Democracy
Revisited:The Ancients and the Moderns
by Alain de Benoist
"The
defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy,
wrote George Orwell.1 This does not seem to be
a recent phenomenon. Guizot remarked in 1849: So powerful
is the sway of the word democracy, that no government and
no party dares to live, or thinks it can, without inscribing
this word on its banner.2 This is truer today
than ever before. Not everybody is a democrat, but everybody
pretends to be one. There is no dictatorship that does not
regard itself as a democracy. The former communist countries
of Eastern Europe did not merely represent themselves as democratic,
as attested by their constitutions;3 they vaunted
themselves as the only real democracies, in contrast to the
formal democracies of the West.
The near
unanimity on democracy as a word, albeit not always a fact,
gives the notion of democracy a moral and almost religious
content, which, from the very outset, discourages further
discussion. Many authors have recognized this problem. Thus,
in 1939, T.S. Eliot declared: When a word acquires a
universally sacred character . . . , as has today the word
democracy, I begin to wonder, whether, by all it attempts
to mean, it still means anything at all.4
Bertrand de Jouvenel was even more explicit: The discussion
on democracy, the arguments in its favor, or against it, point
frequently to a degree of intellectual shallowness, because
it is not quite clear what this discussion is all about.5
Giovanni Sartori added in 1962: In a somewhat paradoxical
vein, democracy could be defined as a high-flown name for
something which does not exist.6 Julien Freund
also noted, in a somewhat witty tone:
To
claim to be a democrat means little, because one can be a
democrat in a contradictory mannereither in the manner
of the Americans or the English, or like the East European
communists, Congolese, or Cubans. It is perfectly natural
that under such circumstances I refuse to be a democrat, because
my neighbor might be an adherent of dictatorship while invoking
the word democracy.7
Thus we
can see that the universal propagation of the term democracy
does not contribute much to clarifying the meaning of democracy.
Undoubtedly, we need to go a step further.
The first
idea that needs to be dismissedan idea still cherished
by someis that democracy is a specific product of the
modern era, and that democracy corresponds to a developed
stage in the history of political regime. 8
This does not seem to be substantiated by the facts.
Democracy is neither more modern nor more evolved
than other forms of governance. Governments with democratic
tendencies have appeared throughout history. We note that
the linear perspective used in this type of analysis can be
particularly deceiving. The idea of progress, when applied
to a political regime, appears devoid of meaning. If one subscribes
to this type of linear reasoning, it is easy to advance the
argument of the self-evidence of democracy, which,
according to liberals, arises spontaneously in
the realm of political affairs just as the market spontaneously
accords with the logic of demand and supply. Jean Baechler
notes:
If
we accept the hypothesis that men, as an animal species(sic),
aspire spontaneously to a democratic regime which promises
them security, prosperity, and liberty, we must then also
conclude that, the minute these requirements have been met,
the democratic experience automatically emerges, without ever
needing the framework of ideas.9
What exactly
are these requirements that produce democracy,
in the same manner as fire causes heat? They bear closer
examination.
In contrast
to the Orient, absolute despotism has always been rare in
Europe. Whether in ancient Rome, or in Homers
Iliad, Vedantic India, or among the Hittites, one can observe
very early the existence of popular assemblies, both military
and civilian. In Indo-European societies kings were usually
elected; in fact, all ancient monarchies were first elective
monarchies. Tacitus relates that among the Germans chieftains
were elected on account of their valor, and kings on account
of their noble birth (reges ex nobilitate duces ex virtute
sumunt). In France, for instance, the crown was long both
elective and hereditary. It was only with Pippin the Short
that the king was chosen from within the same family, and
only after Hugh Capet that the principle of primogeniture
was adopted. In Scandinavia, the king was elected by a provincial
assembly; that election had then to be confirmed by the other
national assemblies.
Among
the Germanic peoples the practice of shieldingor
raising the new king on his soldiers' shieldswas widespread.10
The Holy Roman Emperor was also elected, and the importance
of the role of the princely electors in the history of Germany
should not be neglected. By and large, it was only with
the beginning of the twelfth century in Europe that elective
monarchy gradually gave way to hereditary monarchy.
