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 | Subject: The Problem of Democracy  Sun Sep 01, 2019 11:51 am | |
| - de Benoist, Alain wrote:
PREFACE Those who love to regurgitate the word ‘democracy’ are usually those who know little about its meaning in the first place. One could draw a parallel with a criminal on trial who never calls himself a crook. It is only his accusers who call him a crook. De Benoist rightly states that every single political actor today, regardless of which corner of the Earth in which he may dwell, likes to decorate himself with the noun ‘democracy’. Every tiny criticism of that word, each skeptic who doubts its current methods of employment, is immediately denounced as undemocratic. Even discussing the notion of our modern liberal democracy means to step onto the minefield of a new religion, whereas making any critical comment about modern liberal democrats is tantamount to intellectual suicide.
The noun ‘democracy’ works miracles, to the point that its four syllables, ‘de–mo-cra-cy’, when loudly uttered in public, easily disarm any of its adversaries and dismiss all of its critics. This word, especially when inscribed on the banner of the modern liberal system, can also become the ideal cover for the most despicable political crimes. In recent history it came in handy as an alibi for carrying out serial killings against custom-designed non-democratic political actors. Or, for that matter, its loftier expression, such as ‘fighting for democracy’, can serve beautifully as a safe venue for firebombing entire ‘nondemocratic’ nations into submission. The surreal beauty that this generic noun implies, based on the specific time and place of its user, can mean everything and nothing at the same time. Today, this noun and its democratic qualifiers have become part and parcel of every politician’s lexical arsenal. God forbid if a politician in the West dares to voice critical views of its quasi-religious significance! Not long ago, the Christian masses in Europe were obliged to chant ‘cantate domino’ in order to reassure themselves, amidst their suspicious coreligionists, of their eternal devotion to the singular Lord in Heaven, and thus avoided the risk of being chastised as heretics, or being burned at the stake as devils incarnate. Back then, nobody wanted to be ratted out for seeing the shortcomings of the dominant belief, or kicked out of his community for being out of the monotheist loop! Hallelujah!
Similar fancy buzzwords, such as ‘Son of Yahweh’, and a plethora of other Levantine sermons from Sinai, are still heard amidst the enraptured congregations of the Bible Belt. These words are still in use as the pious trademarks of the chosen people. Short of that, for an agnostic or a more urbane layman, the divine word ‘democracy’ can work miracles if he is desperately scrambling for an effective way to complete his dangling and embarrassing sentence. An American serial killer often discovers an alibi for his misdeeds by invoking loudly in court, ‘God made me do it!’ We should not blame him too harshly. During the Second World War the self-proclaimed democratic worldimprovers, both from the east and from the west, used the normative principles of democratic limitations to justify large-scale killings and expulsions – and the exclusion of their non-democratic foes. Tomorrow, should the Third World War break out, it will likely be rationalised by the adherents of democracy, who will invoke the already well-tested phrase, ‘Let’s make the world safe for democracy!’
Yes, that was the word in the beginning. And then came the ugly deed. It is therefore a merit of the philosopher Alain de Benoist that before tackling the concept of the political within the democratic system, he first deals with the etymology of the word and its semantic deviations and aberrations in different historical epochs. After following his narrative, which he skillfully outlines in this little book, one can only come to the conclusion that the current overuse of the word ‘democracy’ often results in inter- and infra-political mayhem which will likely bring about political catastrophes in the near future.
All those who are familiar with Alain de Benoist’s books know very well that all of them are instructive. They represent a treasure trove of various ideas,
ranging from literature, art, and history to political science, and they all attest to a man of classical erudition. This little book on democracy is especially
important, because it directly examines a mystical term of our times and which recurs in our daily communication. The notion of modern democracy, which Alain de Benoist dissects in detail, is not just a label for a form of (anti-)government; it is first and foremost a label for the all-encompassing imagery which is being projected for the benefit of the public; a pervasive system of symbolism which even an uneducated man from the street must confront on a daily basis.
There are several reasons why this book is obligatory reading for any student of democracy – let alone for undergraduate students in the humanities. First there is the language of the book. Alain de Benoist’s style is always limpid with a simple, didactic message. His style is not an arcane one designed for a chosen few. Even when reading him in an English translation, it does not pose a massive headache for a novice. A reader does not need to be versed in high-tech political jargon in order to understand his main thesis – as is often the case with many ‘experts’ hiding behind flowery and vague sentences, often in an attempt to conceal their substantial ignorance.
