the populace against the persuasions and bribes of the wealthy, they were compelled to make promises and concessions, which were only in the nature of larger bribes and which in the end were as destructive of free government as the worst acts of the Senate itself.