Until the French Revolution, kings ruled with the aid of parliaments
which possessed considerable executive powers. In almost all
European communities it was long the status of freeman that
conferred political rights on the citizen. Citizens
were constituent members of free popular communes, which among
other things possessed their own municipal charters, and sovereign
rulers were surrounded by councils in the decision-making
process. Moreover, the influence of customary law on juridical
practice was an index of popular participation
in defining the laws. In short, it cannot be stated that Europes
old monarchies were devoid of popular legitimacy.
The oldest
parliament in the Western world, the althing, the federal
assembly of Iceland, whose members gathered yearly in the
inspired setting of Thingvellir, emerged as early as 930 A.D.
Adam von Bremen wrote in 1076: They have no king, only
the laws. The thing, or local parliament, designated
both a location and the assembly where freemen with equal
political rights convened at a fixed date in order to legislate
and render justice.11 In Iceland the freeman enjoyed
two inalienable privileges: he had a right to bear arms and
to a seat in the thing. The Icelanders, writes
Frederick Durand
created
and experienced what one could call by some uncertain yet
suggestive analogy a kind of Nordic Hellas, i.e., a community
of freemen who participated actively in the affairs of the
community. Those communities were surprisingly well cultivated
and intellectually productive, and, in addition, were united
by bonds based on esteem and respect.12
Scandinavian
democracy is very old and one can trace its origins to the
Viking era, observes Maurice Gravier. 13
In all of northern Europe this democratic tradition
was anchored in a very strong communitarian sentiment, a propensity
to live together (zusammenleben), which
constantly fostered the primacy of the common interest over
that of the individual. Such democracy, typically, included
a certain hierarchical structure, which explains why one could
describe it as aristo-democracy. This tradition,
based also on the concept of mutual assistance and a sense
of common responsibility, remains alive in many countries
today, for instance, in Switzerland.
The belief
that the people were originally the possessor of power was
common throughout the Middle Ages. Whereas the clergy
limited itself to the proclamation omnis potestas a Deo,
other theorists argued that power could emanate from God only
through the intercession of the people. The belief of the
power of divine right should therefore be seen
in an indirect form, and not excluding the reality of the
people. Thus, Marsilius of Padua did not hesitate to proclaim
the concept of popular sovereignty; significantly, he did
so in order to defend the supremacy of the emperor (at the
time, Ludwig of Bavaria) over the Church. The idea of
linking the principle of the people to its leaders was further
emphasized in the formula populus et proceres (the
people and the nobles), which appears frequently in old texts.
Here
we should recall the democratic tendencies evident in ancient
Rome, 14 the republics of medieval Italy, the French
and Flemish communes, the Hanseatic municipalities, and the
free Swiss cantons. Let us further note the ancient boerenvrijheid
(peasants freedom) that prevailed in medieval
Frisian provinces and whose equivalent could be found along
the North Sea, in the Low Lands, in Flanders, Scandinavia,
Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Finally, it is worth mentioning
the existence of important communal movements based on free
corporate structures, the function of which was to provide
mutual help and to pursue economic and political goals. Sometimes
these movements clashed with king and Church, which were supported
by the burgeoning bourgeoisie. At other times, however, communal
movements backed the monarchy in its fight against the feudal
lords, thus contributing to the rise of the mercantile bourgeoisie.15
In reality,
most political regimes throughout history can be qualified
as mixed ones. All ancient democracies, writes
François Perroux, were governed by a de facto or de
jure aristocracy, unless they were governed by a monarchical
principle. 16 According to Aristotle,
Solon's constitution was oligarchic in terms of its Areopagus,
aristocratic in terms of its magistrates, and democratic in
terms of the make-up of its tribunals. It combined the advantages
of each type of government. Similarly, Polybius argues that
Rome was, in view of the power of its consuls, an elective
monarchy; in regard to the powers of the Senate, an aristocracy;
and regarding the rights of the people, a democracy. Cicero,
in his De Republica, advances a similar view. Monarchy
need not exclude democracy, as is shown by the example of
contemporary constitutional and parliamentary monarchies today.
After all, it was the French monarchy in 1789 that convoked
the Estates-General. [D]emocracy, taken in the broad
sense, admits of various forms, observed Pope Pius XII,
and can be realized in monarchies as well as in republics.
17
Let us
add that the experience of modern times demonstrates that
neither government nor institutions need play a decisive role
in shaping social life. Comparable types of government
may disguise different types of societies, whereas different
governmental forms may mask identical social realities. (Western
societies today have an extremely homogeneous structure even
though their institutions and constitutions sometimes offer
substantial differences.)
