Athenian democracy an imperfect system that led to mob rule, says classics prof

bu.edu/bridge ^ | 4 February 2005 | Brian Fitzgerald

[stuartcr]

To even compare the two, is foolish.

[Brilliant]

"democracy an imperfect system that led to mob rule..."

Now they tell us.

[Borges]

Founding fathers said much the same thing.

[Borges]

About Democracy that is.

[2banana]

Democracy without iron-clad civil rights is mob rule...

[Modernman]

Greek cities were quite small. Generally not more than a few tens of thousands of people. On such a small scale, direct democracy can work.

Trying to adopt such a model for anything much bigger than that is a bad idea.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Despite the publicity the Electoral College received in 2000, Samons says, many Americans still believe that our country is a democracy and look to Athenian democracy as something we should strive for."

Well, hell---its not as though generations of American children haven't been force-fed the idea "democracy good--Constitutional Republic bad" by the self-appointed intelligentsia, who actually HATE the American form of government.

[Destro]

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

Thomas Jefferson quotes (US 3rd US President (1801-09). Author of the Declaration of Independence. 1762-1826)

[Red Badger]

Democracy is a sheep and three wolves voting on what to have for dinner........

[Republicanprofessor]

read later

[donmeaker]

Another interesting point about the Athenian way: they used random selections, to give the G-ds an opportunity to intervene. For many decisions each voter (and the franchise was limited) wrote his selection on a pottery shard, or had someone write it for him. The shards were placed in one of several (say 12) urns. A single pottery shard was selected from an urn with the numbers 1 through 12 in it. The selected urn was kept, and all other votes were discarded. The selected urn had its votes distributed among the other urns, and again, one urn was selected, and the votes in the non-selected urns again discarded. This continued until the single vote was selected.

It is obvious that anyones vote could be counted, but hardly anyone's actually was!

It is hard to get inside the head of the ancient Greeks. So much good sense, mixed with so much other.

[Dr. Frank fan]

Bottom line: In modern American parlance we use the word "democracy" as a shorthand for "democratic constitutional republic". We don't actually mean pure democracy and never did. And I think we all instinctively understand this even if not explicitly. So what?

It creates a problem I suppose when we try to "democratize" other countries, and certain folks in those countries think that by "democratize" we mean "purely-democratize", and call us hypocritical if we insist on bills of rights, constitutional separation of powers, etc.

But again, all we need to is reiterate that by "democracy", Americans don't mean pure democracy and never did.

[You Dirty Rats]

Democracy: power of the people. It’s the ideal form of government, isn’t it? Loren J. Samons says no — not the way it was practiced by Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.

Aristotle said the same thing over 2300 years ago. The least they could have done is mentioned him in this piece.

[harrowup]

But the Electoral College is still in place, and that’s the way the creators of the American regime intended it. They didn’t trust the masses.

One can hardly expect a BU academic would ever understand Greece or democracy. Athens was ruled by elitists just as our electoral system was intended to impose...and does by giving representation to 100 Senators, some of whom represent 300,000 folks and others many millions. Joe Biden is somewhere in the middle and that qualifies him as representing the mob...and all four Senators from NY-nj of course are members bought and paid for by the mob.

[Destro]

It actually worked - What did not work was that it did not present a check on the people or minority rights but the system worked in operating the state. Even after Athens fell to Rome right up until Constantine - the Athenians used the lot system to run their local affairs.

The problem with democracy - if you think in terms of a car engine - is that democracy can get the car engine going turbo charged but it tends to over heat. A republic is slow ans steady like a desiel truck engine.

[ClearCase_guy]

“Many Americans tend to think that there is a political solution to every social problem,” he says.

It's an important point. The welfare state (a political "solution") resulted in vastly increased poverty and single-parent families. Want to solve the social problem? Remove the political "solution" and you are well on the way to success. Politics can't fix everything.

[Ditto]

Greek cities were quite small. Generally not more than a few tens of thousands of people. On such a small scale, direct democracy can work.

Even on a 'small scale' they will always evolve into a dictatorship of the majority.

BTW. The correct definition of the United States is a Constitutional Republic employing a Representative form of Government.

[Little Ray]

Actually, until FDR became President, our military manuals proudly called the USA a Republican and stated that democracy was bad, leading things like anarchy and mob rule.

Gee, I wonder why that changed?

[Modernman]

The correct definition of the United States is a Constitutional Republic employing a Representative form of Government.

Sure. But the USA still fits the definition of a democracy.