Direct Democracy in the Ancient World
December 29, 2007 — JaredPolitical ideology has long been dominated by a tendency to glorify ancient Rome as a stable, effective model for ‘democratic’ republican forms of government. This is done at the expense of Rome’s direct-democratic forbearer, Athens, which its critics contend lived a short, unstable existence. While the republic did achieve stability, the author will address the issue of why the ancient Athenian liberty correctly balances: (1) ruling and being ruled and; (2) living as one chooses. Through Pericles’ Funeral Oration as told by Thucydides and Rousseau’s Social Contract, it can be explained why Athens’ direct-democracy can exist within Rousseau’s developmental republicanism.
Libertas & Eleutheria
Ancient Athenians subscribed to a form of liberty they called eleutheria, obliging its citizens to participate in politics yet allowing them freedom to live as they pleased. Likewise, the Romans held a view of liberty called libertas – freedom to do what the law allowed and freedom from arbitrary government interventions. Roman libertas lacked Athenian’s crucial hallmark – the ability to live as they pleased; rather, Roman freedoms focused on countering abuses of power and defending its people. Roman plebeians, far from being allowed any political involvement (unlike their Athenian counterparts), held the last say in the government only through their representatives in the commonwealth; the commoner was effectually devoid of any power but of that of a government deposing through the people’s greater numbers . As Machiavelli contended, a Republic was necessary for equality, but the Roman Republic, where a commoner’s crucial and eventually only role was to elect their rulers, can only be considered equal inasmuch as wielding a vote without a true political voice is thought of as equal.
The Kind of Black Looks Which Hurt People’s Feelings
As asserted by Pericles, the Athenian people were free and tolerant in their private lives, not getting “into a state” nor giving a “black look” to a neighbor who enjoys himself in his own way. They did not, however, hold the same compassion for the politically-uninformed citizen; these men, far from minding their own business, had “no business [in Athens] at all”. Freedom and tolerance in private lives did not extrapolate to the public sphere: obedience must be given to those in authority, for it was the people themselves that 
vested authority in these individuals, and therefore the law commanded respect from all. Laws were enacted by the people in their best interest, which required the people to adhere to them. If laws are set forth by the people, for the people, it only follows that obeying these laws is required of the people.
Athenian power rested in the whole people, not with an aristocratic elite. Equality before the law was important, and as such man was judged by the ability he possessed, not his membership to an economic class. Equality is the driving force behind the assembly’s, the Athenian political body comprised of the people, holding of sovereign power. Because all citizens are directly affected by their political body, all citizens should participate in the creation and nourishment of a common life. The assembly, meeting 40 times per year and comprising 6,000 rotating members, deliberated and decided on all major issues affecting the polis. Because of short terms, a limit on the number of times an office could be held, and economic compensation for holding office, even the poor could enjoy politics, resolving issues in the common interest through the body’s sovereign power.
The Athenian people saw no incompatibility between words and deeds. Debate was important – political decisions were not rushed into action before free and unrestricted discussion could weigh the consequences. The assembly met to debate, decide, and enact law; this direct participation turned the governed into the governors. Laws were not decided based on custom, but on the force of the better argument.
Without political life, a citizen of Athens could not self-actualize. Participation in the common life served to the individual the means through which he could fulfill the common good, ultimately realizing his full capacity and skill. Justice was a term that meant the realization of a citizen’s proper role in the Athenian polis. Political equality should be enjoyed by all citizens in order for all to be free, yet be ruled and rule in turn.
Of course direct-democracy has had many opponents, possibly the earliest being Aristotle. Though he acquiesced that every democracy ultimately encompasses liberty, he disagreed that the sovereign body itself could ever really enact just laws. In any community the poor will always outnumber the rich, resulting in a skewed brand of justice that alienates the rich and confers more power to the poor.
Direct-democracy has also been attacked on grounds of exclusivity. Citizens, Athenian males over the age of 20 who were not immigrants or slaves, were the only members of society allowed into political office. Representative governments, however, are much more exclusive in that the average citizen has very little likelihood of holding office.
Rousseau and The Social Contract
Rousseau set forth many of his ideas in his Social Contract, the basic premise of which is that man live together under laws which treat everyone equally and give opportunity to all to develop his own capacities. This is accomplished by the people’s general will – the publicly created conception of the common good which should be distinguished from the aggregate of individual desires: merely the votes of the greatest number.
Rousseau argues that individuals should be actively-involved citizens, ruling and being ruled, and directly creating the laws which they live by. Sovereignty, therefore, cannot be represented; in a representative government the people are only free during elections, but afterwards are effectually enslaved by having no say in how the government is run. Representatives cannot be the ultimate voice in law. Any law which the people themselves have not ratified is not actually law. Representatives cannot be appointed to enact law – doing so will negate the general will of the people. In fact, citizens can only be genuinely expected to live by a law that they prescribed through the general will with the general good in mind.
Rousseau’s idea of liberty is not simply encompassed by negative liberties such as being left alone. Liberty cannot even be defined as acting as one pleases. Liberty, to Rousseau, is not being subject to other people. The general will is the means through which liberty is achieved – by participating in government to establish the equality of rights that all citizens must enjoy. Active participation is required by all citizens in order to establish liberty among the citizens.