De Benoist puts his description of democracy into a larger perspective and he observes its genealogy from a linguistic, historical and sociological perspective.
The value of this book lies in the fact that it demystifies or ‘deconstructs’ the contemporary verbiage surrounding the notion of democracy. It helps us to realise how our own conceptualisation of democracy has been hijacked over a long period of time by a destructive, linear way of thinking. The underlying assumption, which de Benoist denounces (albeit the assumption that is still held by many academics), is that our liberal democracy, often tagged with the lexical barbarism of ‘free market democracy’, represents the best of all possible worlds and that everything preceding its appearance must be discarded as obsolete or ‘undemocratic’. De Benoist, in his impressive bibliography, offers the reader substantial proof that this so-called democracy of ours may actually be the worst of all possible worlds.
This book is important insofar as the author, when he wrote it in 1985, had a premonition of how liberal ‘market democracy’ would later become the very opposite of what it was supposed to be. Democracy means participation in political affairs. However, in view of the mediocre voter turn-outs which occur all over Europe and the United States, one must raise serious questions about the legitimacy of what is called today ‘modern liberal democracy’. Frankly, both in the east and the west as well as the United States, the vast majority of voters have a rather negative opinion of their democratically elected officials. Is this not a good enough reason to critically examine the notion of modern democracy?
De Benoist rightly states that democratic principles have been major ingredients in Europe – from Antiquity all the way to modern times – regardless of the various, and often ‘undemocratic’ signifiers our ancestors ascribed to their regimes. In the forums of ancient Greece or in Thingsvellir in ancient Iceland, our ancestors knew how to use the democratic method for electing their leaders and deciding their public affairs. Conversely (and this is something the reader must particularly bear in mind when reading this book), the most visible and the most vocal democrats in our age have often been individuals and systems of the most despotic and despicable character. Witness, for example, the ex-democratic Soviet Union with its purportedly democratic Constitution of 1936!
At the very least, this book is a useful work of scholarship which urgently needs to be perused by the postmodern ruling class and by all students wishing to decipher the mechanisms of the dying liberal system. The additional asset of this book is that it is not a propaganda piece. It is not a pamphlet; nor does it endorse a specific political or ideological agenda. However, this precious book surely does offer some quick clues as to how we need to proceed while we are submerged in the bombastic rhetoric about democracy in our times.
Recently, Alain de Benoist made a short summary of our modern liberal democracy: ‘We live in an oligarchic society where everybody pretends to be a democrat – but where there is no democracy.’
Tomislav Sunic
Zagreb, Croatia
December 28, 2010
I.
THE ANCIENTS AND THE MODERNS he defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy’, George Orwell observed.[1] This is nothing new. Already in 1849, Guizot had written, ‘Such is the power of the word Democracy, that no party or government dares to raise its head, or believes its own existence possible, if it does not bear that word inscribed on its banner’.[2] This is truer today than ever before. Not everyone today is democratic, but everyone purports to be: there is not a single dictatorship that does not claim to possess a democratic spirit. The Communist countries of eastern Europe present themselves not merely as democracies — something attested by their very constitutions[3] — but as the only real democracy, as opposed to the ‘formal’ democracies they identify with the liberal democracies of the West.
This almost unanimous consent given to democracy as a word — if not always on the thing itself — gives the notion a moral and quasi-religious meaning, which discourages discussion right from the start. Many authors have stressed this fact. In 1939, T. S. Eliot stated, ‘When a term has become so universally sanctified as “democracy” now is, I begin to wonder whether it means anything, in meaning too many things.’[4] Even more sharply, in 1945 Bertrand de Jouvenel affirmed, ‘All discussions of democracy, all arguments whether for or against it, are stricken with intellectual futility, because the thing itself is indefinite’.[5] Giovanni Sartori added in 1957, ‘In a somewhat paradoxical vein, democracy could be defined as a high-flown name for something which does not exist.’[6]
Finally, Julien Freund noted (not without a touch of humour), ‘To claim that one is a democrat no longer means a thing, as it is possible to be democratic in contradictory ways, whether in the manner of the Americans or British or in that of the Communists of eastern Europe, Congo and Cuba. Given these circumstances, it is quite natural that I should refuse to be democratic, as my neighbour can invoke the same word, even if he supports a dictatorship.’[7]
Clearly, the universal nature of the term does not particularly help to clarify its meaning. Undoubtedly, we need to go one step further.
