Greek and US Democracy

1. How democracy has changed sync the Greek, as compared to the US government?
   1. How did the Greek organize democracy?
   2. How did the US organize democracy?
2. Is the Greek democracy still important today?
3. How do I envision the democracy of the US?

Introduction

1. Introduce the topic: How has democracy evolved since the ancient Greek, and how has it influenced the US democracy today?
2. Describing the background: Describing previous research Previous studies has investigated in great details on how such democratic governments sprouted in Greece among the anarchy time that it was in (Fleck & Hanssen, 2006) and how the Athenians structure their government (Samons, 2004). These studies highlighted the context, geopolitical, socioeconomic opportunities that contributed to a once stable Greek democracy. Despite this, the correlation between the foundation of democracy that the Greeks built and the founding of the US and its Constitution have yet to be robustly investigated. This report aims to provide insights into factors that started democracy, and clarify the correlation between ancient Greece and the modern US democracy. In the following section, the report will provide in details the Greek democracy structures, its influence on the US, and the envisions for the future of democracy.

1. How did the Greek construct their democracy?

• Size of their states: Greek poleis ranged in size from tiny villages with perhaps fewer than several hundred citizens to super poleis,
  Samons, Loren J., II, and Loren J. Samons. What’s Wrong with Democracy? : From Athenian Practice to American Worship, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/blinn/detail.action?docID=224437.
  Sometimes they are even bigger, for Attica or Athens, no less than 100,000 or even more than 400,000 at any given time
• Power of the people: Male citizens can vote regardless of land ownerships. Voting on war or peace, legislation, and treaties.
• Alternation: Athens’ chief magistrates were chosen from a list of elected officials. However, its unclear how long their terms were, and how much power they possessed. Some served for as long as 15 continuous years and involved in both the military and politics. The magistrates were typically the noble, members of specific families or economic classes.
• Note that different poleis have different governing systems but retained the same value of democracy. For instance, the Spartan also had two Spartan Kings included in the polis government.
• Around 507 B.C. the Athenians instituted a boule of 500, consisted of 500 ordinary citizens to supervise over business, military matters, act as embassies and even a kind of court.
• Background checking: before someone can join the Council of 500, the members of the council asked the candidates questions, and the candidacy was also announced so anyone could confront the candidate, ensuring their honesty.
• Limited participation: not anyone can join the government. It was either assigned at birth, their social class, or after Solon’s reform, assigned by wealth. The treasurers under Solon’s were always the one who possessed the most land.
• Religious: democracy is sought in order to secure the goodwill of the Greek gods.
• Equilibrium between the aristocrats and demos: the demos (the common people) had always been afraid of tyrants and the aristocrats were also afraid of demagogues.
• The Tyrant-killing law: the Athenians after the Coup of 400 hundreds realized that mobilization speed in response to the coup was critical to defend their democracy. They enacted the oath to Democracy, including spreading protocols to act in event of a coup, and incentivized brave individuals to take initiative and “kill a tyrant.” Teegarden, David E.. Death to Tyrants! : Ancient Greek Democracy and the Struggle Against Tyranny, Princeton University Press, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.kidd.blinn.edu/lib/blinn/detail.action?docID=1458378.

2. How did the Greek Democracy influence the US Democracy?

• The contemporary US in size is vastly different from ancient Greek. The city of Houston alone has the population 5 times as much as Athens’ peak. U.S. Census Bureau quick facts: Houston City, Texas. (n.d.). https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/houstoncitytexas/PST045222

To understand why democracy was centered for the founding of the US, we need to look back and see why democracy sprouted in ancient Greece in the first place.

According to mathematical model crated by Fleck and Hanssen, where they compare different factors that drive the adoption of democracy, there was a strong correlation between exogenous investment and the support for democracy in favor of economic growth.

Athens became the most democratic city-state in ancient Greece because its democracy incentivized farmers to commit to sustained investment by reducing the chance that the investment would be revoked because of political instability, which then in turn contributed to Athens democratic strength.

The Athens democracy ended with the invasion of Macedon, after which the destabilized olive production led to the disappearance of farms, wanning reinstating democracy efforts .

Fleck, R. K., & Hanssen, F. A. (2006). The Origins of Democracy: A Model with Application to Ancient Greece. The Journal of Law & Economics, 49(1), 115–146. https://doi.org/10.1086/501088

Looking back to founding of the US under the Articles of Confederations, we can see the astonishing similarities between the need for economic sustainability at ancient Athens and the struggles at the 13 North American Colonies under the British that sprouted democracy.

“Some 10,000 American soldiers died in camp from starvation, wounds, or disease. Food and supplies were so scarce that a band of soldiers resorted to eating their dog near Lake Champlain,”

Keith L. Dougherty. (2001). Collective Action Under the Articles of Confederation. Cambridge University Press.

The Americans and ancient Athenians share the same fundamentals of democracy, including power to the people, alternation, terms alternation, and decentralization of power. The US modern democracy requires term alternations and limitation. For instance, the serving terms of the US president is 4 years with one renewal. The ancient Athenians also required terms alternation for their archons; however, there was so specification on how long a term was.

