A significant similarity between the American and Athenian system of democracy is the role of self-interest in determining the way legislation is crafted. In American democracy, elected senators and congressmen craft and pass laws. In the Athenian democracy, laws were created and voted upon by anyone eligible to vote and who showed up in the Pnyx. Both systems improve the society they belong to, but the issue of self-interest has led to issues in both democracies.
In the Athenian democracy, self-interest among rowers led Athenian democracy astray. The Athenian empire had democracy for good reason. According to Xenophon, “it seems just that all should share in public office by lot and by election, and that any citizen who wishes should be able to speak in the Assembly” (Thucydides, The Constitution of Athenians: 2). What Xenophon meant by this, is that in Athenian democracy, allowing citizens to vote was critical to a maintaining a functioning empire. “it is the ordinary people who man the fleet and bring the city her power; the provide the helmsmen” (Thucydides, The Constitution of Athenians: 2). Participation of the rowers in democracy made the fleet more effective. Athens had made a great, expensive, naval fleet which was maintained by free citizens whose welfare depended on the success and usage of said fleet. As a result, self-interest motivated the rowers to push Athens into military conquest beyond which it could sustain. This led to overexpansion and ruin of the Athenian empire. The self-interest of participants in Athenian democracy, the rowers wanting to get paid by supporting naval expeditions, led to poor decisions from the assembly, attacking Sicily and Persia. Clearly, self-interest led Athenian democracy astray.
In the American assembly, self-interest from lawmakers has lead the American democracy to make poor decisions. In American politics, lawmakers often choose to support special interest and lobbyists instead of the people who elected them. We see this in American politics where lawmakers support laws that benefit certain industries or companies. Those lawmakers then go to work as lobbyists for those companies and make millions of dollars. “For every person the American people have elected to sponsor legislation of the public benefit, special interests have more than one former legislative advocate now working on the inside in Congress” (Farnam, Washington Post, Revolving Door). This quote describes the “revolving door” in American politics where legislators are either supported by special interests before joining Congress or are paid by special interests to lobby in Washington after leaving Congress. This means that there is clearly a special interest for legislators in Congress. For example, in Congress’s decision to fund the production of the F-35, they chose a manner of production that was extremely effective and inefficient, namely to support the special interests (BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin, among others) involved in producing the plane (Tegler, Popular Mechanics, WTF-35). American democracy went hundreds of billions over budget because of the self-interest in Washington. Clearly, American democracy had been led astray by self-interest.
Both Athenian and American democracy helped maintain the strength of each respective society. However, both democracies were harmed by the same issue: self-interest.
Works Cited
Xenophon. The Old Oligarch: Being the Constitution of the Athenians Ascribed to Xenophon. Oxford :Basil Blackwell, 1926.
Farnam, T. W. “Study Shows Revolving Door of Employment between Congress, Lobbying Firms.” The Washington Post. September 13, 2011. Accessed October 03, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/study-shows-revolving-door-of-employment-between-congress-lobbying-firms/2011/09/12/gIQAxPYROK_story.html?utm_term=.cb268ec82fe0.
Tegler, Eric. “How the F-35 Got to Be Such a Mess.” Popular Mechanics. July 27, 2018. Accessed October 03, 2018. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a21957/wtf-35/.
The West in the Pre-Modern World 
Self-interest is something that is never really addressed but is a major problem within governments. People will always make decisions with themselves in mind, and that has not changed from Athenian times to today. You did a really good job using examples from both time periods to show how self-interested people can both help and destroy a government from the inside. In Athens, it was the rowers, they helped build the navy up to its full fighting power, but they also lead to the over-expansion which destroyed the Athenian empire. In America, we have lawmakers who choose to support those who elected him or certain industries. I believe American is at a critical time in our government, we need to find a way to combat the self-interest voting that is going on, and just work the betterment of all people. But that is easier said than done because it is almost impossible to change human nature.
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I actually didn’t know about the boules in Athenian democracy but you did a great job drawing a similarity between them and the current structure of our democracy. You make a convincing argument that the boules ensured structure and organization when deciding what would be voted on. In much the same way, as you pointed out, there are groups of people/sub committees that bills must pass through before they reach the House or Senate floor. Despite representative and direct democracy being so different you find a similarity that binds the two.The blog post titled “Shared Flaws between the Athenian and American Democracy” argues that self-interest is a major flaw shared by both Athenian democracy and our democracy. In doing so, the author is discounting the concept of boules and there being groups that maintained the Senate’s focus. In American politics, the effect of lobbyists are felt everywhere in Congress, even down to sub-committees and how they may vote. Self-interest could have played a major role in Athenian democracy even with short-termed officials who decided what would be voted on.
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Carina Richardson (181)
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what are you doing in my swamp
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