The first idea we must do away with is the notion of certain people who claim that democracy is a specifically modern product, corresponding to the most ‘developed’ stage in the history of political regimes.[8] Any such idea is unsubstantiated. Democracy is neither more ‘modern’ nor more ‘developed’ than any other regime. Democratic regimes or tendencies can be found throughout history. Once more, the linear view of history here proves particularly misleading. In relation to political regimes, the very idea of progress is meaningless.
For the same reason, we cannot accept the idea of the ‘naturalness’ of democracy, whereby certain liberals would have us believe that democracy ‘spontaneously’ arises in the political sphere, just as the market ‘spontaneously’ arises within the logic of trade. Thus, according to Jean Baechler, ‘If we acknowledge that humans, as a species of animal [sic], spontaneously aspire to a democratic regime that promises safety, prosperity and liberty, we are forced to conclude that as soon as the right conditions have been met, the democratic experience will spontaneously emerge, without the need for any appeal to ideas.’[9] What, then, are these ‘conditions’ that produce democracy, just as fire produces heat? Clearly, nowhere is this specified.
In contrast to the Orient, absolute despotism has always been exceedingly rare in Europe. Whether in Rome, in the Iliad, in Vedic India or among the Hittites,
already at a very early date we find the existence of popular assemblies for both military and civil organisation. Moreover, in Indo-European society the King
was generally elected: all ancient monarchies were initially elective. Tacitus[10] relates how among the Germanic tribes, ‘They choose their kings for their noble birth, their commanders for their valour’[11] (reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute summunt). Even in France, the crown long remained both elective and hereditary. It was only with Pippin the Short[12] that the King came to be chosen from within the same family, and only with Hugh Capet[13] that the principle of primogeniture was adopted. In Scandinavia, the King was elected by a provincial thing, and his election had then to be confirmed by other assemblies across the country. Among other Germanic peoples, the practice of ‘shielding’[14] is recorded.[15] The Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire also was elected, and the importance of the Prince-Electors in German history[16] is well known. In general, it is only from the Twelfth century onwards that elective monarchies all around Europe became hereditary. Until the French Revolution, kings nevertheless continued to rule with the aid of parliaments, whose power was far from negligible. In all ancient European communities, one’s status as a freeman brought political rights. ‘Citizens’ were organised in free popular communes, which, among other things, possessed municipal charters. Sovereigns were
surrounded by councils with which they would make decisions. The influence of customary law on juridical practices is itself an index of the degree of popular ‘participation’ in the drafting of laws. In other words, the old monarchies cannot be said to have lacked popular legitimacy.
The oldest parliament in the Western world, the Icelandic Althing, was established in the year 930. It consists of a federal assembly whose members
meet each year in the inspired setting of Thingsvellir. Adam of Bremen wrote, around 1076, that ‘among them there is no king, but only law’.[17] The thing, or
local parliament, refers to both a place and an assembly in which freemen possessing equal political rights met at appointed dates to legislate and deliver
justice.[18] In Iceland, every freeman enjoyed two inalienable rights: to bear arms and to take a seat at the thing. The Icelanders, Frédéric Durand writes, ‘managed
to set up and run what, by using a vague but suggestive analogy, may be termed a sort of Nordic Hellas, a community of free citizens who took an active part in
the affairs of their community — surprisingly cultured and intellectually productive men united by bonds of mutual esteem and respect.’[19]
‘ Scandinavian democracy is very old: its origins can be traced back to the traditions of the Viking era’, Maurice Gravier observes.[20] Throughout northern Europe, this ‘ democratic’ tradition rests on a particularly strong communitarian sentiment — a tendency towards zusammenleben (‘ living together’) which leads people to take account of common interests above all else. At the same time, this democracy is tinged with a clear sense of hierarchy, which justifies the use of the expression ‘ aristo-democracy’. This tradition, founded on mutual assistance and a feeling of shared responsibility, remains alive in many countries, starting with Switzerland.
The idea that the people are the original possessors of power surfaces again and again in the history of the Middle Ages. While the clergy limited itself to proclaiming that omnis potestas a Deo (all power comes from God), certain theorists argued that power only flows to the sovereign from God through the
intercession of the people. The notion of ‘ power by divine right’ was thus assumed in an indirect way, without turning the people into an abstraction.
