[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.

[bagman]

I'm not so sure it worked all that well. Look at Alcibiades and his instigation of the disastrous Sicilian Expedition. He fired up the mob and got the vote to authorize an ambitious expedition to Syracuse, which was subsequently annihilated. Athens never recovered from this defeat.

Someone said that if the Athenian polity had consisted only Socrates's, it still would have been a mob.