by Mogens H. Hansen
During the almost two centuries that Athenian democracy lasted, no citizen of the city of Athens would have been innocent enough to live under the thumb of an oligarchy and its special interests while convincing himself that he was a free citizen of a democratic regime.
No one was unaware that the emergence of any oligarchic power by its very nature condemned the existence of any real democracy.
The personal commitment of each individual to the political life of the popular assemblies guaranteed this kind of lucidity, at the very least.
Although various oligarchic forms attempted to seize power during this period, they had to do so in their own name and without being able to claim in any way to represent democracy.
The only recognized democracy was in fact direct democracy, which (literally) banned all forms of representation and power separate from the people of the citizens.
This book, the culmination of twenty-five years of research, endeavors to shed light on how this society, whose influence in the history of humanity remains so essential, functioned.
As for the use that could be made of this knowledge in our time, that remains entirely our responsibility.
Many would like to ignore, consider as incidental or subsidiary, the strict application of direct democracy in Athens; to separate this long-standing political peculiarity from the extraordinary grandeur of that era, from the prodigious flowering of thought and art in all its forms that characterized it, and at all levels of society.
However, how can we deny that in a society where citizenship is effective and everyday, where everyone has a voice and decision-making power over the organization and future of the city in the same way as any other citizen, where all confiscations and misappropriations of power for the benefit of a particular group or individuals are made impossible, how can we deny that such a society will be incomparably more creative and lively; at any time, everywhere and for everyone.
The parties, whatever they may be, will deny it – the various interest groups and lobbies will deny it – as will communitarianism of all kinds, “professional” politicians – as well as the market logic and the implacable domination of the “market” which dominates only through the separation of all against all, through servitude, and which can only hate any true democracy.
These are the enemies of direct democracy, those who can only want to consign it to oblivion; those who, behind their “democratic” discourse, deeply despise the people and do everything to make them effectively contemptible by keeping them in servitude.
Extracts:
“This form of government, introduced by Cleisthenes in 508 BC, was abolished by the Macedonians when they conquered Athens in 322 BC.
(…) In any case, Athens was a ‘direct’ democracy, the best known in history to date; and it is this direct democracy that will be described and discussed in the following pages.
“Almost everyone who writes about democracy begins by distinguishing between ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ or ‘representative’ democracies. Those who focus on institutions sometimes contrast ‘assembly democracy’ with ‘parliamentary democracy’, but the distinction is the same: in a direct democracy, the people effectively govern themselves, that is to say, everyone has the right to participate in decision-making, whereas in an indirect democracy, on the contrary, the only decision that everyone has the right to make is to choose their decision-makers.”
“In modern states, including democracies, there is a tendency to identify the state with the executive and the government rather than with the people; but in a democratic polis, in Athens in particular, the organs of government largely coincided with the body of citizens, if only through the institution of the Assembly of the People, and the dominant ideology was that the polis was the people (demos): this is evident, for example, in all the treaties that have come down to us, where the Athenian state is called ho dèmos ho Athènaiôn, “the people of the Athenians”.
“The Athenians knew full well that a clever demagogue could win citizens over to his proposals and make them lose sight of their true interests. (…)
Demagogues were exposed to all the public prosecutions we have seen: not respecting a promise made to the people was a crime for which one could be attacked by means of an eisangelia or a probolè.”
The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes
Structure, Principles, and Ideology
Translated by TerKo with the help of a free translation tool.