Athenian democracy

[heiss93]

What are your opinions on Athenian Democracy? Both Hegel and Marx strongly admired the Classical Greek form of democracy. They saw it as overcoming the alienation between the people and government. In a Direct Democracy the people are the government.

Of course this is only refering to Athenian Democracy in the Ideal. In reality it was a slave society with severe class divisions even within the citizens. However the richest citizens were only 16 times wealthier than the poorest. Which is far more egalitarian than any modern state.
http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/home?greekEncoding=UnicodeC

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fd/Athenian-constitution-aristotle.png/721px-Athenian-constitution-aristotle.png (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fd/Athenian-constitution-aristotle.png)

[Dragonsign]

The democracy in Athen was possible because the slaves did all the hard work. Many Athenians did not need to work and they soendt time on arts and athletics.. and democracy.. it was a democracy for the few.. not for the many.. But a revolutinary idea for its age..

[Dust Bunnies]

We could pull off this type of Democracy today with electric voting machines or even online voting you could do at work.

[RNK]

Heh, I actually quite like the idea of politicians and government officials being chosen via a lot drawn from volunteers.

[F9]

Nah.In school down here we learn a lot from greek history and very few for cyprus history.So the athinian "democracy" was helping ok some people in the city but because they controlled a lot of greek cities back then they were forced to pay fees and weapons and they never get anything back.Thats why athens grew up and other have nothing to show.Every house had and a slave so the "great" athinians minds dont have to work so they write a poem.And for money the only way poor people were helped was the free entrance in theatres.The great athinian "democracy" was a shit.

Fuserg9:star:

[nvm]

Nah.In school down here we learn a lot from greek history and very few for cyprus history.So the athinian "democracy" was helping ok some people in the city but because they controlled a lot of greek cities back then they were forced to pay fees and weapons and they never get anything back.Thats why athens grew up and other have nothing to show.Every house had and a slave so the "great" athinians minds dont have to work so they write a poem.And for money the only way poor people were helped was the free entrance in theatres.The great athinian "democracy" was a shit.

Fuserg9:star:

Well it wasn't "a shit" .It was revolutionary back then when other cities/countries had a monarch and no one could tell him anything if he fucked up.
Yes Athens was an imperialist power that exploited other parts of Greece and yes Athens had slaves etc and yes it was only men who had freedom(except the slaves) , but Athens had a great system.
If we can replace the slaves with robots we can achieve this system today:laugh:

[F9]

yes back then it was a revolutionary city and the better for the people.But we know know that it wasnt more than a modern capitalist system.

Fuserg9:star:

[Kronos]

Aristocracy of this sort is elitism. A proper aristocracy would incorporate a meritocracy into its superstructure. This means that all people have the potential to take a leadership position at some point in their life.

The political body would be indistinguishable from the economic body, and a hierarchy of ranks would be organized through democratic gradations, so to speak. In such a system, all citizens would partake in all activities at some point in their lives. Similar to Plato's idea: one's life would begin with athletics and education, one would work, provide military service if necessary, and develop an artistic talent, and finally one would take a political position in old age. The structure would be modeled to fit the aging process, and nobody would remain a worker their entire life. For a rough example, education and athletics from birth to age fifteen. Learning an art from age fifteen to nineteen. Work and military service from age nineteen to thirty. Become a politician/educator at thirty and remain one until death.

The incentive to graduate the preliminary programs would be to gain a political position in the latter stages of life. Here there are no classes, but one class of people, each passing through various classes of function in society.

This is a general outline of a real democratic aristocracy, one which this world has never seen.

[hekmatista]

"Similar to Plato's idea"
Which among other things encouraged people to accept their lot in life (one is born into one of four totemic "metals") with slaves still at the bottom.

[F9]

and great athinians always supported the "rulling of the more powerfull".In varies of their words back then you will find that they stand this oppinion.

Fuserg9:star: