this is a painting of life in ancient Greece specifically in Athens during its political Golden Age its male citizens enjoyed for the first time in the history of a state near total control over their own political lives they called their form of government democratia Demos in Greek means people Kratos means power to do things which people usually translate as rule together you have democratia the rule of the people after the fall of Athens the word democracy wouldn't be linked to another state for more than two thousand years upon the founding of the United States of America but the United States created a very different form of democracy that to many isn't Democratic at all this video is going to explore these two democracies we're going to talk about where they came from what their ideas were how they're Democratic and also how they're undemocratic at the end we're going to circle out and ask if the word democracy is appropriate for either Society so this video is designed to give you a better grasp on the concept of democracy and also how it relates to both societies so that's the plan and we're going to begin by looking at Greece ancient Greece wasn't a country in the modern sense with one state and one government instead it was a collection of cities that were their own States called city-states these city-states formed over hundreds of years when neighboring families Clans and tribes joined together for protection so these city-states were basically just an urban area and to the surrounding Countryside all under One Sovereign jurisdiction the most famous city-state and also the best documented one was Athens in 507 BC the Athenians adopted a system of popular government that lasted nearly two Centuries with a brief interruption in 404 BC when Athens lost to Sparta at the end of the Peloponnesian War the classical Athenian democracy permanently ended in 321 BC when Athens Was Defeated and subjugated by another powerful neighbor Macedonia the invention of democracy didn't happen in a vacuum if you look at the position of grease on a map and consider the prominent civilizations at the time like the Persians the Egyptians and the Phoenicians you can see how it was positioned to be a sort of focal point among the flourishing civilizations at the time as they interacted traded and even fought with one another so from that came a sort of swirling mixture of genes cultures and challenges that shaped Greek civilization and culture a similar phenomenon continued throughout the Athenian Golden Age which made Athens a remarkably alive City in its time it's hard to definitively say more precisely how it happened since we're talking about ancient history here but one thing that came to distinguish this flourishing Greek culture was its respect for wisdom so the Greeks respected wisdom similarly to how 19th century Americans respected capitalistic Enterprise so the Greeks made their sages into Heroes and had popular sayings like wisdom should be cherished as a means of traveling from youth to old age for it is more lasting than any other possession in particular they are interested in practical wisdom wisdom that you can make function actively in the world the Greeks focus on practical intellectual Pursuits LED them to develop a new philosophy of rule you could ask the question of any society who rules or where's the highest political Authority the answer to that question for most of History was a person like a king or a pharaoh but to the Greeks these were barbarians they weren't free thinking people the Greeks instead answered the question with law that on one hand was thought to free people it was thought that getting everyone in society including its leaders to be subject to the law gave people a certain amount of protection in their lives from arbitrary uses of power it was also thought to have a civilizing effect on people it was thought that getting people to follow the law made people more driven by reason and less driven by emotional impulses here's how Aristotle put it just as man is the best of the animals when completed which here basically means living in a Greek city-state when separated from law and adjudication he is the worst of all so the Greeks believed that they could civilize all of society including its leaders by making everyone in that Society subject to the law so that concept is called rule of law you don't have to be a democracy to have rule of law you can have a king for example who is also subject to the law but it's a fundamental aspect of Athenian democracy as well as American democracy it's also thought to be a necessary component of democracy more generally if you think about it you probably won't be able to rotate out unwanted people by election who are holding office if those people in office are not subject to the law so rule of law is understood to be a western idea because the ancient Greeks are understood to be the people who discovered it again we're talking about ancient history here and the further we go back in time the less sure we can be about what we know so we can't say definitively that the Athenians are the ones who invented rule of law but we are pretty confident that it was a Greek invention and it certainly paved the way for the Athenian democracy that followed another major conceptual development that led to democracy is captured in the Greek word isonomia which translates to equality for all under the law so you can think of democracy as a manifested expression of isonomia an expression of political equality in a state with rule of law but how did this come about how did this become a thing for one rule of law is naturally somewhat equalizing it brings people of all classes politically closer together it's humbling towards those at the top and elevating towards us at the bottom so once you have rule of law calls for political equality might not be far behind but we think the main reason why political equality emerged as a popular Concept in Greece and in its most extreme form in Athens boils down to Greek military culture in Greek culture battle and Conquest were glorified the Warriors who won battles brought honor and Prestige onto themselves since armies were needed to defend every city-state against potentially larger opponents far more people served in the military than were used to now for example even Aristocrats might serve as Cavalry since they were wealthy enough to own horses and the land that was needed to support them if the Cavalry prominently served in a battle and won they'd bring Glory onto themselves and with that power so over time a link developed between military service and political power the power to administer the state so that made the composition of armies in ancient Greece inherently political the types of people serving in armies were positioned to win power Athenian citizens were the ones who democratically capitalized on that if you think about Greece it's notably characterized by islands and the Aegean Sea you can think of the Aegean Sea as the heart of Greece Athens became unique in Greece when it used wealth from a silver-minded controlled to take advantage of the Aegean Sea between 507 and 480 BCE they build up a powerful navy it was the greatest Navy the Greek world had ever seen and who overwhelmingly Works in an ancient Greek navy the answer is oarsman the people who literally rode the boats so you might see where I'm going with this the next question should be what type of person worked as norsman in this ancient Athenian Navy the answer was poor Greek men the Greek word for them was theats we don't know how many thieves there were living in ancient Athens but there are presumably quite a lot of them Athenian literature sometimes refers to them as the masses Athens also had a land Army that was more standard for the time consisting mostly of hoplites hoplites were heavy infantry they were basically the middle class of Athens people who were wealthy enough to own Shields and weaponry the important Point here is that between the thiets and the hoplites you have a clear majority of the adult male Athenian population again in circumstances where War can bring glory and Power in that same period as you might have guessed Athens uses its land Army and its Navy to win a stunning series of Victories its hoplite Army unexpectedly defeats the much larger Persian Army in the Battle of Marathon making them Heroes around all of Greece they also won a string of battles around Greece in 506 but probably the most important victory of all went to the Navy in the Battle of solomus in 480 again defeating the Persians and effectively saving Athens from subjugation which was reported to have caused the masses to have gained a newfound confidence in themselves which was directly linked to the Athenian Democratic Revolution to the ushering Inn of isonomio that Revolution is typically thought to have occurred in three major phases three major reforms and each reform is linked to a person the First Reform is linked to a man named Solon Solon was responding to a class war that was ravaging Athens around 600 BCE there was a massive wealth disparity between rich and poor and the government the Army and the courts were controlled by the wealthy many in Athens were deeply in debt and unable to pay it off so Solon was brought in as a moderate to mediate between the classes and keep Athens from destroying itself one of his main accomplishments was to convince all Athenians regardless of class to obey the law so he created a new new set of laws that were applied without distinction to all free men so he's a good figure to Peg the beginning of rule of law on in Athens Solon also canceled the debts but probably more importantly for the long run he politically reorganized Athens he broke Athens into four groups depending on their income which is where we get thieves from each group was then given a different amount of political privilege the thieves were given the fewest political privileges they were given access to the assembly which is a voting body which we'll get to and they are also given access to the courts so thiets could now litigate and serve in the jury under Solon the most powerful political Authority was called the Council of the areopagus which only the wealthy could serve on and whose members served for Life the second reform was through a man named kleistthenes clystanese was involved in a power struggle around 508 in Athens there seemed to be simmering anger against Elites at the time which kleistanis used against his opponent here aroused the people to revolt sweeping him into power and establishing him as a populist dictator he wanted to break the hold that powerful aristocratic families had over parts of Athens so he politically reorganizes Athens into 10 tribes which were further broken into subgroups down to deems so these deems are essentially local districts it was through that infrastructure that Athenian citizens would go on to exercise many of their Democratic rights each tribe could elect members to a newly created Council of 500 which we'll get to and they could also elect one of ten generals to lead the military but under cleisthenese he still had the Council of the areopagus and thets importantly couldn't hold public office the last major reform happened under a man named Pericles Pericles came from a noble family which was reported to have descended from kleistines he lived in the mid-fifth century which was the era of Athenian Naval dominance there were calls for political equality and Athenian opinion was split into two camps one side believed that Elites should govern Athens and the other believed that the people the themos should govern Athens by allying with the people calling for political equality Pericles Rose to power and became the most influential man in Athens he then worked with a colleague named effialtis to break the power of the Council of the areopagus which brought about the Golden Age of Athenian democracy so without further delay here's a description of what that Society looked like you could ask the question of any society where are policy decisions made are they made in a throne room or in a private Council somewhere in Democratic Athens policy decisions were made on a hill not far from the Acropolis called the penics ten times a year the citizens of Athens would come together and meet at the panics once there an issue would be raised and then a debate would occur everyone there would have equal right to participate in that debate which was the Athenian basis of free speech called isagoria once the issue was sufficiently debated a vote would be held the people there would then raise their hands to show their support for a particular position whatever side won a simple majority would become new policy in Athens what I just described was called in Athens the Ecclesia the assembly the issues raised in the assembly were prepared by the Council of 500 whose members were chosen randomly from the public by lot of the two the assembly was the far more powerful body the assembly could vote down bills drafted by the council they could change the bills on the floor they could send the bill back with instructions for a drafting where they could replace it with an entirely new one so the real exercise of sovereign Public Authority rested directly on the assembly the citizens gathered on the panics could pass virtually whatever policy they wanted so the most important policy decisions that had to be made in Athens were made in the assembly which included foreign policy so as you might expect that led to some dramatic assemblies in the mid 4th Century for example Philip of Macedon was marching on Athens the assembly then had to vote on whether to fight or to try to negotiate the wrong decision could have meant the fall of Athens and even the destruction of Athenian culture so this must have been a deeply political society and considering how long Democratic Athens lasted this must have been a fairly competent public speaking to that competence there were very few elected public officials in this Society short of a few exceptions like generals Naval Architects and superintendents of the water supply all public officials were chosen randomly from the citizenry by Lottery these officials all had their power tightly controlled by the assembly the highest public officials were the generals they only served one-year terms and were subject to performance reviews by the public if their performance was found lacking they would be dismissed that being said they didn't have term limits so generals like Pericles could be re-elected for life so the influence of a general over a lifetime could give a sort of continuity of purpose to Athenian politics but all generals including Pericles had no formal power outside of the military their only ability to influence public policy rested on their ability to persuade the public so what we're looking at here is a public that directly and thoroughly has control over its own political Affairs which is what we would Now call a direct democracy the Athenian public also directly expressed their political power through the d casteria The People's courts I think it's worth spending a moment describing what it looked like because it didn't really resemble modern Courts for one there were no lawyers in the system you could hire a speechwriter but all cases had to be registered and argued by private citizens there also were no judges all cases were decided by the jury and that jury was massive the average size was around 500 people big enough to be unbreakable and also big enough to represent public opinion the jurors were again chosen randomly from the public by lot that meant that there weren't really any Professionals in the system you could even call it an amateur law system so legal outcomes could be unpredictable speakers could fool the jury by for example incorrectly citing laws or distorting history so those were the three main institutions the assembly the council 500 and the Law Courts all directly controlled and managed by the Athenian public but who exactly was that public who had access to those institutions Athenians like all Greeks saw the world in terms of binaries you were either man or woman free or slave Greek or Barbarian citizen or alien within that the Athenians permitted one half of those binaries into their democracy they permitted free male Greek citizens of Athens so slaves weren't permitted women weren't permitted non-greeks weren't permitted and non-athenian citizens weren't permitted it's still normal today to exclude non-citizens from your politics the rest of these exclusions were relatively normal for their time but I think it's worth spending some time addressing them the Greeks again believed that their city-states civilized people and freed them so they believed that they lived as free people in their city-states they also believed that people elsewhere in the world The Barbarians lived as subjugated people they lived as subjects to a ruler so to them foreigners and slaves were essentially the same they both had the psychologies of subordinated people so to the Greeks their politics were incompatible with both foreigners and slaves they saw their free Politics as being incompatible with the psychologies of subordinated people speaking of slaves the Athenians had quite a lot of them probably somewhere between 80 and 100 000 slaves which was about a third of the the total Athenian population Athenian male citizens wanted to spend their time on things that they thought were valuable but that don't necessarily create wealth they wanted to spend their time on things like government War literature or philosophy but someone has to work to create wealth and this was before machines were invented so slaves were the athenian's answer to that so the work provided by slaves made it possible for so many Athenian men to spend time in government or to serve in the military that being said the Athenians seemed to be relatively generous towards their slaves in contrast to the United States of America where slaves and their families were passed down from generation to generation making their outlook on eventually gaining Freedom pretty hopeless in Athens it wasn't unusual for well-behaved slaves to be freed as their owners reached the end of their lives slaves in Athens also enjoyed some legal protections if they were badly beaten by their owners they could flee to a temple and their owner might be forced to sell them slaves were also allowed to participate in business provided they gave their owners a share of their earnings and better off slaves reportedly dressed similarly to free Athenians the Athenian government also employed a number of slaves many of them were given an allowance and were allowed to live where they pleased considering the standards of the time Athenians were known for being mild to their slaves and it was even common judgment that it was better to be a slave in Athens than a poor free man in an oligarchy state but I doubt that was of much consolation to the slaves working in the Silver Mines it's a bit more controversial how Athenian men regarded Athenian women thucydides infamously reported Pericles to have said at the end of his funeral oration that female Excellence meant to be least talked about among the men whether for good or for bad in keeping with that average female citizens were rarely talked about in athenia literature Aristotle opened his politics claiming that while in one hand men and women need each other for reproduction on the other hand some are naturally rulers and others are naturally ruled rulers he says use their minds and the ruled use their bodies which seems to be implying that men are naturally a ruling class over women since women weren't invited into politics that seems at least fairly representative of Athenian public opinion so this was a deeply patriarchal society the Woman's Place was understood to be not politics but in the home out of sight as probably the strongest piece of evidence for that we don't even know the name of Pericles wife that being said not all male citizens were always allowed into their democracy under kleisthenes a procedure was introduced that allowed the Athenian public to banish someone from their society the procedure was called an ostracism if six thousand people in the assembly voted in an ostracism then the person with the most names will be forced to leave Athens for 10 years so that's something that happened to high profile people typically disgraced politicians and presumably during tense times considering how many boss needed to be cast so ostracisms probably worked to relieve domestic pressures if someone was causing a lot of trouble in Athens and the Athenian public wanted them gone they had the means to do it I think it's worth reflecting on that process and what it seems to say about Athenian society when the Athenians wanted someone gone they didn't kill them and they didn't throw them in jail never to be seen again instead dead they just forced them to leave for 10 years and after that 10 years they'd be allowed to come back so it was a fundamentally peaceful process and I think a civil one that being said there is some evidence of fraud during those ostracisms so the process might have sometimes been manipulated illiterate voters for example might have been used for political purposes so what happened to the system what happened to Athenian democracy why do we talk about it in the past tense well democracy in Athens became expensive the assembly voted to Institute pay for more and more public positions namely in the military and the jury money for those positions had to come from somewhere and Athens found the answer in Empire so democracy in Athens came to depend on Empire they increasingly stretched their power over the rest of Greece they also sent ambitious campaigns abroad to Egypt and Sicily things reached a Breaking Point sentiment in Greece turned against the Athenians resistance to Athenian policy came from nearly every state in Greece the viability of democracy was also an open question in Athenian time it was notably rejected by Aristocrats and the upper class that led to divisions at home and a lack of intellectual support from many of the brightest Minds at the time like Plato Socrates and Aristotle by Aristotle's time the most extreme oligarchs were reported to have sworn the following oath I will be evil-minded to the demos and will plot whatever evil I can against them Athens would go on to suffer a string of defeats that would lead to its fall the end of the line for the old-style Athenian democracy came in 321 when Athens subordinated under Macedon added a wealth Criterion for citizenship democracy disappeared in Athens and wouldn't reappear for thousands of years this time in a modern form influenced by the United States we're about to turn our attention there but I'd like to close the section out by reading a speech that Pericles was reported to give to the citizens of Athens it was a dark time in the city plague had struck and the tide of the war against Sparta seemed to be turning against Athens I think it gives a sense of both the intelligence and the Grandeur of the time it reads even if we should ever be forced to yield for everything that grows great also decays the memory of our greatness will be bequeathed to posterity forever that we of all the Greeks ruled over more Greeks than anyone that in the greatest wars we held out against enemies in Alliance and individually and that we lived in a city that was the most ingenious and the greatest [Music] we see the wisdom of solon's remark that no more good must be attempted than the nation can bear Thomas Jefferson corresponding with Walter Jones 1801 if you think about it democracy in Athens As Told by its literature manifested itself as a class struggle a struggle between the many and the few democracy was implemented when the many won that struggle and took control of politics but the few always resented the many democracy in Athens ended with the few reclaiming power and the many losing it Democracy in America by contrast manifested itself as less of a class struggle and more of a moderate compromise probably most powerfully embodied in the philosophy of James Madison the principal framer of the Constitution for that to make sense we need some context I think the best place to start is to look at the state of democracy before the founding of the United States in the mid-1700s ancient Greece was thousands of years in the rear view mirror of History available literature at the time was limited so people's understandings of ancient Greece at the time were also accordingly limited so that meant that even though they created what's considered the first modern democratic Nation only a few of the U.S Founders were at all familiar with ancient Greek history or political thought what little they knew mostly came from only two sources two cities and the biographer Plutarch with Plutarch being probably by far the bigger source that translated into the founders not showing much interest in ancient Athens they mentioned it sparingly and typically in a passing fashion but there was an ancient society that they were more interested in intellectuals at the time in both America and Europe showed far more interest in classical Rome and the concept of republicanism that's associated with its Society before Caesar that meant that