So now
the task of defining democracy appears even more difficult.
The etymological approach has its limits. According
to its original meaning, democracy means the power of
the people. Yet this power can be interpreted
in different ways. The most reasonable approach, therefore,
seems to be the historical approachan approach that
explains genuine democracy as first of all the
political system of that ancient people that simultaneously
invented the word and the fact.
The notion
of democracy did not appear at all in modern political thought
until the eighteenth century. Even then its mention was sporadic,
frequently with a pejorative connotation. Prior to the French
Revolution the most advanced philosophers had
fantasized about mixed regimes combining the advantages of
an enlightened monarchy and popular representation.
Montesquieu acknowledged that a people could have the right
to control, but not the right to rule. Not a single
revolutionary constitution claimed to have been inspired by
democratic principles. Robespierre was,
indeed, a rare person for that epoch, who toward the end of
his reign, explicitly mentioned democracy (which did not however
contribute to the strengthening of his popularity in the years
to come), a regime that he defined as a representative form
of government, i.e., 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 themselves. 18
It was
in the United States that the word democracy first became
widespread, notably when the notion of republic
was contrasted to the notion of democracy.
Its usage became current at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, especially with the advent of Jacksonian democracy
and the subsequent establishment of the Democratic Party.
The word, in turn, crossed the Atlantic again and became firmly
implanted in Europeto the profit of the constitutional
debates that filled the first half of the nineteenth century.
Tocqueville's book Democracy in America, the success
of which was considerable, made the term a household word.
Despite
numerous citations, inspired by antiquity, that adorned the
philosophical and political discourse of the eighteenth century,
the genuine legacy drawn from ancient democracy was at that
time very weak. The philosophers seemed more enthralled
with the example of Sparta than Athens. The debate Sparta
vs. Athens, frequently distorted by bias or ignorance,
pitted the partisans of authoritarian egalitarianism against
the tenets of moderate liberalism. 19 Rousseau,
for instance, who abominated Athens, expressed sentiments
that were rigorously pro-Spartiate. In his eyes, Sparta was
first and foremost the city of equals (hómoioi). By
contrast, when Camille Desmoulins thundered against Sparta,
it was to denounce its excessive egalitarianism. He attacked
the Girondin Brissot, that pro-Lycurgian, who has rendered
his citizens equal just as a tornado renders equal all those
who are about to drown. All in all, this type of discourse
remained rather shallow. The cult of antiquity was primarily
maintained as a metaphor for social regeneration, as exemplified
by Saint-Just's words hurled at the Convention: The
world has been empty since the Romans; their memory can replenish
it and it can augur liberty. 20
If we
wish now to continue our study of genuine democracy,
we must once again turn to Greek democracy rather than to
those regimes that the contemporary world designates by the
word.
The comparison
between ancient democracies and modern democracies has frequently
turned into an academic exercise. 21 It is generally
emphasized that the former were direct democracies, whereas
the latter (due to larger areas and populations) are representative
democracies. Moreover, we are frequently reminded that slaves
were excluded from the Athenian democracy; consequently, the
idea emerged that Athens was not so democratic, after all.
These two affirmations fall somewhat short of satisfying answers.
Readied
by political and social evolution during the sixth century
b.c., as well as by reforms made possible by Solon, Athenian
democracy entered its founding stage with the reforms of Cleisthenes,
who returned from exile in 508 b.c.
Firmly established from 460 b.c.,
it continued to thrive for the next one hundred and fifty
years. Pericles, who succeeded Ephialtes in 461 b.c.,
gave democracy an extraordinary reputation, which did not
at all prevent him from exercising, for more than thirty years,
a quasi-royal authority over the city. 22
For the
Greeks democracy was primarily defined 23 by its
relationship to two other systems: tyranny and aristocracy.
Democracy presupposed three conditions: isonomy (equality
before laws); isotimy (equal rights to accede to all public
offices); and isegory (liberty of expression). This
was direct democracy, known also as face to face
democracy, since all citizens were allowed to take part in
the ekklesía, or Assembly. Deliberations were prepared
by the boulé(Council), although in fact it was the
popular assembly that made policy. The popular assembly nominated
ambassadors; decided over the issue of war and peace, preparing
military expeditions or bringing an end to hostilities; investigated
the performance of magistrates; issued decrees; ratified laws;
bestowed the rights of citizenship; and deliberated on matters
of Athenian security. In short, writes Jacqueline de
Romilly, the people ruled, instead of being ruled by
elected individuals. She cites 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. 24
Democracy
in Athens meant first and foremost a community of citizens,
that is, a community of people gathered in the ekklesía.
