I think a core problem of government is the tendency to draw to it people who have a lust for power. Terms of service is a good idea and yet, those elected tend to find ways to stay elected, gathering more and more power unto themselves.
Serve-for-life terms for certain judges has not worked out. Legislating from the bench has proved very destructive to representative government.
It might be time to try a new American Experiment.
FA Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom Readers' Digest Condensed Version in PDF format has a chapter entitled “Why the worst get on top (in a socialist government)."Terms of service is a good idea and yet, those elected tend to find ways to stay elected, gathering more and more power unto themselves.
. By John O’Sullivan EDITOR’S NOTE: This appeared in the October 27, 1989, issue of National Review.Robert Michels — as any reader of James Burnham's finest book, The Machiavellians, knows was the author of the Iron Law of Oligarchy. This states that in any organization the permanent officials will gradually obtain such influence that its day-to-day program will increasingly reflect their interests rather than its own stated philosophy. To take a homely example, congressmen from egalitarian parties somehow end up voting for higher pay and generous expenses for congressmen. We can also catch an ironic echo of Michels's law in Stalin's title of General Secretary, as well as in the fact that powerful mandarins in the British government creep about under such deceptive pseudonyms as "Permanent Under-Secretary.