leading up to the revolution there were two main political philosophies on the table republicanism and monarchism so it was republicanism that ended up replacing monarchism there's a few things to say about that for one the concept of republicanism wasn't precisely understood at the time for example Alexander Hamilton said that it was used in a variety of senses and John Adams said even after the founding that he never understood what it was and thought that no man ever did or will to further confuse things the words Republic and democracy were so closely associated in the minds of the colonists that they are often used synonymously we have an understanding now that the word Republic is different because it refers to a representative government but that distinction had only barely begun to exist at the time it was apparently invented in 1787 for polemical purposes by James Madison who argued that pure democracies have a small number of citizens who assemble and administer the government in person while republics have a scheme of representation but that was a distinction with no basis in Prior history pretty much all of the earlier republics including Rome fit into Madison's definition of a democracy so throughout history and throughout 18th century America the words democracy and Republic were used interchangeably they didn't refer to different types of popular government and instead reflected differences in language democracy came from Greek the rule of the people and Republic came from Latin race publicus meant thing of the people so that was a lot of mental work to basically bring us back to square one the American Founders were setting out to transform America from a monarchy into a republic but the words Republic and democracy were interchangeable at the time so they were setting out to do something that was closer to the spirit of classical Athens than you might think even though understandings of republicanism were messy at the time there was still a clear enough idea of what it was as a historian at the time put it you can think of it as the difference between subjects and citizens citizens lived in republics while subjects lived in monarchies to be a subject is to be under the rule of another while to be a citizen means to be a unit in a mass of free people who collectively possess sovereignty I'm basically describing Democratic Athens here but as you're probably aware American democracy only partially resembles Athenian democracy so there's more to the picture here than the American people simply collectively owning sovereignty I think the best way to explain the particular character of American democracy is to break the story of the creation of American democracy down into two storylines the first storyline is similar enough to the Athenian one that's the story of rejecting authoritarian power and spreading the ideas of freedom and equality under the law basically the spreading of isonomia in America even before the Revolution Americans didn't feel close to the English Monarchy it felt to them like an extraneous overlaid power too far across the ocean for its Majesty to be felt they also felt tired of the system it was based in which was a system of patronage which is a system where your connection and loyalty to others determines your prospects in life including your prospects in politics Americans over time came to see patronage in starkly negative terms they came to see it as a form of dependency dependency on the authorities above you and it became patriotic to free yourself from these dependent connections and influences there was also importantly a sort of proto-industrialization happening at the time as huge numbers of farmers and Artisans started to take up manufacturing and trading average Americans were becoming noticeably wealthier and were even starting to engage in luxury this was a New Concept the idea that anyone could work and become wealthy work before then had been thought of as something that you necessarily had to do for Bear survival basically the poor worked and stayed poor so the colonists were enthusiastic about what was happening to them and were simultaneously worried about the possibility of losing their Newfound wealth they saw themselves as being especially vulnerable to the English Monarchy so that led to the development of a new Republican philosophy of property Americans came to see property as something that makes people equally free and independent property became People's Source of personal Authority they thought that anyone could work to own property and owning it could protect you from the outside world so as these ideas came together Americans came to reject monarchism and the old set of values that were associated with it like loyalty order stability and hierarchies and they came to support republicanism and the new set of values associated with that Liberty equality and Independence a veneration of property came along with it since property was thought to make Independence possible equality in particular became a rallying call for those seeking to challenge authority and superiority by equality they mostly meant a quality of opportunity they were rejecting patronage and trying to dream up a new world based in Merit a world where all offices lie open to Men of Merit of whatever Rancor condition but equality also came to mean something new something like a quality of spirit the idea that all people are inherently equal inside best captured in Thomas Jefferson's statement in the Declaration of Independence all men are created equal that was the radical opposite of monarchy from here the storyline's familiar the Americans declared independence fought a war with England and won it they then had an opportunity to form a government a new government based on principles of their choosing and the principles on their minds were Liberty equality and Independence we can call that the end of storyline one you can associate it with thinkers like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson but we still have storyline 2. you can associate this one with John Adams James Madison and Alexander Hamilton this storyline is a storyline about skepticism skepticism towards republicanism and democracy part of that skepticism began pretty much right away the Declaration had barely been signed when some of the revolutionary leaders began expressing