Citizens were classified according to their membership in
a demea grouping which had a territorial, social, and
administrative significance. The term démos, which
is of Doric origin, designates those who live in a given territory,
with the territory constituting a place of origin and determining
civic status. 25 To some extent démos and
ethnos coincide: democracy could not be conceived in relationship
to the individual, but only in the relationship to the polis,
that is to say, to the city in its capacity as an organized
community. Slaves were excluded from voting not because they
were slaves, but because they were not citizens. We
seem shocked by this today, yet, after all, which democracy
has ever given voting rights to non-citizens? 26
The notions
of citizenship, liberty, or equality of political rights,
as well as of popular sovereignty, were intimately interrelated.
The most essential element in the notion of citizenship was
someone's origin and heritage. Pericles was the son
of Xanthippus from the deme of Cholargus. Beginning
in 451 b.c., one had to be born
of an Athenian mother and father in order to become a citizen.
Defined by his heritage, the citizen (polítes) is opposed
to idiótes, the non-citizena designation that
quickly took on a pejorative meaning (from the notion of the
rootless individual one arrived at the notion of idiot).
Citizenship as function derived thus from the notion of citizenship
as status, which was the exclusive prerogative of birth. To
be a citizen meant, in the fullest sense of the word, to have
a homeland, that is, to have both a homeland and a history.
One is born an Athenianone does not become one (with
rare exceptions). Furthermore, the Athenian tradition discouraged
mixed marriages. Political equality, established by law, flowed
from common origins that sanctioned it as well. Only birth
conferred individual politeía. 27
Democracy
was rooted in the concept of autochthonous citizenship, which
intimately linked its exercise to the origins of those who
exercised it. The Athenians in the fifth century celebrated
themselves as the autochthonous people of great Athens,
and it was within that founding myth that they placed the
pivot of their democracy. 28
In Greek,
as well as in Latin, liberty proceeds from someone's origin.
Free man *(e)leudheros (Greek eleútheros),
is primarily he who belongs to a certain stock
(cf. in Latin the word liberi, children).
To be born of a good stock is to be free, writes
Emile Benveniste, this is one and the same." 29
Similarly, in the German language, the kinship between the
words frei, free, and Freund, friend,
indicates that in the beginning, liberty sanctioned mutual
relationship. The Indo-European root *leudh-,
from which derive simultaneously the Latin liber and
the Greek eleútheros, also served to designate people
in the sense of a national group (cf. Old Slavonic ljudú,
people; German Leute, people,
both of which derive from the root evoking the idea of growth
and development).
The original
meaning of the word liberty does not suggest at
all liberationin a sense of emancipation
from collectivity. Instead, it implies inheritancewhich
alone confers liberty. Thus when the Greeks spoke of
liberty, they did not have in mind the right to break away
from the tutelage of the city or the right to rid themselves
of the constraints to which each citizen was bound. Rather,
what they had in mind was the right, but also the political
capability, guaranteed by law, to participate in the life
of the city, to vote in the assembly, to elect magistrates,
etc. Liberty did not legitimize secession; instead, it sanctioned
its very opposite: the bond which tied the person to his city.
This was not liberty-autonomy, but a liberty-participation;
it was not meant to reach beyond the community, but was practised
solely in the framework of the polis. Liberty meant
adherence. The liberty of an individual without
heritage, i.e. of a deracinated individual, was completely
devoid of any meaning.
If we
therefore assume that liberty was directly linked to the notion
of democracy, then it must be added that liberty meant first
and foremost the liberty of the people, from which subsequently
the liberty of citizens proceeds. In other words, only the
liberty of the people (or of the city) can lay the foundations
for the equality of political and individual rights,
i.e., rights enjoyed by individuals in the capacity of citizens.
Liberty presupposes independence as its first condition. Man
lives in society, and therefore individual liberty cannot
exist without collective liberty. Among the Greeks, individuals
were free because (and in so far as) their city was free.