Marsilius of Padua[21] did not hesitate to proclaim the concept of popular sovereignty; significantly, he did so to defend the supremacy of the Emperor (at the time, Ludwig of Bavaria) over the Church. The idea of a lack of distinction in principle between the people and their leaders is again attested by the formula populus et proceres (‘ the people and the great ones’), which occurs again and again in ancient texts.
One should mention here the democratic tendencies found in Rome,[22] as well as in the ancient Italian republics, in French and Flemish communes, in Hanseatic municipalities,[23] and in the constitutional charters of the free Swiss cantons. We should further recall the ancient boerenvrijheid (‘ farmers’ freedom’) that prevailed in the Frisian provinces during the Middle Ages and whose equivalent could be found along the North Sea, in the Low Countries, Flanders, Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Finally, it is worth mentioning the existence of important communal movements based on guilds and franchises, which fought for mutual support and pursued economic and political goals. At times, these clashed with royal authority and the Church, with the support of the burgeoning bourgeoisie, while at others they backed the monarchy in its fight against the feudal lords and contributed to the rise of the mercantile bourgeoisie.[24]
The vast majority of political regimes throughout history can actually be classed as mixed. ‘All ancient democracies’, François Perroux observed, ‘were governed by a de jure or de facto aristocracy, when they were not ruled by a monarchical principle.’[25] According to Aristotle, Solon’s constitution[26] was oligarchic for the Areopagus,[27] aristocratic for its magistrates, and democratic for the make-up of its tribunals. Hence, he added, it combined the advantages of all forms of government. Similarly, according to Polybius,[28] Rome was an elective monarchy in terms of the power of its consuls, an aristocracy in terms of
the power of the Senate, and a democracy in terms of the rights of the people.
Cicero,[29] in his On the Republic, adopts a similar perspective. Monarchy need not exclude democracy, as is shown for instance by contemporary constitutional
and parliamentary monarchies. In 1789 it was, after all, the French monarchy which established the Estates-General. ‘Democracy, taken in the broad sense’,
Pope Pius XII observed, ‘admits of various forms, and can be realised in monarchies as well as in republics’.[30]
Let us further add that the experience of modern times shows that neither the political regime of a country nor its institutions necessarily constitute decisive
factors in shaping the social life of its citizens. Comparable types of government may correspond to very different types of societies, whereas different forms of
government may conceal identical social realities. (Western society today has an extremely homogeneous structure, although the institutions and constitutions of
the countries it includes sometimes differ substantially.)
The task of defining democracy now appears even more difficult. The etymological approach is misleading. According to its original meaning, democracy means ‘the power of the people’. Yet, this power can be interpreted in very different ways. The most reasonable approach, then, appears to be the historical one, which begins with the premise that ‘genuine’ democracy is first of all the political system established in Antiquity by those who invented both the thing itself and the word that describes it.
The notion of democracy never occurred at all in modern political thought before the Eighteenth century. Even then, it was only sporadically mentioned, and usually with a pejorative connotation. Until the French Revolution, the most ‘advanced’ philosophers fantasised about mixed regimes combining the advantages of an ‘enlightened’ monarchy with those of popular representation.
Montesquieu[31] acknowledged the people’s right to monitor, but not to govern.
Not a single revolutionary constitution claimed to have been inspired by ‘democratic’ principles. Robespierre[32] is one of the few figures of his time who — towards the end of his reign — explicitly invoked democracy (something which did not contribute to strengthen his popularity in subsequent years). This regime he envisaged as a representative form of government: as ‘a state in which the sovereign people, guided by laws which are of their own making, do for themselves all that they can do well, and, by their delegates, do all that they cannot do for themselves’.[33]
It was only in the United States, once people had started criticising the notion of a ‘republic’, that the word democracy first became widespread. Its usage
became current at the beginning of the Nineteenth century, especially with the advent of Jacksonian democracy and the establishment of the Democratic Party.
The word then crossed the Atlantic again and became firmly implanted in Europe in the first half of the Nineteenth century. Tocqueville’s[34] essay Democracy in America, which elicited considerable success, made the term a household word.