doubts about the Republican virtue of the American people there were new popular leaders emerging who were far less educated and far less broad-minded than many other revolutionary leaders had expected these new leaders promoted their own local selfish interests at the expense of what the founders saw as the public good Shea's rebellion in 1786 likely made things worse when thousands put up armed resistance to paying debt and taxes which ended in an attempt to overthrow the standing government something that added to their skepticism of democracy was their philosophy of the nature of power they believed that concentrations of power were dangerous and that it had the tendency to grow out of control if object for example George Mason said from the nature of man we may be sure that those who have power in their hands will always when they can increase it that extended towards the public they believed if a majority of Americans gained a certain amount of power they'd used that power to further increase it and oppress everyone else here's Hamilton saying it give all power to the many they will oppress the few although for what it's worth it worked in Reverse give all power to the few they will oppress the many the reading materials available to the founders of the time also turned to their opinions against democracy reading Plutarch thucydides xenophon Plato and Aristotle all made the founders believe that pure forms a democracy where the people directly control politics were dangerous the founders believed rightly or wrongly that pure democracies drove themselves into self-destruction over time with their policies and yes their language was that dramatic here's Madison democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths the state that was most held to that charge was the purest democracy of all Athens so they believed that pure democracies like Athens needed to be saved from themselves with institutional safeguards and the lack of those safeguards is what drove those societies into ruin so you have these two conflicting story lines and they don't easily reconcile with one another how do you make the public Sovereign if you don't trust them but time was ticking the provisional government was running out of money and new government had to be made but what would that government look like the prospect was overwhelming no one had ever successfully made a popular government at anything close to the scale of the United States John Adams in his frustration said the law givers of antiquity legislated for single cities who can legislate for 20 or 30 States Each of which is greater than Greece or Rome the answer came more than anyone from James Madison he said that politics consists of conflicting interests any one group that stands behind a particular interest is a faction he then says we should expect factions to look out for their own interests which might be against other people's interests and might be against the community's interests so in this scheme there's not a limit on the amount of factions there can be and factions can be majorities or minorities he then says we should design a government where it's difficult for any one faction to gain control over the whole thing in practice that meant making three branches of government each with limited power and each with the ability to check the power of the others the legislative branch was further broken into two Chambers one intended to represent the many and the other intended to represent the few only after both Chambers approve legislation can it be sent to the president to sign into law so the complexity of the system makes it difficult for any one faction to grab the reins of government for itself it'd be much more difficult than say persuading a single assembly a network of further checks was laid in place either at the time or shortly after guaranteeing individual rights by law like property rights or Free Speech limits the government's power against citizens but also limits the majority's ability to use the government against other citizens an independent Judiciary places the highest legal decisions outside of public control limiting National power against state power is another one protecting minority populations and States against National majority populations it was also decided to make America a representative democracy and they had a few reasons for that for one it made practical sense in a country the size of the United States it didn't make sense to expect average citizens to commute to wherever decisions were made or to keep up with the intricacies of Politics the larger a country is and the more connected it is to other countries the more complicated its politics become it seemed to make more sense to hire Representatives who could travel and spend their time keeping up with the complexity of politics representatives were also thought to be a check on what they saw as the emotional excesses of popular crowds Madison argued that passing the Public's views through Representatives allowed the cooler wisdom of an elite few to best discern the interests of the country you can take it or leave it but that was his logic he was trying to prevent for example the public from voting for short-term policies that would Doom the country in the long run most of what makes this system Democratic is that these representatives are chosen by the citizens so the representatives have to compete against each other in an election they have to run for office and convince the public that they're the right person for the job that also makes this government somewhat accountable to the people and that these Representatives probably want to please the public in order to attain and secure their jobs so going up to the very highest offices the citizens choose who they want to represent them and if they don't like their performance in the next election cycle they can peacefully rotate them out of a job so what they ended up with was a government where the people had control over the very highest officials in charge like the president and members of Congress and that the people get to pick who they are and get rid of them if they don't like them but they also created a government that's difficult and even near impossible to control in its entirety in short the American people can only hope for at best partial and somewhat indirect control over