When Aristotle
defines man as a political animal, as a social
being, when he asserts that the city precedes the individual
and that only within society can the individual achieve his
potential (Politics, 1253a 1920), he also suggests
that man should not be detached from his role of citizen,
a person living in the framework of an organized community,
of a polis, or a civitas. Aristotle's views stand in
contrast to the concept of modern liberalism, which posits
that the individual precedes society, and that man, in the
capacity of a self-sufficient individual, is at once something
more than just a citizen.30
Hence,
in a community of freemen, individual interests
must never prevail over common interests. All constitutions
whose objectives are common interest, writes Aristotle,
are in accordance with absolute justice. By contrast,
those whose objective is the personal interest of the governors
tend to be defective. (Politics, 1279a 17sq).
In contrast to what one can see, for instance, in Euripides'
works, the city in Aeschylus' tragedies is regularly described
as a communal entity. This sense of community,
writes Moses I. Finley, fortified by the state religion,
the myths and traditions, was the essential source of success
in Athenian democracy. 31
In Greece,
adds Finley, liberty meant the rule of law and participation
in the decision- making processand not necessarily the
enjoyment of inalienable rights.32
The law is identified with the genius of the city. To
obey the law meant to be devoted with zeal to the will of
the community," observes Paul Veyne.33 As Cicero
wrote, only liberty can pave the way for legality: Legum
servi
sumus ut liberi esse possimus (We are the servants
of the law in order that we can be free, Oratio pro
Cluentio, 53.)
In his
attempt to show that liberty is the fundamental principle
of democracy (Politics, VII, 1), Aristotle succeeds
in de-emphasizing the factor of equality. For the Greeks
equality was only one means to democracy, though it could
be an important one. Political equality, however, had to emanate
from citizenship, i.e., from belonging to a given people.
From this it follows that members of the same people (of the
same city), irrespective of their differences, shared the
desire to be citizens in the same and equal manner.
This equality of rights by no means reflects a belief in natural
equality. The equal right of all citizens to participate
in the assembly does not mean that men are by nature equal
(nor that it would be preferable that they were), but rather
that they derive from their common heritage a common capacity
to exercise the right of suffrage, which is the privilege
of citizens. As the appropriate means to this téchne,
equality remains exterior to man. This process, as much as
it represents the logical consequence of common heritage,
is also the condition for common participation. In the eyes
of the ancient Greeks it was considered natural that all citizens
be associated with political life not by virtue of universal
and imprescriptible rights of humans as such, but from the
fact of common citizenship. In the last analysis, the crucial
notion was not equality but citizenship. Greek democracy was
that form of government in which each citizen saw his liberty
as firmly founded on an equality that conferred on him the
right to civic and political liberties.
The study
of ancient democracy has elicited divergent views from contemporary
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); for yet others, ancient democracy is essentially totalitarian
(Giovanni Sartori). 34 In general, everybody seems
to concur that the difference between ancient democracy and
modern democracy is considerable. Curiously, it is modern
democracy that is used as a criterion for the democratic consistency
of the former. This type of reasoning sounds rather
odd. As we have observed, it was only belatedly that those
modern national governments today styled democracies
came to identify themselves with this word. Consequently,
after observers began inquiring into ancient democracy, and
realized that it was different from modern democracy, they
drew the conclusion that ancient democracy was less
democratic than modern democracy. But, in reality, should
we not proceed from the inverse type of reasoning? It must
be reiterated that democracy was born in Athens in the fifth
century b.c. Therefore, it is Athenian democracy (regardless of
ones judgments for or against it) that should be used
as an example of a genuine type of democracy.
Granted that contemporary democratic regimes differ from Athenian
democracy, we must then assume that they differ from democracy
of any kind. We can see again where this irks most of our
contemporaries. Since nowadays everyone boasts of being a
perfect democrat, and given the fact that Greek democracy
resembles not at all those before our eyes, it is naturally
the Greeks who must bear the brunt of being less democratic!
We thus arrive at the paradox that Greek democracy, in which
the people participated daily in the exercise of power, is
disqualified on the grounds that it does not fit into the
concept of modern democracy, in which the people, at best,
participate only indirectly in political life.
There
should be no doubt that ancient democracies and modern democracies
are systems entirely distinct from each other. Even
the parallels that have been sought between them are fallacious.
They have only the name in common, since both have resulted
from completely different historical processes.