Despite the many quotes inspired by Antiquity that adorn the speeches of Eighteenth century philosophers and politicians, the genuine political inspiration drawn from ancient democracy was very weak at that time. The philosophers admired Sparta more than Athens, and the ‘Sparta vs. Athens’ debate — often distorted by bias or ignorance — pitted the partisans of authoritarian egalitarianism against the tenets of moderate liberalism.[35] Rousseau,[36] for instance, who abhorred Athens, expressed sentiments that were rigorously philo-Laconian, which is to say pro-Spartan. In his eyes, Sparta was first and foremost the city of equals (homoioi). In contrast, when Camille Desmoulins[37] thundered against Sparta, it was to denounce its excessive egalitarianism: against the Girondist Brissot,[38] he attacked Lycurgus,[39] ‘who made his citizens equal just as a tornado renders equal all whom it has struck’. All in all, it remained a rather
superficial discourse. The cult of Antiquity chiefly functioned as a metaphor for regeneration, as exemplified by the words Saint-Just[40] hurled at the Convention:
[41] ‘The world has been empty since the Romans; their memory can replenish it and augur liberty again!’ (11 Germinal, year 2).[42]
In order to study ‘genuine’ democracy, it is necessary to turn to Greek democracy rather than to those regimes that the contemporary world wishes to
describe by this term.
The comparison between ancient and modern democracies is a common academic exercise.[43] It is generally emphasised that the former were direct democracies, whereas the latter (for reasons that have to do, it is said, with their territorial extension and the size of their population) are representative democracies. We are also reminded of the fact that slaves were excluded from Athenian democracy, and hence that this regime was not so democratic after all.
These two affirmations are rather simplistic.
Readied by the political and social evolution of the Sixth century BCE and the reforms carried out from the time of Solon, Athenian democracy met its founding moment with the reforms of Cleisthenes,[44] who returned from exile in 508 BCE. Firmly established in 460 BCE, it thrived for one and a half centuries. Pericles,[45] who succeeded Ephialtes in 461 BCE, gave democracy an extraordinary reputation, not without exercising a quasi-royal authority over the city for more than thirty years.[46]
The Greeks primarily defined democracy in contrast to two other systems: tyranny and aristocracy.[47] Democracy presupposed three conditions: isonomy (equality before the law), isotimy (equal rights to access all public offices), and isegory (freedom of expression). This was direct democracy, also known as ‘face to face’ democracy, since all citizens could take part in the ekklesia, or assembly.
Deliberations were prepared by the boule (council), but it was the popular assembly that was the real decision-making body. The assembly appointed ambassadors, decided over the issue of war and peace, launched and brought an end to military expeditions, investigated magistrates’ performance, issued decrees, ratified laws, bestowed citizenship rights, and deliberated on matters of public security. In short, ‘the people ruled, instead of being ruled by elected individuals’, as Jacqueline de Romilly writes, quoting the text of the oath given by the Athenians: ‘I will kill whoever by word, deed, vote, or hand attempts to destroy democracy … And should somebody else kill him, I will hold him in high esteem before the gods and divine powers, as if he had killed a public enemy.’
Democracy in Athens primarily meant a community of citizens, which is to say the community of the people of Athens gathered in the ekklesia. Citizens
were classified according to their membership in a deme, a grouping simultaneously territorial, social, and administrative. The very term demos, which is of Doric[48] origin, designates those who live in a given territory, as well as the territory itself as a place of origin determining civic status — inextricably linking the two.[49] To some extent, demos and ethnos coincide: democracy is conceived here in relation not to the individual, but to the polis, which is to say the city as an organised community. Slaves were excluded from voting not because they were slaves, but because they were non-citizens. We seem shocked by this today. But what democracy has ever accorded suffrage to non-citizens?[50]
The notions of citizenship, liberty, and equality of political rights, as well as popular sovereignty, were closely interrelated. The most essential feature of citizenship was one’s origin and heritage: Pericles was the ‘son of Xanthippus from the deme of Cholargus’. From 451 BCE, one had to be born of an Athenian mother and father in order to become a citizen. Defined by his belonging, the citizen (polites) was opposed to the idiotes, or non-citizen — a designation that quickly took on a pejorative meaning (from the notion of the isolated individual with no belonging came the idea of the ‘idiot’). Citizenship as a function thus derived from the notion of citizenship a status which was the exclusive prerogative of birth. To be a citizen meant, in the fullest sense of the word, to belong to a homeland — that is, to a homeland and a past. One is born an Athenian — one does not become it (rare exceptions notwithstanding). Besides, the Athenian tradition discouraged mixed marriages. Political equality, established by law, derived from a common origin, which it also sanctioned.
