(this is the first ‘full’ post since 2019; I’ve made hundreds of posts since, but in the ‘daily blog’ section; I may add some more material below over the coming weeks; a part 2 will be posted below showing how this system could actually be implemented and run in the modern day)
(in terms of practical implementation within the current-day US, short of a collapse where completely new political systems can arise, I would advocate for direct-democracy measures such as popular referenda to approve any act of war/foreign intervention or deficit spending, and a constitutional amendment to create a third legislative organ with power over the House and Senate, or where the Senate is abolished, the House tentatively serves as the boule, and a new boule body serves as a representative-based form of the Athenian ecclesia, with approval power over all proposed House measures)
Most US schoolchildren from elementary through high school learn the following about Ancient Greece, which is the foundation of Western civilization: they had city states, some of which were democratic, they voted [presumably in elections], they had beards and philosophers, the end. And maybe a little about Athens versus Sparta. It wasn’t until a college course that I learned a very important truth about the civilization (and even at a very prestigious university, they didn’t present a fully balanced picture of it).
Which is that by and large, Ancient Greeks didn’t vote [for government officials], save for a few positions (e.g. military generals). They instead chose their leaders by lot aka lottery aka sortition. The most important governing bodies in Ancient Athens (and almost all Greek city-states, except Sparta and a handful of others) were the boule aka council of 500, and the ecclesia. The first was chosen by lottery, the second was open to all citizens. Juries, familiarly, were chosen by lottery, and consisted of up to 200-500 people, making it all but impossible to rig them or threaten them.
After being chosen by lot, boule members had to pass the dokimisia (public examination), conducted by the boule, which involved proving age (30+; only males were eligible), citizenship (property ownership not required) and mental competency (i.e. possession of basic faculties), and undergo a criminal background check to ensure one was not under atimia (dishonor). There was no permanent criminal status such as convict or felon. If one served his sentence and paid fines, his citizenship was restored and atimia status terminated.
The boule’s members were chosen for 1-year terms to prevent corruption and abuse of power. The boule drew up laws, proposed public spending, and crafted foreign policy. There was no presidency or equivalent. The ecclesia was an assembly open to all citizens. The ecclesia would debate and vote – not for officials, but on all proposed measures of the boule. The ecclesia, which would hold votes roughly once every two weeks, served as a heavy check on the boule. Ancient Greeks didn’t even trust officials with 1-year terms, since in that brief time they could be paid off by elites ( / promised a payoff after office), threatened by powerful individuals within the boule, etc.
Athens and most Greek city-states had no professional judges. Small groups of magistrates, who were chosen by lot, simply managed the established procedures in court, and large juries debated and decided the outcome of both civil and criminal trials.
In our society, like theirs, the citizen jury still has immense power, I would argue near-supreme power, which is why schools and judges refuse to educate us about jury nullification. Hypothetically, and I certainly don’t suggest it in any way shape or form, but one person could admit to killing the entire legislative, executive, and judicial branches, be found not guilty by a jury, and walk free.
The Greeks considered elections to be oligarchic. They knew that the rich and powerful would always put forth their favored ‘front-runner’ candidates, fund them, and grease them into office. Obviously, that’s exactly what we have today in the US, an oligarchy, an ‘our democracy‘ where the our/us is them, Carlin’s ‘big club.’ We the ordinary citizens are not the demos or people in their eyes, we’re just serfs/slaves.
In many important ways, and I’d argue in an overall sense, the Ancient Greeks were smarter than virtually every society that has existed ever since. They generally, basically trusted their fellow men but also understood basic human nature, and the ability that wealth and power had to corrupt and absolutely corrupt people. For whatever knowledge they surely lacked at the time, they maintained the balance of trust and distrust/skepticism that is a core element of wisdom and eludes many modern people to their graves.
This egregious lie by omission/misrepresentation – that the Ancient Greeks elected their government – reinforces my belief that just about everything we’re told fresh out of the womb may be propaganda of one sort or another: worship authority and the status quo in the form of police and firemen [I’m not at all against police or firemen, I just don’t think it’s a coincidence that boys’ toys are geared so heavily in that direction], believe in the conventional universe model, believe in conventional history [e.g. 4 billion year timelines, 300 million year old dinosaurs], etc. Follow that program and you’ll get a gold star. Did you get your ‘I voted’ sticker last November, as the oligarchs foisted another of their representatives onto us?
Having traveled to 65-70 countries and upwards of 200,000 miles overland in my 20-some years of adulthood, there are two main observations that I (and most well traveled people I know of) have made (though my lack of knowledge in a countless number of subjects is unfathomably great): people are generally, basically good everywhere, and politicians are generally (I won’t tag a percentage, but the large majority) corrupt and self-serving (especially at the federal and state levels, much less so at the local level). I have yet to find a country that’s an exception (and at this point it’s safe to say I never will), including in the safest and least safe places. Each and every country with a terrible government has good people, and no country with a half-decent government has mostly bad people.
In general, I, like the Ancient Greeks, trust regular people, regardless of political affiliation or philosophy. That’s the kind of statement that will get a politician killed. I would absolutely, without any doubt trust a government of 500 totally random citizens with no screening at all over one of 500 Ivy Leaguers or Wall Streeters. That’s real democracy, rule by the people, not farce elections managed by oligarchs. If we can’t basically trust the majority of our fellow citizens, we have nothing – we can’t work, we can’t trade, we can’t sleep or turn our backs for a moment.
It seems an appropriate time to discuss this as we watch yet another foreign intervention not voted for by our 330 million people or debated by our non-representatives, as our Constitution demands, but instead unilaterally decided by one man who is admittedly bought and paid for by a handful of rich donors, like all recent presidents. (And as philosophers/commentators/billionaires such as Hans-Herman Hoppe, Curtis Yarvin, and Peter Thiel subtly but with increasing influence push ‘neomonarchy.’ These and similar figures will not touch the subject of Athenian democracy, and instead focus on the sham elections of representative democracies, which are cronyism and oligarchy in disguise and may indeed be worse than monarchies.)
To clarify, this isn’t a renunciation of borders or culture or advocacy of some world-scale direct-democracy, which would be unworkable and unable to conform closely to the needs of people in a given area. I am setting the boule and ecclesia in a decentralized context of perhaps a few thousand or hundred thousand people. At the end of the day, even though I think the above is the best system available (especially when combined with an underlying legal code such as the Bill of Rights), I am a decentralist and believe people in a locality or small region should choose their own form of government, whatever it may be.