Wherein
does this difference lie? It would be wrong to assume
that it is related to either the direct or indirect
nature of the decision-making process. Each of them has a
different concept of man and a different concept of the world,
as well as a different vision of social bonds. The democracy
of antiquity was communitarian and holist; modern
democracy is primarily individualist. Ancient democracy defined
citizenship by a man's origins, and provided him with the
opportunity to participate in the life of the city. Modern
democracy organizes atomized individuals into citizens viewed
through the prism of abstract egalitarianism. Ancient democracy
was based on the idea of organic community; modern democracy,
heir to Christianity and the philosophy of the Enlightenment,
on the individual. In both cases the meaning of the words
city, people, nation,
and liberty are totally changed.
To argue,
therefore, within this context, that Greek democracy was a
direct democracy only because it encompassed a small number
of citizens falls short of a satisfying answer. Direct democracy
need not be associated with a limited number of citizens.
It is primarily associated with the notion of a relatively
homogeneous people that is conscious of what makes it a people.
The effective functioning of both Greek and Icelandic democracy
was the result of cultural cohesion and a clear sense of shared
heritage. The closer the members of a community are
to each other, the more likely they are to have common sentiments,
identical values, and the same way of looking at the world,
and the easier it is for them to make collective decisions
without needing the help of mediators.
In contrast,
having ceased to be places of collectively lived meaning,
modern societies require a multitude of intermediaries. The
aspirations that surface in this type of democracy spring
from contradictory value systems that are no longer reconcilable
with unified decisions. Ever since Benjamin Constant (De
la liberté des anciens comparée à celle des modernes,
1819), we have been able to measure to what degree, under
the impact of individualist and egalitarian ideologies, the
notion of liberty has changed. Therefore, to return
to a Greek concept of democracy does not mean nurturing a
shallow hope of face to face social transparency.
Rather, it means reappropriating, as well as adapting to the
modern world, the concept of the people and communityconcepts
that have been eclipsed by two thousand years of egalitarianism,
rationalism, and the exaltation of the rootless individual.
Alain
de Benoist is a leading French theoretician of the European
New Right, the editor of Nouvelle École,
and a principal founder of the Group for the Research and
Study of European Civilization (GRECE). In 1978 he was awarded
the Grand prix de lessai de lAcadémie francaise.
Translated
by Tomislav Sunic from the authors book Démocratie:
Le problème (Paris: Le Labyrinthe, 1985)
End Notes
1.
George Orwell, Selected Essays (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1957), p. 149.
2.
François Guizot, De la démocratie en France (Paris:
Masson, 1849), p. 9.
3.
Georges Burdeau observes that judging by appearances, in
terms of their federal organization, the institutions of
the Soviet Union are similar to those of the United States,
and in terms of its governmental system the Soviet Union
is similar to England. La démocratie (Paris :
Seuil, 1966), p. 141.
4.
T.S. Eliot, The Idea of a Christian Society (London:
Faber & Faber, 1939).
5.
Bertrand de Jouvenel, Du pouvoir (Geneva : Cheval
ailé 1945), p. 411.
6.
Giovanni Sartori, Democratic Theory (Westport, CT:
Greenwood, 1962), p. 3.
7.
Les démocrates ombrageux, Contrepoint
(December 1976), p. 111.
8.
Other authors have held exactly the opposite opinion.
For Schleiermacher, democracy is a "primitive" political
form in contrast to monarchy, which is thought to correspond
to the demands of the modern state.
9.
Le pouvoir des idées en démocratie,Pouvoir
(May 1983), p. 145.
10.
Significantly, it was with the beginning of the inquiry
into the origins of the French monarchy that the nobility,
under Louis XIV, began to challenge the principles of monarchy.
11.
The word "thing," which designated the parliament, derives
from the Germanic word that connoted originally "everything
that is gathered together." The same word gave birth
to the English "thing" (German Ding: same meaning).
It seems that this word designated the assembly in which
public matters, then affairs of a general nature, and finally
"things" were discussed.
12.
Les fondements de l'État libre d'Icelande: trois siècles
de démocratie médiévale, in Nouvelle Ecole
25-26 (Winter 197475), pp. 6873.
13.
Les Scandinaves (Paris: Lidis [Brepols], 1984), p.
613.
14.
Cf. P.M. Martin, L'idée de royauté ... Rome. De
la Rome royale au consensus républicain (Clermont-Ferrand:
Adosa, 1983).
15.