Only birth conferred individual politeia.[51] Democracy was rooted in a notion of autochthonous[52] citizenship, which intimately linked its exercise to the origins
of those who exercised it. Fifth century BCE Athenians constantly celebrated themselves as ‘the autochthonous people of great Athens’, and it was upon this founding myth that they based their democracy.[53]
In Greek, just as in Latin, liberty stems from one’s origin. Freeman, * (e)leudheros (Greek eleutheros), is primarily he who belongs to a certain ‘stock’ (cf. the Latin word liberi, ‘children’). ‘To be born of good stock is to be free’, Émile Benveniste writes, ‘it comes to the same thing.’[54] Similarly, in Germanic, the kinship between the words frei, ‘free’, and Freund, ‘friend’, shows that originally freedom sanctioned a mutual belonging. The Indo-European root *leudh-, from which both the Latin liber and the Greek eleutheros are derived, also served to designate ‘people’ as belonging to a given folk (cf. the Old Slavonic ljudú, ‘folk’, and German leute, ‘people’). These terms all derive from a root evoking the idea of ‘growth and development’.
The original meaning of the word ‘liberty’ in no way suggests the idea of ‘liberation’ as emancipation from a given community. Rather, it implies a form of belonging — and it is this which confers liberty. Hence, when the Greeks spoke of liberty, it is not the right to escape the tutelage of the city that they had in mind or the right to rid themselves of the constraints to which each citizen was bound. Rather, what they had in mind was the right — and political capability — guaranteed by law of participating in the life of the city, voting in the assembly, electing magistrates, etc. Liberty did not legitimise secession, but sanctioned its very opposite: the bond which tied each person to his city. This was not liberty as autonomy, but liberty as participation. It was not meant to extend beyond the community, but was practised solely within the framework of the polis. Liberty implied belonging. The ‘liberty’ of an individual lacking any form of belonging, i.e., a deracinated individual, was completely devoid of any meaning.
If it is thus true that liberty was directly linked to the notion of democracy, then it must also be added that liberty meant first and foremost the liberty of the
people, from which the liberty of citizens follows. In other words, it is the liberty of the people (or of the city) that lays the foundations for the equality of
individual political rights, which is to say the rights enjoyed by individuals as citizens. Liberty presupposes independence as its primary condition. Man lives in society, and therefore individual liberty cannot exist without collective liberty.
Among the Greeks, individuals were free because (and insofar as) their city was free. When Aristotle defines man as a ‘political animal’ and a social being, when he
claims that the city precedes the individual and that only within society can the individual achieve his potential,[55] what he is suggesting is that man should not
be detached from his role as a citizen — as a person living in an organised community, a polis or civitas. This view stands in contrast to the concept of modern liberalism, which assumes that the individual precedes society and that man, qua individual, is at once something more than just a citizen.[56]
In a ‘community of freemen’, then, individual interests must never prevail over common interests. ‘All those governments which have a common good in
view’, Aristotle writes, ‘are rightly established and strictly just, but those who have in view only the good of the rulers are all founded on wrong principles’.[57]
In contrast to what we find in Euripides,[58] for instance, in Aeschylus[59] the city is regularly described as a unit. ‘It was that sense of community’, Moses I.
Finley writes, ‘fortified by the state religion, by their myths and their traditions, which was an essential element in the pragmatic success of Athenian democracy’.[60]
In Greece, Finley adds, ‘freedom meant the rule of law and participation in the decision-making process, not the possession of inalienable rights.’[61] The law merged, in practice, with the genius of the city. ‘To obey the law meant to be devoted with zeal to the will of the community’, Paul Veyne observes.[62] It is liberty that brings legality: Legum servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus, as Cicero put it.[63]
By showing that the fundamental principle of democracy is liberty,[64] Aristotle intends to emphasise that it is not equality. Among the Greeks, equality was only
a means to democracy, not its cause. Political equality derived from citizenship — from one’s belonging to a given people. The underlying assumption here is that members of the same people (or city), whatever their mutual differences, are all citizens in the same way. This equality of rights by no means reflects a belief in natural equality. The equal right of all citizens to take part in the assembly does not imply that men are equal (or that it would be preferable if they were), but rather that from their common belonging to the city they derive a common capacity to exercise the right of suffrage, which is the privilege of citizens. As the appropriate means to the techne (skill) of politics, equality remains exterior to man. It simply represents the logical consequence of a shared belonging, as well as the primary condition for common participation. In the eyes of the Greeks, it was right for all citizens to engage in the political life not by virtue of universal and inalienable rights possessed by each human as such, but by virtue of their citizenship. Ultimately, the crucial notion here is not equality but citizenship. Greek democracy is that form of government in which the liberty of each citizen is founded on an equality conferred by the law, enabling him to enjoy civic and political rights.
