Athenian Direct Democracy
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Athenian democracy developed during the fifth century B.C. in the Greek polis of Athens. Athenian democracy is the first known democracy in the world. This first democracy was a system of direct democracy which allowed the citizens – at least those who were considered citizens – to vote directly on legislative bills. Athenian citizens had an equal executive and legislative power through direct democracy. While historians, and politicians admire Athenian democracy, it can also be criticized. In fact, only a fifth of the Athenian population was considered citizens and allowed to vote: male adults. In Athenian democracy, there was an intrinsic link between direct democracy and economics. We will attempt to analyse this link and the features of Athenian democracy that allowed such a political regimen. We will also deal with possibilities of such a direct democracy today in Canada.
First of all, we can study the etymology of the word democracy. It is divided into: demos, which means the people; and cratos, which means power. Democracy literally means power to the people. In that way, direct democracy in the Athenian sense, is the purest version of democracy because the people has a direct power. In fact, the citizens do not vote for other citizens who will directly vote. They vote directly.
Now, we can study the link between direct and economic democracy. The goal of Athenian democracy was to diminish socio economic gap between its citizens, yet economics were ruling the democracy. This is what, according to many historians, led to the fall of Athenian democracy. Indeed, Athenian democracy was founded on economic inequality.
In order to analyze that problem, we need to study the meaning of economic democracy. Economic democracy is the authority of the people not only in the social sphere, but in the sphere of economics: ownership as well as wealth. So, economic democracy should imply economic equality. The goal of economic democracy is to diminish socio-economic differences between the citizens; it is supposed to minimize the socio-economic differences created by the mode of production, as well as the distribution of wealth in the society.
The mode of production in ancient Athens was the small independent production of farmers and craftsmen. However, slaves made up over 50% of the population, so their economy was somewhat based on slavery.
What is the relationship between political and economic democracy in the context of Athenian democracy?
Modern Marxists know that the mode of distribution of wealth played a major role in the appropriation of the economic surplus in Athens. In fact, being citizen meant being allowed to appropriate the wealth. The mechanisms through which the surplus – issued from spoils and taxes imposed on the citizens themselves – is distributed are not economic. They are political. As a consequence, the struggle between social groups also takes a political form: conflict between those who support oligarchy and those who support democracy. The oligarchs, who are often land owners and rich merchants, are not in favor of an equal distribution of the power. The oligarchs were in favor of limiting political rights to citizens who did not have as much as wealth as them. The goal was to limit public expenditure that was directly and indirectly affecting their wealth. On the other side, democrats had lower income and were in favor of broadening political rights as well as public expenditure.
Whereas, therefore, in modern Western democracies, the concentration of economic power leads to a corresponding concentration of political power. However, in the Athenian democracy the opposite was true: the rise to power of the oligarchs was accompanied by a tendency toward economic concentration.
As a consequence, the citizens ability to partake of the States profits and revenue played a critical role in the distribution of economic surplus and therefore the content of economic democracy itself. That is, the more citizens were able to partake in the distributed State revenue, through their participation in the construction of public works, the greater the degree of economic democracy. So, in the Athenian democracy the process for completing political democracy amongst free citizens was accompanied by a process for the broadening of economic democracy. The differentiating