their government exclusions at the time made the initial system even more undemocratic American politics have in some ways become more democratic over time and in other ways less democratic for the sake of not repeating myself I think the best place to cover that will be in the conclusion so let's get to that I started this video out saying I would end it by squaring the concept of democracy against both societies so it's time to do that let's start with the definition I'd say democracy is a form of political organization where the people living under political institutions simultaneously exercise control over them to be transparent I got that wording by reformulating a statement that Sean Williams made in the rise of American democracy when he said democracy appears when some large number of previously excluded ordinary persons what the 18th century called the many secure the power not simply to select their Governors but to oversee the institutions of government virtually all the definitions I've seen center around the same idea the idea that democracy is government by the people with the people being understood as broadly as possible but I prefer definitions that are less abstract and more precise another way to say it is that you have democracy when the people living under a government control it if we can accept that then the task of figuring out whether Society is Democratic or not becomes relatively simple we have two main factors here the people and their control to figure out then how Democratic a society is you have to answer how broadly realized is this concept of the people when we're talking about democracy we're talking about realizing the people in terms of political equality are there exclusions is there one type of person being privileged over another that reduces democracy it makes that Society less Democratic the second factor is control how thorough is the people's control over over their institutions for our purposes today we're only going to square this against Athens in America and we're going to start by looking at Athens the control that Athenian citizens had over their government was incredibly thorough the citizens directly controlled the three most powerful organs of government the assembly the Council of 500 and the Law Courts its few elected officials were heavily constrained in their power subject to law and supervised by the people it's hard to imagine a society where the people have greater control over the institutions of their government so in that way Athens was highly Democratic even purely Democratic but who are the people in Athens only adult male pre-citizens had political rights so that's only around 10 or 20 percent of the population so that means that between 80 and 90 percent of the Athenian population didn't have access to political privileges if you could just parse that sentence that pretty much tells the story so Athenian democracy was both remarkably thorough and remarkably narrow it was thorough in the amount of control that the people had over the government and narrow in the amount of people enjoying those privileges you also have to remember that those exclusions were normal for the time so you have to take historical context into account if that Society existed today it'd be more controversial to call it Democratic but as it stands it was an ancient Society since their control over government was so thorough and their exclusions were normal for the time I think it's safe to call ancient Athens democratic America is basically the opposite Story American democracy began as a limited democracy similar to the Democracy under cleisthenes if you remember him as I described over the last third of this video the control that the American people had over their government from the beginning was partial mostly just in the form of elections of Representatives the people who held those privileges in the beginning was like Athens a narrow band of people white male property holders so given that I think early American democracy was at best a limited democracy the controls over government were too partial and there was too much political inequality there were two main groups being excluded from Politics the limitations on the Public's ability to control their government that I described in this video all still exist said the American public's ability to control their government is still at best partial in some ways it's become even more limited for example with the rise of Institutions like the CIA and the FBI which are effectively outside of the Public's control but the scope of people included in American politics has significantly expanded over the last say 200 years propertyless people women and slaves were all seen as dependents in early America and therefore Unworthy of political privileges after a Civil War and a string of civil rights movements virtually all adult citizens in America now formally have equal political rights only a few exclusions still stand like non-citizens and children and criminals in some circumstances so the people in America is now realized about as broadly as it's been at anywhere at any time but their ability to control the government is limited and that it mainly rests on elections to make a judgment I think America is a democracy the ability to hire and dismiss your policy makers and your leaders is a powerful one it's arguably the most powerful one short of private citizens directly setting policy themselves but the power of the public is limited enough to make me roughly agree with the Democracy theorist Robert Dahl when he said that he believed that Madison went about as far as it's possible to go while still remaining in the rubric of democracy which is to say that American institutions are about as undemocratic as they can be while still deserving the name I think many hear that and automatically condemn the United States but I think it's important to say as a last note that that's not necessarily the case democracy isn't a concept that has to be maximized at all times and under all circumstances it's not self-evident that the more democracy we have the more fully we're able to realize a democracy the better off we are so it could be that more democracy would be good for America but also maybe not so think for yourself that's it for me today thank you very much for watching and goodbye [Music] foreign