History_Buff
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2001
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- 6,529
You should have seen Dommy trying to argue that Communism was a Bad Thing in the real world because he felt State Property was a poor civic choice in Civ 4.
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What if ancient Greece hadn't invented the early version of democracy?
- Thread starter black213
- Start date
LightSpectra
me autem minui
No, I meant the original post by AbenHumeya with the dichotomy. To my knowledge, the word 'republic' just refers to the titles taken by the head of state (i.e. if it's monarchical or dynastic de jure); democracy refers to the actual mechanisms of government.
No, that's... definitely anachronistic. That republicanism and democracy are separate things predates American politics by a longshot. It was a subject that John Adams commented extensively upon in his political theory writings, before the ratification of the Constitution or nominal legal parties; and his commentary was considered boring rehash from earlier classical liberals, no less.
Bowsling
Deity
Well, at least they tried to make it somewhat based off an OTL situation. So unlike our dear CivV.
But State Property is a great civic choice in Civ4! [/missing the point]
Bowsling
Deity
Less so with BtS corporations. Especially if you don't build any mills.
History_Buff
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2001
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- 6,529
But State Property is widely known to be an awesome civic in Civ IV.
That was my recollection too.
It's hardly a complicated idea, and the fact that there were so many democratic systems around within a relatively short period of time (it caught on in Greece, as well as the Roman Republic, and quite a few 'barbarian' cultures as well) suggests to me that somebody would have invented it before long anyway - a good candidate for which would have been Brutus, I suppose.
I think what people are trying to say is that the original Athenian democracy was direct democracy, which means that the people make decisions by voting en masse for or against them. Very few modern societies think that's a good idea; it's too vulnerable to swings of passion (witness the treatment of Miltiades and Cimon, who were both handed trumped-up but severe criminal charges for military losses of face) and horrendously cumbersome, and the brutal truth of it is that ordinary people don't always have the intelligence or understanding to fully grasp the complexities of international politics - although the proposal for a legally binding referendum on Scottish independence would to some extent be this in action. What we have now is representative democracy, whereby we choose our representatives and they make the day-to-day decisions, although they are still accountable to the electorate: I think that is what people meant by 'republic'.
I always thought corporations were best spread overseas, if you're looking at the financial angle, since they cost money to the host city but generate money in the mother city. Of course, they have other benefits as well, but you're doing something wrong if you're building a game-plan around those.
I think what people are trying to say is that the original Athenian democracy was direct democracy, which means that the people make decisions by voting en masse for or against them. Very few modern societies think that's a good idea; it's too vulnerable to swings of passion (witness the treatment of Miltiades and Cimon, who were both handed trumped-up but severe criminal charges for military losses of face) and horrendously cumbersome, and the brutal truth of it is that ordinary people don't always have the intelligence or understanding to fully grasp the complexities of international politics - although the proposal for a legally binding referendum on Scottish independence would to some extent be this in action. What we have now is representative democracy, whereby we choose our representatives and they make the day-to-day decisions, although they are still accountable to the electorate: I think that is what people meant by 'republic'.
I always thought corporations were best spread overseas, if you're looking at the financial angle, since they cost money to the host city but generate money in the mother city. Of course, they have other benefits as well, but you're doing something wrong if you're building a game-plan around those.
The Athenian state was arguably never not a representative democracy, and incorporated progressively greater amounts of representative power as it went on. Representative power in the form of the officers of the state notably did not curb its excesses - see e.g. the Trial of the Generals after the Battle of Arginousai, something on which I have declaimed at length in other contexts - which makes it dubious that representative power is even institutionally capable of blocking such excesses. Also, since Athenian democracy was restricted to the fairly limited class of citizens, generally a group of men of significant means or family history within the city, referring to the decisions that the ekklesia made as made by "ordinary people [...] en masse" is either incorrect or disingenuous.
As for your charge of cumbersomeness, I, for one, cannot recall a point in history where the ekklesia's inability to make a decision in time actually had the serious effect that you think it might have had. The only thing that comes close is perhaps the initial stage of the Trial of the Generals, which, according to Xenophon, nearly saw the men involved acquitted before the adjournment of that session for the night (and when the ekklesia resumed the situation changed and the advocates of execution had their way), but Xenophon's whole goal was to describe Athenian democracy as a Bad Idea, and Diodoros Sikeliotes notably does not include such a story in his account of the events surrounding the trial.
Indeed, the ekklesia - or its chosen representatives - frequently were able to respond to crises far better than the "less direct" alternatives such as the government of the Four Hundred, and certainly better than the Thirty did during Thrasyboulos' revolution. The most rapid response the Thirty ever had to a situation was the flight of the remaining tyrants to Eleusis after Thrasyboulos' victory at Peiraieus. In some cases, the ekklesia resolved major debates on the conduct of a military campaign during the campaign, and dispatched forces that changed the balance (most notably after the failed Spartan landing at Pylos in 425).
You're right, there was a great deal of representative power - but at the heart of things the city was still run by direct democracy. Elected officials voted on laws, but the proposals put to them were first voted upon by the Ecclesia, and they also voted on decrees and treaties. So although you can't say that it was totally a direct democracy, it was certainly close enough to be a case study against which to judge the concept.
Furthermore, I'm not sure anyone's saying that representative democracy is a perfect check against state excesses - it isn't, and a passing glance at Parliament before the 19th Century makes this very clear. It can provide a check against such excessive measures if the short-term result appears very desirable, but only if the representatives can see that the medium-term result would be catastrophic and convince the people of this. The Russians fell foul of this after the first revolution there, when the protestations of politicians that simply parcelling out the land to peasants would be a recipe for disaster fell on deaf ears among the peasants themselves, and the Bolsheviks were able, through promising such reforms, to gain widespread support among the rural poor, although I don't think they ever translated that into a majority in the Duma.