Here "democracy," as in the case of peasants freedoms
as well, already included social demands, although not "class
struggle"a concept ignored by ancient democracy. In
the Middle Ages the purpose of such demands was to give
voice to those who were excluded from power. But it
often happened that "democracy" could be used against the
people. In medieval Florence, social strife between
the "popolo grosso" and the "popolo minuto" was particularly
brisk. On this Francesco Nitti writes: "The
reason the working classes of Florence proved lukewarm in
defense of their liberty and sympathized instead with the
Medicis was because they remained opposed to democracy,
which they viewed as a concept of the rich bourgeoisie."
Francesco Nitti, La démocratie, vol. 1 (Paris: Felix
Alcan, 1933), p. 57.)
16.
This opinion is shared by the majority of students of ancient
democracies. Thus, Victor Ehrenberg sees in Greek
democracy a "form of enlarged aristocracy." Victor Ehrenberg,
Létat grec (Paris: Maspéro, 1976), p. 94.
17.
Pius XII, 1944 Christmas Message
18.
M. Robespierre, On Political Morality, speech
to the Convention, February 5, 1794.
19.
On this debate, see the essay by Luciano Guerci, Liberta
degli antichi e liberta dei moderni, in Sparta,
Atene e i `philosophes' nella Francia del Setecento
(Naples: Guido, 1979).
20.
Camille Desmoulins, speech to the Convention, March 31,
1794. It is significant that contemporary democrats appear
to be more inclined to favor Athens. Sparta, in contrast,
is denounced for its "war-like spirit." This change in discourse
deserves a profound analysis.
21.
Cf., for example, the essay by Moses Finley, Démocratie
antique et démocratie moderne (Paris: Payot, 1976),
which is both an erudite study and a pamphlet of great contemporary
relevance. The study is prefaced by Pierre Vidal-Naquet,
who, among other errors, attributes to Julien Freund (see
n. 7, above) positions which are exactly the very opposite
of those stated in the preface.
22.
To cite Thucydides: "Thanks to his untainted character,
the depth of his vision, and boundless disinterestedness,
Pericles exerted on Athens an incontestable influence.
Since he owed his prestige only to honest means, he did
not have to truckle to popular passions.
In a word,
democracy supplied the name; but in reality, it was the
government of the first citizen." (Peloponnesian War
II, 65)
23.
One of the best works on this topic is Jacqueline de Romilly's
essay Problèmes de la démocratie grecque (Paris:
Hermann, 1975).
24.
Romilly, Problèmes de la démocratie grecque.
25.
The word démos is opposed to the word
laós, a term employed in Greece to designate
the people, but with the express meaning of "the community
of warriors."
26.
In France, the right to vote was implemented only in stages.
In 1791 the distinction was still made between "active citizens"
and "passive citizens." Subsequently, the electorate was
expanded to include all qualified citizens able to pay a
specified minimum of taxes. Although universal suffrage
was proclaimed in 1848, it was limited to males until 1945.
27.
On the evolution of that notion, see Jacqueline Bordes,
Politeia dans la pensée grecque jusquà
Aristote (Paris : Belles Lettres, 1982).
28.
Nicole Loraux interprets the Athenian notion of citizenship
as a result of the "imaginary belonging to an autochthonous
people" (Les enfants d'Athéna. Idées athéniennes sur
la citoyenneté et la divison des sexes [Paris: Maspéro,
1981]). The myth of Erichthonios (or Erechtheus) explains
in fact the autochthonous character and the origins of the
masculine democracy, at the same time as it grafts the Athenian
ideology of citizenship onto immemorial foundations.
29.
Emile Benveniste, Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes,
vol. 1 (Paris : Minuit, 1969), p. 321.
30.
On the work of Aristotle and his relationship with the Athenian
constitution, see James Day and Mortimer Chambers, Aristotle,
History of Athenian Democracy (Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press, 1962).
31.
Finley, Démocratie antique et démocratie moderne, p.
80.
32.
Finley, Démocratie antique et démocratie moderne,
p. 141.
33.
Veyne adds: "Bourgeois liberalism organizes cruising ships
in which each passenger must take care of himself as best
as he can, the crew being there only to provide for the
common goods and services. By contrast, the Greek city was
a ship where the passengers made up the crew." Paul Veyne,
"Les Grecs ont-ils connu la démocratie? Diogène
October-December 1983, p. 9.
34.
For the liberal critique of Greek democracy, see Paul Veyne,
"Les Grecs ont-ils connu la démocratie?" and Giovanni Sartori,
Democratic Theory (see n. 6 above).
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