Democracy was invented in the ancient city of Athens by Cleisthenes about 2,500 years ago. In Greek, ‘Demos’ means ‘the people of the community’; ‘Kratos’ means ‘power’ or ‘authority to decide’. ‘Demos-kratia’ (Demokratia) means ‘a system to decide what a group should do in which ALL members have the right TO PARTICIPATE in all decisions’.
Nowadays we would call this a ‘Direct Democracy’ as citizens themselves - not their representatives - decide all policies.
In Athenian, Demos-kratia 2,500 years ago - all free adult men (but not women or slaves) decided all the laws and policies of their society. This was not ‘rule by referendum’ that by comparison, asks citizens to vote on questions set by others. Every citizen could propose every law and policy, amend or debate it, and vote on it.
That is authentic democracy.
Denying women and slaves the opportunity to propose and vote on policy is it's major flaw, but at the time, in most ancient societies free men could not decide policy or law. Only kings or elders made all laws and policies. Athenian demos-kratia was unique and evolutionary in that it did allow free men to vote. Today's version of 'authenic democracy' has in fact been perverted and distorted beyond recognition by political ambition to a point that it is now a poor imitation of the founding concept that recognized the individual citizen's right to define their own governance.
Athenian democracy produced the philosophies of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. It invented Theatre, Drama, Biography, Tragedy, Comedy, the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, and the method of proof by logical argument. These accomplishments in human evolution were created in Athens, not in Sparta which was nearby but was ruled by two kings and a council of elders. Philosophy, Theatre, Tragedy, Biography, grew from the public debates on policy which took place before voting, in a square known as the ‘Agora’. Every citizen could express his views in the Agora. On controversial issues there was even a duty (called ‘Parhesia’) to express views publicly -
silence was punished by law.
All citizens debated and voted directly on all laws and policies of Athens..
In Athenian democracy there were no elections. Citizens appointed people to carry out policies. Such appointments were made by lottery, not by election. Posts were granted for one year only. No one could serve two consecutive years. Each year new lotteries appointed new people and the outgoing ones had to account for their performance and were punished for failures.
Appointing officials by lottery prevented
the formation of an elite and eliminated competition and corruption.
This is the polar opposite for what passes as 'democracy' today. Nowadays ‘Democracy’ means electing a few politicians to decide for all citizens, with a free hand, and no accountability. This contradicts the meaning and spirit of authentic democracy in which all citizens decided all policies, without representatives.
Direct Democracy promotes the concepts and the spirit of authentic Athenian Demos-kratia – returning the unobstructed governing power directly to every individual citizen – as 'individual' freedom demands.