'Fairly limited' is a relative term. Yes, it totally discounted women and slaves, which is obviously the majority of the population, but the only other classes disallowed were resident foreigners, those whose rights were under suspension for some crime, and freed slaves - in other words, the Ecclesia was more democratic than Parliament until at least 1832 in terms of representing a wide range of social classes. If you were born in Athens, born free and born male, odds are you could - and were expected to - attend. This means that the composition there was comparable to 'ordinary people' in that it did not represent a group with unusual education or particular experience of being looked to as leaders, as aristocratic governments do, and very much would have been swayed by demagogues - indeed Cleon has become perhaps unfairly notorious for appealing to the baser instincts of the 'mob' (I hesitate to use the word, but it gets the point across).
I'll accept that, but we need to bear in mind that we're talking about a city where the entire male citizen population could be rounded up and brought into the same physical space within a single day. Even trying to bring that system out to Attica would have been hideously difficult, and trying to use it to make decisions in a meaningfully-sized country would be chaotic - I'm sure you've seen how difficult it is over here to organise and agree on even a simple referendum, and how long it takes to carry out one.
I'll hazard that this may be because those oligarchic governments were not chosen by the people and their appointments had very little to do with how good they actually were at governing; elected MPs are a bit different and the people in Parliament are rather good at what they do. The comparison isn't valid.
How many cases are there when they failed to resolve major debates during the campaign?
I would never claim that Athenian democracy did not incorporate at least some elements of direct democracy. So much is obvious. But pretty much every modern democratic system does. Does the fact that referenda are held in a given state on matters of serious importance make it any closer a case study in direct democracy than, say, California? (Which, honestly, would be a better target if you wanted to deploy that quaint British disdain for the ability of average people to make decisions.) Since the bouleutai, prytaneis, and strategoi invariably ended up either making policy themselves, or regulating the debate via which policy was constructed, Athenian democracy wasn't particularly "direct", and the pathetically small size of the politically active citizen body compared with the number of people who were actually affected by their decisions would seem to make this all a fairly poor case study in direct democracy.
Your Russian example has no real connection to anything Athenian, and even less of a connection to the notion of direct democracy. I'm not totally sure why you brought it up. The Republic of 1917 did not attempt direct democracy at all, except in the theoretical case of a referendum on the constituent assembly, which conveniently enough never actually took place.
Bringing up Kleon really doesn't prove much of a point, either. The only people who've seriously considered him a "demagogue" are the - usually British - classicists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who were unable to formulate an opinion on something unless they got it directly from one of Aristophanes' plays. Portraying Kleon as an unwashed man of the streets whose only political acumen lay in manipulating the mob was a political statement. Aristophanes was deliberately trying to contrast him with his political enemy Nikias, who was supposedly more aristocratic and, therefore, reliable. (Unsurprisingly, this view is uncritically accepted by British people, even in the modern day. I've noticed it a lot here on CFC, actually.) Thoukydides used a similar portrayal of Kleon for the same reason: he was a nearly uncritical supporter of Nikias and, as a significant period political figure in his own right, obviously had his own interests in smearing Kleon. Since then, we've developed a more nuanced understanding of his political career. Seriously characterizing any Athenian political figure as a mob demagogue would be a bit much in light of the careers of actual demagogue-crime bosses from classical history like Milo or Clodius.
I would be lying if I denied that my general disapproval of "using historical examples to make a modern political point" didn't come into play here. If you want to inveigh against direct democracy, do it on its own, i.e. modern, terms, not on some strawman of a supposedly direct-democratic system from millennia ago. Which is why it's kind of ridiculous that your response to me bringing up examples of Athens' non-democratic governments was to make a point about more modern stuff. I'm obviously not interested in that; what I am interested in is noting that the serious alternatives to Athenian democracy were not functional. This conversation is fundamentally uninteresting unless it's a defense of Athenian democracy vis-a-vis the period alternatives; criticizing it because it was not the modern American, British, or whatever system of government is stupid.
And if you seriously think that I'm going to put in the effort to try to give you examples of things that make what I'm saying look weak, you've got another thing coming.
Gen.Mannerheim
Grand Moff
All this bickering just proves that Monarchism is the only true illegitimate government type in the world 
Let me guess, they stole it from Sweden?
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Typo?All this bickering just proves that Monarchism is the only true illegitimate government type in the world
Gen.Mannerheim
Grand Moff
Yea, I was writing on a smartphone and autocorrect strikes again
Kinda makes you wonder doesn't it? What right does one person have to tell others what to do, but the idiot species called humanity does need a strong shepherd to keep it from eating it's own poo or poison ivy.
LightSpectra
me autem minui
Read the Aristotelian-Thomistic corpus sometime. The classical liberal philosophers, especially Locke, sort of redefined the word "right" so that it would fit their own beliefs. The original sense of right (ius or dikaion) means "in accords with our natural flourishing", not "something that shouldn't be interfered with because there's some mystical 'good and evil' in the universe/because I have this innate feeling that it would be better that way."
All this bickering just proves that Monarchism is the only true illegitimate government type in the world
No government type is inherently legitimate. Legitimacy just means that the government has a valid claim to exercising the level of coercive power that it has - in the modern world, that means that the people support it. Any type of government can be legitimate if the people want to run their country that way, and any type can be illegitimate if the people don't want it.
LightSpectra
me autem minui
What's a "valid claim" to exercising coercive power?
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