The ‘American’ democracy we have today came from the juvenile form of democracy Athens ran with over 2500 years ago. This early democracy was experimental at best and was revolutionary at the time. While we have virtually rewritten the standard for how a democracy should be operated, we are not very far from our roots.

At first glance, the democracies of today and the ancient democracy of Athens look different. Ancient Athens only allowed a very small group of men resident in Athens the vote; women and foreigners were excluded. Athens’ democracy also demanded a lot of time from its citizens. Adult male citizens who had to vote put a halt to their work to travel to the Athenian assembly (the Pnyx) on a regular basis. These commonwealth citizens also had to debate and vote on important issues like going to war. This dedication of so much time to the democratic system was made easier when the Assembly eventually decided to encourage citizens further by paying them to come to the assembly and to undertake other democratic duties like acting as jurors in the law courts.

It is clear that Athenian democracy was not our modern idea of equal freedom and rights, but more like a select club, facilitated to some extent by a slave population. However, we should not be too complacent as to think that we are more ‘democratic’ now, just because of our progress in equal rights. Just as we may not want to recognize Athens’ democracy as properly democratic, so too an ancient Athenian would not recognize the ‘American’ democracy as a true democracy.

Ancient Athenians participated in a direct democracy, meaning every citizen went to the assembly and voted on the issues. Moreover, if they were voting on whether or not to go to war, the voters did not go home afterwards to put their feet up while the army went off to fight, they went home to pick up their armor too. To a democrat of ancient Athens, today’s democracies, where the majority of voters elect representatives to make most of the decisions for them (and who then rely on professionals to carry out those decisions), would seem to achieve the effect that the Old Oligarch spoke of in his letter. “For if the good men were to speak and make policy, it would be splendid for the likes of themselves but not so for the men of the people” (Oligarch). The American democracy operates just so, however, and only because the power still comes from the people.

With these further considerations, the ancient democracy more closely resembles the democracies of today, yet with all the improvements we have made to the ancient system, our modern efficiency trumps all.

 

Works Cited:

https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-greece/ancient-greece-democracy

https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/ancient-greek-democracy-as-similar-to-ours-as-we-think/

The Athenian democracy, created by Pericles during his time as leader of Athens, was based on the idea that it is the job of the government to carry out the will of the people. The American government was founded in a similar manner, to be “by the People, for the people”. Both of these governments were created to represent the citizens; but the Americans decided the mob, for many reasons, could not be trusted to make informed decisions. The Americans realized direct democracy was messy, ill-informed, and fickle. Representative democracy, while it has its faults, is the more critical and adept form of government.

The power in a direct democracy lies in the idea that if more people contribute to a system the stronger it will become. Everyone weighs in on every issue, and everyone has a say in everything. This collaboration works if everyone knows exactly what they are talking about. A group of farmers could make a great process for plowing a field, and a group of builders could make a house in great time. But if you took these two groups of people and tell them to input ideas for war plans, one would have a terrible army run by incompetent people. Say we do have a veteran who has fought his whole life, he is only 1 person, so his 1 vote is lost among the sea of farmers and builders. The problem with the direct democracy is that those who are ill-informed are given the same rights as those who know what is best. An example of the ignorance shown in direct democracy is the aftermath of the Battle of Arginusae, in which 6 generals were killed because of their inability to rescue survivors from the battle. The emotional response from an assembly that did not understand the gravity of their situation led to a shortage of leadership in the Athenian Navy.

Leadership in government should be for those who have the knowledge and understanding to make the difficult and usually the unpopular choice. Throughout the country almost everyone is against new taxes, but taxes are a necessary part of the government even though they are wildly unpopular. Taxes do the things for the country that need to be done, things such as roads, schools, and hospitals. Taxes provide for things that everyone needs but seem too short sighted to want to pay for themselves. It takes our elected leaders to realize that important things need more funding and therefore must increase taxes. The people who lead a government should not have other commitments and jobs. The most effective government is one where it is the job of elected leaders to learn about the laws that affect their constituents, to make the informed decisions.

Philip Dalke

The United States was created on the idea of democracy and equal representation. The Founding Fathers used the basic democratic ideas from Ancient Athenians and adapted them to fit the needs of the new country. Although there are still problems with representative democracy, I believe it is the best form of democracy for the United States.

The concept of the representative democracy should be perfect. It allows for every citizen to get a say in their government while keeping the process moving quickly. It can be used at the municipal level all the way up to the national level, allowing for federalism to work. But, this form of government only works when the elected officials correctly represent their people. Throughout the history of the United States, representative democracy has failed to serve its purpose on many occasions. One example of this is seen with our Presidents. Since the founding of the country, five Presidents have been elected despite losing the popular vote. This goes against the fundamental theory of representative democracy. The representatives are supposed to vote based on their people, so the popular vote should match the election results, but instead the representatives follow a majority rules policy in many states. Now, I understand that members of the electoral college are not necessarily voted into place, but they still are serving the same government. Another example of where representative democracy has failed is with the domination of the two major parties in the present day. Citizens are forced to vote for people they do not completely agree with because the other candidates provides even less benefits. It is a lesser of two evils situation. When a third party member tries to run for office they rarely put up a fight. This causes a situation where many citizens’ beliefs are not represented. In 2017 a poll by Gallup found that 42% of voters identified as independents but only 2 out of the 535 members of congress were Independents.  Again, this fails the basic concept of a representative democracy. I think there are many problems with our system but it is still vastly superior to a direct model of democracy.

