Democracy Ancient and Modern
From Classical Athens to
Twenty-First Century America
http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/cchampion/Maxwell123Athens.ppt
Plan of Lecture
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Ancient Greek Democracy: Typologies and Realities
 Synopsis of Wood Reading
 “Arithmetical” and “Geometric” Political Equality
 Athens as Radical, “Arithmetical” Democracy?
“Democracy” in Western Political Thought
 Athenian Dissidents
 The Federalist
The “Alienation” of Democracy (Wood)
 Size and Democracy (Dahl and Tufte)
 From Participation to Representation (Alexander
Hamilton)
 Lessons from Ancient Athens
I: Ancient Greek Democracy
Typologies and Realities
Synopsis of Wood
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“The Glorious Revolution established the enduring qualities of
democracy—tolerance, respect for the law, for the impartial
administration of justice.” (Margaret Thatcher, 1988)
“It is a democracy when the free [and poor] are sovereign and an
oligarchy [the rule of the few] when the rich are, but it comes about
that the sovereign class in a democracy is numerous and that in an
oligarchy small because there are many [poor] men of free birth and
few rich.” (Aristotle, Politics 1290a)
Dēmokratia = “rule of the dēmos (people).”
“[T]he progress of modern democracy has been far from
unambiguous; for as political rights have become less exclusive, they
have also lost much of their power; and the word democracy itself has
been domesticated and diluted, emptied of its social content, its
reference to the distribution of class power.” (Wood: 60-61)
As a political conception, “democracy” has been “alienated” from its
original meaning (rule of “laboring, base, and mechanic classes”; that
is, the poor) to stand for liberal values: rule of law, constitutionalism,
civil liberties, representative government, open markets.
Ancient Greek Ideas on Equality
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Numbers in Equations represent relative degree of political power and
influence; numbers in parentheses represent degree of wealth and
property in relation to the first element:
Arithmetical: 1+1(2)+1(4)=Political Equality (Justice)
Geometrical: 1+2(2)+4(4)=Political Equality (Justice)
“[T]he popular principle of justice is to have equality according to
number, not worth, and if this is the principle of justice prevailing, the
multitude must of necessity be sovereign and the decision of the
majority must be final and must constitute justice, for they say that
each of the citizens ought to have an equal share; so that it results that
in democracies the poor are more powerful than the rich, because
there are more of them and whatever is decided by the majority is
sovereign. This then is one mark of liberty which all democrats set
down as a principle of the constitution.” (Aristotle, Politics 6.1317b)
“Equality itself is unjust” (On Greek-style egalitarianism, which does
not consider sufficiently socio-economic gradations and aristocratic
ancestral privilege) ~ Cicero, Republic, 1.27.43
The Case of Athens:
Rule of the Dēmos
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Participatory Democracy: Sovereign Rule of
Citizen-Assembly (Aristotle, Politics 1292a-1293a)
 Assembly examines all public officials
(dokimasiai and euthynai)
 Jury Courts (dikasteriai) are final arbiter,
composed of citizens chosen by lot; paid by
state for service
 Payment for attendance at Assembly (4thCentury B.C.E.)
 Public Liturgies and Antidosis
 Ostracism
Dēmos (People) as Jury
Ostracism
Elitist Elements at Athens
(or What Wood Left Out)
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A “Face-to-Face” Democracy?
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Election of Highest Magistracies
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“The characteristics of democracy are as follows...that the appointment to all
offices, or to all but those that require special experience and skill, should be made
by lot.” (Aristotle, Politics 6.1317b)
Pledge to Maintain Socio-Economic Status Quo
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Total Population in late 5th-century (@350,000)
@60,000 citizens (adult males); meeting place of Assembly (Pnyx) accommodated
about 6,000
Women, Resident Aliens, Slaves Excluded
“As soon as the Archon enters upon his office, he proclaims through the public
herald that whatever a person possessed before he entered upon his Archonship he
will have and possess until the end of his term.” (Aristotle, Constitution of the
Athenians 56.2)
“Speakers” of the People
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Few in number at any given time
Drawn from socio-economic elite
Have had the best education in the art of rhetoric (persuasion and public oratory)
Thought to be less susceptible to corruption and bribery
Elitist Political Theory
Robert Michels and the “Iron Law of Oligarchy”
(Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of
Modern Democracies)
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Obstacles to Direct Popular Government
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Incompetence of the Masses
Lack of Time which would be required for
Direct Government
Indispensability of Elite Leaders
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Economic Superiority
Historical Superiority
Intellectual Superiority
Periclean Athens
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Pericles, dominates Athenian political life from ca.
445-430 B.C.E. (repeatedly elected general)
“It was he who led them, rather than they who led
him, and, since he never sought power from any
wrong motive, he was under no necessity of
flattering them: in fact he was so highly respected
that he was able to speak angrily to them and to
contradict them. Certainly when he saw that they
were going too far in a mood of over-confidence,
he would bring back to them a sense of their
dangers; and when they were discouraged for no
good reason he would restore their confidence. So,
in what was nominally a democracy, power was
really in the hands of the first citizen.”
(Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 2.65)
Portrait Bust of Pericles
One Last Omission of Wood on Athens:
Symbiosis of Democracy and Imperialism
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The Athenian Naval Empire
Importance of Rowers in Fleet to Maintenance of
Empire
Rowers come from Lowest Socio-Economic Class
in Athens (Thetes)
Thetes Gain Political Power with Growth of
Empire
Other Greek States Pay Annual Tribute to Athens
Imperial Revenue Finances Experiment in
Democracy (payment for participation) and Public
Works Projects in Athens (employment for poor
Athenian citizens)
Parthenon: Symbol of Periclean Democracy
II: Democracy in Western
Political Thought
A Uniformly “Bad Press”
Negative Assessments
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Western Political Thinkers, from Plato to
Federalists, condemn Athenian Democracy
Democracy=The Rule of the Mob
Democracy=Threat to Social Hierarchies;
Economic and Political Leveling;
Demagogues; Threats to Property
Western Political Thinkers Respond to the
“Arithmetical” Typology of Democracy; not
Historical Realities of Classical Athens
Some Views on Dēmokratia
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“Nothing is more foolish and violent than a useless
mob; for men fleeing the insolence of a tyrant to fall
victim to the insolence of the unguided populace is by
no means to be tolerated. Whatever the one does, he
does with knowledge, but for the other knowledge is
impossible; how can they have knowledge who have
not learned or seen for themselves what is best, but
always rush headlong and drive blindly onward, like
a river in flood?”
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Herodotus, Histories, 3.81
The Persian Nobleman Megabyzus
Some Views on Dēmokratia
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“[T]hey everywhere assign more to the worst
persons, to the poor, and to the popular types than
to the good men: in this very point they will be
found manifestly preserving their democracy. For
the poor, the popular, and the base, inasmuch as
they are well off and the likes of them are
numerous, will increase the democracy; but if the
wealthy, good men are well off, the men of the
people create a strong opposition to themselves.
And everywhere on earth the best element is
opposed to democracy.”
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Pseudo-Xenophon (“Old Oligarch”)
Some Views on Dēmokratia
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“Are not popular assemblies frequently
subject to the impulses of rage, resentment,
jealousy, avarice, and of other irregular and
violent propensities? Is it not well known
that their determinations are often governed
by a few individuals in whom they place
confidence, and are, of course, liable to be
tinctured by the passions and views of those
individuals?”
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Federalist, number 6
Some Views on Dēmokratia
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“Hence it is that such democracies have ever
been spectacles of turbulence and contention;
have ever been found incompatible with
personal security or the rights of property;
and have in general been as short in their lives
as they have been violent in theirs deaths.”
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Federalist, number 10
Some Views on Dēmokratia
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“Had every citizen been a Socrates, every
Athenian assembly would still have been a
mob.”
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Federalist, number 14
III: The “Alienation” of
Democracy
Redefinition and Rehabilitation
Dimensions of Democracy
(Typologies, Not Historical Realities)
(Dahl and Tufte)
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City-State
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“In order for citizens
fully to control the
decisions of the polity,
they must participate
directly in making
those decisions.”
“In order to participate
directly in making
decisions, the number
of citizens must be very
small.”
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Nation-State
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“Only the nation-state
has the capacity to
respond fully to
collective preferences.”
“Therefore the nationstate (but no smaller
units) should be
completely
autonomous.”
An Ancient Greek (Typological) View
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“A state (polis) could not consist of ten men,
and one composed of 100,000 men would no
longer be a state (polis).”
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Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1170b
Classical Athens @ 350,000 inhabitants
An Ideal Greek City-State (Hippodamus)
Alexander Hamilton, “Notes for a Speech,”
New York Ratifying Convention, July 12, 1788
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“[The American political system is] a
representative democracy…“Democracy in
my sense, [is] where the whole power of the
government [is] in the people, whether
exercised by themselves, or by their
representatives chosen by them either
mediately or immediately and legally
accountable to them.”
Mutability and Appropriation
of the Political Conception
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“It is no less concern than it is important…that the larger the society, provided it lie within a
practical sphere, the more duly capable it will be of self-government.”
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Federalist no. 51 (February 8, 1788)
“People-Power” is to be Diffused, Buffered, Tamed (Wood)
Hostile Western Political Tradition, from Plato to Hamilton, a Response to a Negative
Typology of Democracy (Created by Elites), not to Historical Realities in Classical Athens
President George W. Bush’s “National Security Strategy,” published 17 September 2002,
stated that the goal of American foreign policy is “to bring the hope of democracy,
development, free markets, and free trade to every corner of the world.”
At her confirmation hearing as Secretary of State-Designate before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee (January 18, 2005), Dr. Condolezza Rice spoke of “a fully democratic
hemisphere, bound by common values and free trade.”
Dr. Rice employed the words “democracy,” “democratic,” and “democratically” thirty-four
times in her brief address. She never stated with any precision what the word is supposed to
mean
“The concept of democracy has now become wonderfully elastic, permitting liberals to
confine it to parliamentary representation and civil liberties, or perhaps even to the
‘alternation of elites’…, leaving intact the gross disparities of class power, while neoliberals
and conservatives can identify it with the market. What all these flexible definitions of
democracy have in common is the eclipse of its literal meaning.” (Wood: 66)
Lessons from Classical Athens
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Negative: Pluralism and Politics of Inclusion, not
Privilege and Politics of Exclusion
“Office of the Citizen” is an Ideal to be Striven for,
not a Reality to be Attained
Concern for Justice not only within National
Boundaries, but for Justice in terms of America as
“Citizen of the World”
In other words, questioning whether American
democratic privileges and lifestyles are in some
sense based on forms of exploitation and injustice
among other peoples of the world (as was the case
in democratic Athens)