The Athenian Revolution

Rating:
Summary: No Pseudo-Democracy Here
Review: In this series of essays, the author explores the nature of the Athenian democracy in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., which he persuasively argues was the "real thing," as opposed to the passive form that "We the People" now enjoy. The author goes to considerable effort to discredit the notion that there are "objective" views of history, preferring to emphasize the ideological filtering that inevitably occurs. In keeping with that line of thought, many of the essays take issue with any number of positions that misunderstand the nature of the Athenian democratic experiment.

The point of many critics is that regardless of the formal structure of a state, a narrow elite invariably governs or controls affairs, which is commonly know as the "Iron Law of Oligarchy." However, the author goes to great pains to demonstrate that economic inequality in the private realm was not allowed to overpower the Assembly of citizens, the native-born males of the Athens city-state. In addition, the protection of the dignity of all citizens was of utmost importance to all with the crime of hubris directed towards citizens by elites viewed as especially egregious. Most of the executive and judicial bodies were determined by rotation and by lottery, diminishing the possibility of an entrenched bureaucracy. Of course, educated elites with good speaking ability could be highly influential within assemblies, but they had to operate within the discursive context of the demos, the body of citizens.

A further misunderstanding is that the Athenian democracy was constitutional, that it was based on the rule of law and the separation of powers, in essence, a division of sovereignty with the legal system as the trump card. But the Athenian democracy was not based on a founding document or on an overriding concept such as "natural rights." Athenian citizens did not gain their political standing primarily through political institutions. The Athenian democracy had a socio-political context. Decisions made by the Assembly and judicial bodies were based on broad social standards as understood by the general citizenry and not on "established doctrines." The legalese that pervades today's legal system and acts as a barrier to average citizens' participation was not a part of Athenian judicial or legislative proceedings. Athenians relied upon their collective wisdom and individual common sense to make sound judgments. The author regards this as a "pragmatic" approach to governance.

The notion of democracy has taken on all manner of meaning in today's world. For some, it is voting every few years with no political input otherwise. It is even suggested that the right to shop freely is democracy at work. Businesses have taken to suggesting that they operate on democratic principles. None of these highly limited notions of democracy come close to realizing the level of citizenship and empowerment of Athenian citizens of 2500 years ago. That is not the theme of this book, but the stark contrast can hardly go unnoticed.

This is a fairly scholarly work. The author is not reluctant to sprinkle about Greek terminology, though usually with some definition at first usage. There is a sense of an ongoing dialogue with other academics with alternative views, which has resulted in some keen insights into some aspects of the Athens city-state. But because of the essay format, this is not a work that systematically describes all of the political facets of the Athenian city-state. As a reader interested in democracy, I found the book to be very interesting.

Rating:
Summary: About the viability of direct democracy.
Review: This book is not a new description of the constitutional framework of Athenian democracy: it's about how, after what the author thinka was a popular uprising (led by a scion of the old aristocracy) against Spartan satellization and a Sparatan-friendly aristocracy, the Athenians created institutional mechanisms that favoured diffuse direct participation in political affairs -such as political pay for jury work and attendance at the People's Assembly, as well as generalized use of choosing by lot to fill various public offices - and a matching ideology. To put it short, it's a book about the making of the epistemic (in the sense given by Foucault) of Athenian democracy.It's not about the class(slave-owning) foundations of Greek democracy, but how it was made to work by Athenian free citzens. A very speculative, immaginative analysis that ponders, above all, on the viability of a radical democracy. Highly recommended.