Lessons of Athenian Democracy

Currently it's impossible to imagine a life of a democratic society without voting. But is there really no alternative? It turns out that in one of the oldest democratic societies in the world voting wasn't the only mean by which government officials were elected.

Probably the only thing the average person knows about Classical Athenian democracy is that the Athenian system was some form of “direct” democracy, where citizens made decisions in face-to-face assemblies, without representatives. This kind of "direct" democracy is widely discarded as impossible to implement within a large societal structure such as a nation-state or even a modern city.

In actuality the Athenian democracy, was not based on the principle that all citizens should participate in all decisions. That would have been as impractical in Classical Athens as it is today. When talking about the mature Athenian democracy (after 403 B.C.E.) it can be said that it was fundamentally representative rather than direct. At no time did more than a small fraction of the male citizenry of Athens gather to vote. The meeting place of the People’s Assembly could hold only 6,000 and later perhaps 8,000, out of an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 eligible citizens. Thus, the People’s Assembly was no more than just a sample of the demos. Nevertheless the decisions made there were treated as if the entire demos had voted.

Furthermore, most governmental decisions were not made by the People’s Assembly, but by smaller representative groups of citizens. What may come to you as a surprise, these representatives were not elected. They were chosen by lot. The People’s Assembly did not generally debate a matter until it had been considered by the randomly selected Council of 500. Randomly selected Legislative Panels of 1,001 citizens, had to approve new laws. The People’s Courts, usually 501, 1,001 or 1,501 citizens chosen by lot, could over-rule the People’s Assembly. Nearly all of the magistrates who carried out governmental business were also chosen by lot, usually in panels of 10 citizens.

Only a few specialized executive positions, such as generals and financial officers, were filled by election at the People’s Assembly. The Athenians regarded elections as inherently aristocratic, since only those with money and status could win. To the Athenians, selection by lot was an essential feature of democracy. In fact, this was the general view among political theorists from Aristotle to Montesquieu and Rousseau.

Rousseau wrote: "The people of England regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing".

Only in today's discourse we somehow consider elections as the center-point of a functional democracy. And here we can learn a lot from the ancient Greeks.

Through sortition, all citizens who wished had an equal chance and high likelihood of serving in public office. This is fundamentally different from the extremely unequal chance of being elected to political office through election. Every citizen had the right to speak at the People’s Assembly and make proposals and the right of any citizen to add new information or arguments to public discussion was considered fundamental. This may be even more important than an individual right to have one’s vote counted. A single individual’s vote in elections today, has little to no significance. But unlike a single vote, a single piece of information presented to the Assembly has the serious potential to swing the ultimate decision.

The Athenian system of governance distributed between multiple randomly selected bodies and the self-selected attendees of the People’s Assembly achieved something that our modern elected legislatures do not. First, the legislative bodies were relatively descriptively representative of the citizenry. Second, they were highly resistant to corruption and undue concentration of political power. Finally, the opportunity to participate and make decisions was spread broadly throughout the relevant population.

Democratic elections of today are, in a sense, rent-seeking contests. The candidates run against each other in pursuit of a scarce resource of political power which provides a way to impose rent on other people. If the rents provided by having certain political position are greater than the costs of winning the election a rent-seeker will naturally pursue this position. Thus, as long as such positions exist, there will be rent seekers to chase them. While the best and brightest members of a society pursue their interest through production and exchange, which (by Adam Smith’s invisible hand) leads them to serve the interests of their fellow countrymen, the rent seekers fight in elections and distort the market with regulations to lock down their rent. All of this is obviously a net negative on society.

Today we have highly dysfunctional governments instituting more and more harmful laws by each minute and suppressing every kind of freedom and economic development. Sociological studies show growth of disengagement and disillusionment with the government among general public. This disillusionment and frustration manifests itself into nationalistic and anti-establishment sentiment. The only way to fix it is to stop deifying elections and realize that it is not the only and not the most effective system for populating government institutions. Perhaps we are lucky that we have such a good example of a functioning democracy right under our nose. We just didn't wanna look.

Literature:

1. Bouricius, T.G. Democracy through multi-body sortition: Athenian lessons for the modern day
2. Lockard, A.A. Decision by sortition: a means to reduce rent-seeking