To establish a political body in which the social contract can thrive, Rousseau has laid out a few ground rules. Firstly, equal political rights require equal distribution of wealth and power, “no citizen shall be rich enough to buy another and none so poor as to be forced to sell himself”. Secondly, though Rousseau viewed the right to property as sacred, he believed limits should be enacted that only the minimal amount of property required for material security and independence of mind be owned by any one citizen.
Rousseau contended that Athens was not politically ideal because of its tendency towards destabilization due to its lack of distinction between legislative and executive functionaries. However, Athens remained remarkably stable during its 170-year democratic run before being conquered by Alexander the Great. Rousseau, whose Athenian vision was clouded by the legacy of the Roman Republic, was decidedly wrong that the direct-democracy of Athens created an unstable state. Rousseau’s Social Contract itself was based on the need for stability and his belief that people, at one point in time, decided to band together to establish laws for their preservation and stability. This preoccupation with stabilization can be seen in the works of political thinkers such as Cicero, Machiavelli, and Lincoln. Perhaps too much emphasis is placed on the stability of Rome and the instability of Athens. Rome ultimately devolved into an Empire, while Athens democratic government lasted until Rome annexed it.
All Roads Lead To Rome, Unfortunately
Before Rome’s devolution into an egocentric Empire, building every road to eventually lead to itself, it was a republic that unsuccessfully tried to pit democracy against aristocracy. Though Romans viewed themselves as followers of a balanced, mixed government, Greece viewed them as a democracy versus an aristocracy. Eventually, aristocracy seems to have won. The people’s assembly ultimately ceased to exist, the wealthy alone composed the senate, and the tribunes were selected exclusively from the senate. The only democratic element left was the election of the tribune, who could effectively override everything – including laws that protected the plebeians from their government.
Libertas was the freedom to do what the law allowed, and if a plebe’s life was under total control of another, he seems rather limited in what he was allowed to do. Thus, the creation of the tribune, meant to retain some aspects of democracy, actually destroyed what was left of the libertas and the Roman democracy.
The fact that Roman virtu stated that a citizen should do whatever is needed to preserve, expand, and glorify Rome should not be overlooked in contributing to Rome’s military nature, one that expanded into an empire. In the end, a policy of expansion, unrequited growth, and absolution of power led to the Republic’s demise and the Empire’s birth. It was also this Machiavellian position of relentless pursuit of power that gobbled up Athens – the polis did not die of its own accord: it died because of a people hell-bent on expanding, by any means necessary, their glorified Republic.
Roman libertas placed little emphasis on living as one chooses, and instead placed emphasis on living as the law chooses. Hardly enactors of their own law, Roman commoners were unable to live as they chose – they lived as the wealthy saw fit as to how they should live. Ultimate governmental power was placed in the hands of the aristocracy, therefore negating the plebeian ability to be rulers in turn. Therefore, it should not be viewed as the direct balance between ruled and being ruled in turn and living as one chooses.
Eleutheria Against Libertas
Machiavelli praise to Rome’s ‘greatness’ would seem misplaced. Though it achieved stability, it ultimately did so due to unchecked power, all of which was taken from the hands of the common people. The cutting short of Athens’ life by its militarily-unfriendly neighbor would hardly make it an argument for
direct-democracy’s instability. During its ‘short-lived,’ two-century life, it remained remarkably stable, without taking power away from its citizens, as Rome eventually did in order to continue its stability. When this is considered, Machiavelli’s very notion that a policy of expansion is required to preserve a state’s liberty is then seen as wrong. While Rome most certainly expanded itself, possibly unnecessarily, to ensure libertas, the description Machiavelli offers for Rome’s greatness is decidedly ad-hoc. For, likewise, it can be said that the Athenian people were able to ensure their own, more-encompassing version of eleutheria without any need to expand into an empire. The only difference is how long a state ultimately needs to remain stable to be considered as such. Therefore, because of the aforementioned reasons, it is neither fair nor possible to say that the direct-democracy of a nation does not work. The time-frame of the ancient Athenian democratic government seems to be misrepresented by political ideologists.
Rousseau’s developmentally-oriented political ideology is one that goes hand-in-hand with direct democracy, advocating the direct participation of its people. Ultimately, a people is able to live as they choose only if they are directly involved in the making of their community’s laws. These two tenets of freedom and liberty, then, are reciprocally necessary.
Eleutheria then, correctly balanced ruling and being ruled in turn and living as one chooses. The criticism that direct-democracy puts more power in the hands of the poor is misguided. Because of the shortcomings of a representative government, if economic equality isn’t possible, as Rousseau ascertains, giving sovereign power to the poor would ensure that the rich wouldn’t have “any interest in making [the conditions] burdensome to others”. Thus, having more power in the hands of the poor would actually be preferable to having a representative government in which the rich may exert more control.
Libertas’ shortcomings were that the commoners of Rome were denied a true voice in the political realm. A vote is a mass conglomerate of many voices, but without direct participation the commoners lost the ability of a final say. Because a plebeian Roman did not directly govern themselves, laws were eventually enacted that allowed a tribune, albeit it briefly, to have total control over their lives. In libertas, ‘living as one chooses’ was replaced by ‘living as the law dictates’, and because the people did not have the ultimate say in the creation of law, they were unable to dictate how they should ultimately choose to live. Participation through a vote is not sufficient - it will only ensure that the people aren’t enslaved for the time in which they wield the vote. The other 364 days a year, they are effectually enslaved.
