“Ancient Greece had the perfect democracy”
Ancient Greece did not have a perfect democracy. They established the roots of democracy and most of their ideas were accurate, but it was still quite far from perfect. Their system showed signs of racism, sexism, imperialism and corruption.
In ancient Greece, women, the poor, slaves, and tax defaulters were not allowed to vote as they were not considered citizens. Neither were those who didn’t have citizen parentage on both sides. Only Athenian males above the age of 18 had the right to vote. Even though the status of women was lower in Athens than it was in many Greek cities, women were still not able to vote anywhere. This is extremely sexist, as gender should not change someone’s rights and the way they are perceived. These days slavery is considered illegal in most countries, however in ancient Greece, it was acceptable to have slaves working for you. A key part in modern day democracy is the right to vote for everyone, including women, tax defaulters and the poor. It can easily be said that their politics were more like an exclusive gentleman’s club then a democracy. Ancient Greek democracy can be described as being minoritarian, where a minority of the population (e.g. the male population) is eligible to a certain degree of dominance in society and has the right to make decisions that affect the entire society. Equality and freedom are both valued concepts of democracy, and if these concepts were not in place in ancient Greece, then it cannot be said that Greece had a perfect democracy. |
Ancient Greece had a direct democracy, which was time consuming and not very efficient. In Australia, we currently have a representative democracy with regular elections to limit corruption and give people a fresh perspective on things. In ancient Greece, out of around 250,000-300,000 people only 500 names were chosen to become part of the boule, also known as the Council of Five Hundred, each year. Candidates were selected by lot and assigned responsibilities in an unplanned manner, causing problems as not all who we were chosen were proficient enough to handle certain tasks. It was a very crude way of selecting people. Also, wealthy, influential people and their relatives had a tendency to serve the Council more frequently than would be likely in a purely random lottery. Ancient democracy was rough, chaotic and easily seized by exploiters and demagogues. This shows that Ancient Greece’s democracy was quite unsophisticated and impractical, and corruption was not unknown to happen.
Greece’s role in the making of democracy has often been exaggerated. Their power was not a result of having a government supported by citizens; rather it was a result of military triumphs and wealth earned by trade. The main principle of ancient Greece’s system was that every citizen should fully participate in political, military and civic life. You weren’t able to be an onlooker, you had to be involved. Some might deny Greece’s government being overtly imperialistic; however the citizens were compelled to vote. This wasn’t always a good idea as not every citizen would understand all of the concepts discussed and involved. Pericles, a famous leader of ancient Athens, has stated that “[the ancient Greeks] do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; [they] say that he has no business here at all”. From this, it can be seen that politics was very important in ancient Greece, and that the Greeks didn’t approve of citizens not being interested in politics. Swiss historians have also described Athens’ democracy as being “permanent terrorism” of their citizens, who were constantly exposed to a threat of public prosecution, especially for misuse of public funds and incompetence.
It cannot be said that ancient Greece had the perfect democracy as there were still many faults in their system. Firstly, only a small quantity of the male population had the right to make important decisions for the whole of society, showing that their democracy was both sexist and racist. Secondly, not everyone chosen for the Council was competent enough for their job and some were not chosen fairly. This shows that their system was ingenuous and corrupted. Thirdly, as a citizen, you were not given a choice whether you wanted to take part in the political, military or civic running of Greece. Here we are shown an imperialistic and authoritarian side of ancient Greek democracy.