To even compare the two, is foolish.
Trying to adopt such a model for anything much bigger than that is a bad idea.
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.
Not foolish, because even the one with the better chance to succeed, failed. Consider:
1. The Leftist effort to convert America into a one person/ one vote Democracy, is premised upon unqualified voting by virtually all residents--a moronic concept, since no one would run their personal business that way (allowing the hiring of decision makers without inquiry as to their competence or other qualifications).
2. Athenian Democracy, on the other hand, was limited to the actual citizens--the ethnic Athenians, with resident aliens carefully excluded (as of course was the large slave population, the actual majority of the residents). And the Athenians had perhaps the highest level of average intelligence of any definable human population in the historic period.
3. Since 1965, thanks to our beloved "Liberals," and other apologetic Americans, America has allowed a large immigration from regions of the earth with virtually no ethnic or cultural ties to the European heritage, which formed the foundation that the American settlers built upon. This creates a very incongruous electorate, with significant blocks without the common sense of identity with continuing values, lines of descent, or the other ingredients that go into defining clear National purpose.
The "Democracy" mantra is not, then, appreciably safer for the American future, than it is suitable to much of the Third World, and that is not very safe at all. (See Democracy In The Third World.) As suggested in another thread today, on what is happening in "Zimbabwe:" Rhodesia + Democracy = "Zimbabwe"
Rhodesia was a garden among modern Nations. Zimbabwe is an absolute disaster.
William Flax