A direct democracy in the United States is simply unpractical. There are over 330 million people in the United States. Every topic would have to be discussed by groups of people and then voting would take long amounts of time. It would also be next to impossible to propose laws. Direct democracy has no checks on itself. Presidents would be a popularity contest instead of an educated vote. The process of deciding things within the governmental system would take ages and would change frequently. Lastly, the public could simply not be trusted. People can be deceived and make rash decisions without thinking. This could potentially lead the United States into the ground.

Overall, I think the representative form of democracy has many flaws but it is still far superior to the direct form of democracy.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/115th_United_States_Congress

https://news.gallup.com/poll/225056/americans-identification-independents-back-2017.aspx

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-lost-popular-vote-hillary-clinton-us-election-president-history-a7470116.html

 

Representation has been a major topic of debate ever since the founding of formal democracy. Governments have strived to attain proper representation in order to protect the essential values of democracy. According to Josiah Ober of Stanford University “leading ancient and modern political theorists, both friends and critics of democracy, have proclaimed democracy’s core values to be liberty and equality” (Ober 1). Two major forms of democracy, direct and representative, have gone about protecting these values in very different ways. The Athenians established the direct democracy in which the people make decisions on policy directly. Whereas, America utilizes the representative democracy in which the people elect representatives who make decisions for a constituency.

After analyzing the effectiveness of both types of democracy I believe that the American model of representative democracy is a better way to govern. In a representative democracy, the people vote on representatives who are more educated on the topics being voted on and therefore are better equipped to make decisions. Since this position as a representative is their livelihood they have more time to research the policies and laws being proposed allowing them to make more informed decisions for their constituency. The presence of representatives allows for a more controlled and reasonable environment when laws are being voted on. There will be fewer people present in the assembly, therefore, making the process more efficient. In addition, checks and balances are established in a representative democracy in order to ensure that not one person or group becomes too powerful.  

Some may argue that a representative democracy has a lot of corruption that occurs within the voting process as representatives can be bribed and coerced into voting a way that may not align with their constituents. However, as made evident through the Reacting to the Past activity we performed in class, in which we recreated the direct democracy of Athens, there were many deals being made under the table in order for people to achieve their own secret agendas. Additionally, in order to achieve these agendas, people would interrupt other people’s arguments in attempts to strengthen their own argument and undermine the opposing argument. This caused the assembly to be very hectic and chaotic thus making it difficult to make decisions. It is evident from the Old Oligarch that another major flaw of a direct democracy is the focus on one’s own self-interest. People would only propose and vote on laws and policies that would benefit themselves. Whereas, in a representative democracy the representative focuses on what would be best for the majority of their voters. They want their votes to have a positive impact on the largest group possible.

Overall, I believe that the representative model of democracy is a better way to govern because it is more efficient. Representatives are focused on their voters as a whole rather than as individuals allowing for their actions to have an impact on a larger group of people. A representative democracy is more flexible which allows the government to adapt to the ever-changing opinions of society.   

 

Word Count: 507

OBER, JOSIAH. “Democracy’s Dignity.” The American Political Science Review, vol. 106, no.

4, 2012, pp. 827–846. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23357711.

Old Oligarch, Xenophon

The American model of a Representative Democracy is far superior to the Direct Democracy practiced by the ancient Athenians. This claim is of course made from the perspective of a person living in the representative democracy of the U.S. and may be biased.  The basis of my reasoning lies in the generally overlooked differences between the two. Our understanding of Democracy today leads us to believe that it is a just system that provides equality among the people of the society, however, in ancient Athens this was not the case. The challenges that I have against the Athenian Democracy are the lack of representation in voting, the lack of fully committed voters, the lack of a safeguard against a rising ruler, and the lack of Democracy throughout their empire.

Membership within the Athenian Democracy was limited to the property owning purebred Athenian men. Outside of this category people had no vote within the Assembly; those unrepresented included all women, slaves, and even Metics who owned land. This utter lack of representation in Athens makes me question if it even deserves to be referred to as democratic. The Representative Democracy of the U.S. (while certainly taking time to develop into what it is currently) provides equality and justice under the law to all of its citizens. All citizens have basic rights guaranteed to them, including the right to vote. This is significantly different from ancient Athens, and I believe to be far better.

Another difference is that in Athens voting was a collateral duty, not your primary job, so the men who could vote would have to abandon their jobs for extended periods of time to go to the acropolis to vote. This detracted from their ability to vote, to debate issues, and to do their primary jobs effectively. Conversely, elected officials in the U.S. create, debate, and vote on laws for the good of the nation and their constituency. Having politics be someone’s livelihood certainly does increase the possibility of corruption, but the benefit from having some individuals dedicate all of their time to political decisions is profound.

Our government thanks to its system of checks and balances prevents any one person from being able to gain too substantial of power from simply wooing the masses. However, in ancient Athens profound orators such as Pericles were able to essentially dictate what decisions were made by making compelling speeches to the people that gained their trust. This difference is significant because it keeps the control of the U.S. government in the hands of the people, whereas Pericles was able to convince the people to take advantage of the Delian League and form an empire over its members.

Most significantly, the Athenian “Democracy” was what governed an oppressive naval empire in the Aegean Sea. This empire and all of the riches that came flooding into Athens from it were all that allowed the Democracy to continue to function. An empire is one of the least representative forms of society, and thus one of the furthest from a Democracy. Thus, despite having an apparent Democracy, the Athenian empire was not the ideal form of government for those under their fist. However, in the U.S. the entire population is protected by our Representative Democracy, and (despite some claims) our nation is committed to promoting the good of the world, rather than oppressing others to spread our influence.

While I do have many criticisms of the ancient Athenian Democracy, I understand that we also have them to thank for originating the concept. Additionally, our Representative Democracy would most likely not function well in their society, but our approach is still superior.