The study of ancient democracy has elicited a range of reactions from modern authors. For some, Athenian democracy is an admirable example of civic responsibility (Francesco Nitti); for others it evokes the realm of ‘activist’ political parties (Paul Veyne);[65] for others still, it is essentially totalitarian (Giovanni Sartori). In general, everyone agrees that considerable differences exist between ancient and modern democracy. Curiously, however, it is modern democracies that are used as a criterion to measure the democratic consistency of the former. This is a rather odd way of reasoning. As previously noted, it was only belatedly that the modern political regimes which are described as ‘democracies’ today came to identify themselves as such. At a later stage, observers began inquiring into ancient democracies, and once they realised that they differed from the modern, they drew the conclusion that they must have been ‘less democratic’ than ours. But really, should we not proceed through the opposite kind of reasoning? Democracy was born in Athens in the Fifth century BCE. Hence, it is Athenian democracy (regardless of how we wish to judge it) that constitutes ‘genuine’ democracy. If contemporary democratic regimes differ from Athenian democracy, then they differ from democracy as such. Clearly, this is what irks most of our contemporaries. Since nowadays everyone wishes to cast himself as a democrat, and in the most accomplished possible way, and given the fact that Greek democracy hardly resembles the democracies before our eyes, it is naturally the Greeks who must be ‘less democratic’ than us. We thus reach the paradoxical conclusion that ancient democracies, in which the people participated directly in the exercise of power, are disqualified on the grounds that they do not fit the standards of modern
democracies, in which the people, at best, exercise only a very indirect control.
There should be no doubt that ancient and modern democracies are two entirely different systems. The very parallel drawn between them is misleading.
All these systems have in common is their name, for they are the result of completely different historical processes.
Wherein do these differences lie? It would be wrong to assume that they only have to do with the ‘direct’ or ‘indirect’ nature of the decision-making process.
Rather, they are due to two different conceptions of man, two different views of the world and of social ties. Ancient democracy was communitarian and ‘holistic’, whereas modern democracy is primarily individualistic. Ancient democracy defined citizenship by one’s origin, and gave citizens the opportunity to participate in the life of the city. Modern democracy organises atomised individuals into citizens, primarily viewing them through the lens of abstract egalitarianism. Ancient democracy was based on the idea of organic community; modern democracy, as an heir to Christianity and the philosophy of the Enlightenment, on the individual. The meaning of the words ‘city’, ‘people’, ‘nation’ and ‘liberty’ radically changes from one model to the other.
In this respect, to argue that Greek democracy was only a direct democracy because it encompassed a small number of citizens is again rather simplistic.
Direct democracy need not be associated with a limited number of citizens. It is rather primarily associated with a relatively homogeneous people conscious of
what makes it such. The effective functioning of Greek democracy, as well as of Icelandic democracy, was first and foremost the result of cultural cohesion and a clear sense of shared belonging. The closer the members of a community are to one another, the more likely they are to have common sentiments, identical values, and the same way of viewing the world and social ties, and the easier it is for them to make collective decisions concerning the common good without the need for any form of mediation. Modern societies, in contrast, require a range of intermediaries, as they have ceased to be places of collectively lived meaning.
The aspirations expressed in these democracies spring from contradictory value systems that can no longer be reconciled through any unified decision. Since
Benjamin Constant,[66] it has been possible to measure the extent to which the notion of liberty has changed under the influence of the individualistic egalitarian ideology. Returning to a Greek concept of democracy, therefore, does not mean nurturing the constantly frustrated hope of ‘face to face’ social transparency. Rather, it means re-appropriating — and adapting to the modern world — a notion of the people and of community that has been eclipsed by two thousand years of egalitarianism, rationalism and the exaltation of the rootless individual.
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γνῶθι σεαυτόν
μηδέν άγαν
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