JOHN ADAMS' PROPHECY AND THE STEPS TO DEMOCRACY'S DEMISE

President John Adams once wrote that "Democracy never last long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide." Our second president was never one to sugarcoat the truth, which made him such an invaluable part of the small group that wrote America's first Constitution and fashioned the form of our federal-state system of self-government, so his bleak forecast for the democracy that he, himself, helped create is hardly surprising. Adams' views were also based on the relatively limited examples of earlier democracies, including the various attempts of the Athenians.

There are moments, including this one 173 years after his death, that Adams' forecast seems especially relevant. Our occasionally brilliant American democracy has in recent times provided such evidence, occasionally giving the appearance of a wasted, exhausted, even suicidal, society. It is relevant, then, to ask how many steps America is allowed before it reaches the destructive destination predicted by our second president.

STEP NO. 1: For every $1 spent today for food, farmers receive only 20 cents. When the consuming public grows concerned with increasing food prices while the farmers receive less and less, our politicians promise they will work to increase commodity exports, an answer that should not reassure anyone since Cargill, Continental and ADM control 80 percent of the world's grain shipments -- and these companies are the recipients of tax subsidies. The farmer gets nada.

STEP NO. 2: Since 1983, the stock market has grown 1,336 percent, making the net worth of the top 1 percent of American households grow by 17 percent, while those in the middle (the median household) had an inflation-adjusted reduction from $54,600 to $49,900. The bottom 40 percent of households lost an astounding 80 percent since 1983, shrinking from $4,400 to just $900. Remember that the next time some politician tells you how he and his party have brought prosperity to America.

STEP NO. 3: Those presidential trips made last year to China, Chile and Africa cost U.S. taxpayers $72 million, most of it paid from the Pentagon budget. Although members of Congress objected to such depletion of the defense budget, it is this same fund that annually shells out more than $1 billion for foreign junkets of, yes, members of Congress.

STEP NO. 4: The average U.S. worker is putting in longer hours, producing more and enduring greater stress -- yet the average weekly wage is 12 percent less than 25 years ago.

STEP NO. 5: In 1970 the average industrial chief executive officer received 42 times what the average factory worker was paid, and the most recent study shows this disparity has now grown by 989 percent. The average CEO now makes 419 times what the average blue collar worker receives. If the minimum wage had gone up in the last decade as drastically as the top executives' pay, it would not be $5.15 an hour but $22 an hour. Right now the average CEO of major U.S. corporations is paying himself $10.6 million a year, although the president of Disney took in $575 million, which figures out to be $287,500 an hour. The process becomes even easier since companies are allowed to deduct these gross paychecks from their taxable incomes, so we taxpayers are subsidizing this insanity.

STEP NO. 6: Our elected officials are unwilling to do anything about the high cost of campaigns, which are wholly paid by individuals, including our lowest-paid citizens whose taxes help fund qualifying presidential candidates. The metaphor for all of this money grubbing was provided earlier this year by U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore, a Kansas Democrat, who held a fund raiser last December for his year 2000 re-election campaign -- before he was even sworn in for his first term.

STEP NO. 7: Since 1994 Missourians have been trying to do something about reducing the high cost of campaigning for public office and ending some of the abuses that can be tied to unlimited contributions in order to gain favor from elected officials. Despite legislative and public referendums, reasonable limits have been ruled by federal appeals courts as free-speech violations. Presumably such rulings would permit contributions as high as $1 million per person, since judges have never defined an acceptable ceiling. The U.S. Supreme Court is now deciding whether Missouri's voters have a right to regulate their own elections. Don't hold your breath.

STEP NO. 8: Today two-thirds of all U.S. household incomes are stagnant or declining. Fifty percent of all Americans have no assets at all.

STEP NO. 9: Thanks to repeated procrastination and buck-passing in Congress, millions of Americans daily face the worry of no health insurance, with skyrocketing premiums and medical expenses that grow at a faster rate each year. Today we are left with the incomprehensible fact that our caring politicians have created a situation in which the government allows a tax break when an employer purchases your health insurance -- but none when you buy it yourself. Wonder how the founding fathers would view such an inequity and doesn't it seem strange that judges are concerned about fairness on some issues (see paragraph above) but are willing to abandon it on matters affecting the lives of millions of American families?

STEP NO. 10: Last year 531 Missouri children, aged 17 and under, were killed or wounded by gunfire. Number of bills in this year's legislative session dealing with this problem: O. Number of bills dealing with public officials' retirement and pension systems: 22.

FINAL STEP: Number among 50 Missourians who could name one candidate for a statewide office next year: 4.

Is our American Democracy now on the path predicted by John Adams, and if this is the case, how many more steps are we allowed before we reach the abyss?

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.