Both democracies try to decentralize power, giving each piece of the government and the people bits of decisive power. The ancient Greeks first limited their governmental participation to the very elite. Americans nowadays may criticized this as oligarchy, as though the power was shared, it was among a small group of elites that tend to shift power in favor of themselves, not for the benefit of the Greek society as a whole. However, this was a strong development toward democracy, as most societies at the time was total authoritative, with power centered around one individual. The Athenians later introduced the the Council of 500, opened to adult males, with or without property in Athens. This firstly seemed like the beginning of a more inclusive, more civilized society, but the Council was prone to influence of outside forces leading to the Coup of 400 and ultimately the fall of democratic Athens when their government no longer served the public’s interests.

To establish a stable government against outsiders while staying democratic, the dilemma of sharing power between the national government, state governments, and the people was also greatly debated during the founding times of the US. Overtime, the US national government structure now settles with a bicameral organization, the House of Representative and the Senate. The balance of power has never been an irrelevant issue since the founding. The US has adopted a myriad of democratic features from the ancient Athens, and improve on them to forge a stable government, especially the US constitution.

The US democracy could have ended right when the confederate government was failing, yet it survived with the adoption of the Constitution. In fact, the time the US has been a country outlasted the Athenian democracy.

The confederation between the colonies was insufficient to maintain the security and stability of the nation, thus Constitution was instituted. The connection between the states was something that the Athenians missed to sustain its democracy. What if Athens had successful alliance with its neighboring states, what would have happened?

In fact, the demos of Athens tried to impose its governmental structures to neighboring cities-states, required religious sacrifices in favor of them, sent personnel to distant lands for colonizing.

There were efforts to expand and cementing their democracy, but they failed. The expansions were more like evading. (What’s wrong with democracy)

3. Is the Greek democracy still important to the US today?

Though the Greek democracy ended more than 2 millennia ago, there are still debates that still are still relevant today:

1. Whether consensus or majority rule?
2. How involved should the people be in politics? Should it be representative or direct democracy? Were the demos (people) effective in governing Athens?
3. The tug of war between the tyrants and demagogues.

3.1 The debate between the consensus or majority rule

Canevaro, M., Erskine, A., Gray, B. D., & Ober, J. (2018). Ancient Greek history and contemporary social science. Edinburgh University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/9781474421782/type/BOOK

In a collection of articles written in Ancient Greek history and contemporary social science, Canevaro curated the different arguments debating whether democratic government should take actions based on the majority rule, supermajority rule, or a total consensus.

On one hand, Schwartzberg argues that simple majority should be the only voting system that ensures democracy, as supermajority gave some votes more weight than others. The author also deems this as unconstitutional and against the very basic principle of democracy, one person - one vote. Flaig supports Schwartzberg by stating taking decisions only on consensus leads to inequality and governmental inefficiency. On the other hand, Graeber argues that consensus need to be eventually reached as it strengthen unity and solidarity.

Canevaro later provided archelogy evidence looking back on how the Greek voted. The analysis of 44 inscriptions showed the Greeks’ prevalence for unanimous or near unanimous decisions, though there were notable disagreement.

So how should we approach voting? If one person has exactly one vote, will marginalized communities have their say? However, if we adopt supermajority, or give the minorities more privilege, is it true that some people have more power than others?

3.2 The tug of war between tyrants and demagogues

Samons, Loren J., II, and Loren J. Samons. What’s Wrong with Democracy? : From Athenian Practice to American Worship, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/blinn/detail.action?docID=224437.

The archon roles and participation in the Athens government was eventually opened for the general public. History showed that Athens under the popular vote has veered off to quite a peculiar path. There were records on how Athenians repeatedly voted to declare war on their former allies, concluded alliances with their recent enemies, executed their leaders, enslaved fellow Greeks of other poleis, and invaded foreign states to expand Athens. On the contrary, some other decisions were later seen as “wise” by today historians including, sending aid to Persia, assisting Spartan allies during a helot revolt, standing against Philip of Macedon in a battle which they lost, honoring foreigners or fellow citizens for good doings.

However, these decisions made by the the general public was not strategic, but rather spontaneous, reactive, and sentimental. For instance, after the vote to support the Sparta, Athenians hardly ever voted for the general welfare of the city-state again. The votes reflected a very narrow view of individuals interests.

So where is the balance between the general public and the specialists involvement?

4. Envision of the US democracy

The US democracy has inherent a lot from the ancient Athens democracy, from the built-in structure that give the people the power, voting, and terms alternation. However, there are areas that the US had done differently to ensure the stability of its democracy, leaning away from confederation and balance the majority and minorities need.

There are also problems that both the Athenians and people in the US nowadays are still seek to solve, but it is important to know that the US democracy is earned and not granted, and the US has come so far that it reached a unprecedented development.

The US democracy lies in the hand of its citizens, and a healthy democracy depends on US political knowledge and efficacy. I do not see another form of governmental structure that is better than the one we are having right now, so democracy will stay with us for quite some time.