Magdalena Walczak

Ancient philosophers – critics of Athenian democracy

Democracy was introduced in the ancient city-state of Athens in the sixth century B.C. The name of this new system of political reforms came from a Greek word “demokratia”, which means “rule of the people”. The Athenian democracy survived only for over one century, but it had a great influence on a modern world. This political system has been glorified for many centuries in both feudal and capitalistic countries. Thanks to the passage of time and political actions it became a symbol of freedom, equality and justice – a perfect form without any defects. But is it true? Would the ancient thinkers and philosophers agree with this opinion?

The biggest apologist of ancient democracy and also its theoretician was Pericles. As a talented orator he made a speech in honour of soldiers killed in the Peloponnesian war. In this speech Pericles defined three pillars of democracy: liberty, equal rights and rule of law. He assigned a special role to the freedom of speech, called “isegoria”. However, the golden years of Athenian democracy started to elapse. Its last protagonist was Demosthenes, who lived in the fourth century B.C. and saw the only chance of an opposition to the Macedonian invasion in restoration of unity and democracy. The big crisis of Athenian democratic thought took place in the turn of the fourth and third century B.C.

The main reasons of the collapse of democracy were connected with the economic and political situation in ancient Athens. A great property concentrated in the hands of the rich aristocracy together with a galloping pauperization caused a deep diversity of the Athenian society. The political and economic egalitarianism became compromised. Moreover, there was a big problem with an economic stagnation, a crisis of trade, transport and shipping. The Greek trade was dominated by foreigners and products from distant countries. Alliance pacts and trade agreements were not kept and Macedonians led an aggressive policy against Greek city-states called “polis”. The big influence on the crisis of democracy had also, of course, the popularity of the view of its biggest critics – Plato, Socrates, Xenophon, Aristotle and Isocrates.

What is noteworthy, the vast majority of the Athenian democracy’s critics came from the aristocratic class. They blamed this political system for failures during the Peloponnesian war and claimed that excessive freedom, which was always abused by people, led to demoralisation. This fact causes the imbalance in the social hierarchy, what is unacceptable as people by nature are not equal. Therefore, democracy is an unnatural formation, which can induce only a disaster. Governance is a hard work, impossible to be controlled by simpletons and ignoramuses. The philosophers also thought that the law in democracy is biased and the whole legislation is unstable. People violate their own constitution, because their decisions are changeable.

According to Aristotle, the rule of poor people is inseparably connected with their despotism, anarchy and oppression of the rich and noble. He complained about high taxes, professional informers called “sycophants” and confiscations. He also claimed that in democracy a rich person becomes a slave and a poor one rules the country.

The other critic of the Athenian democracy – Socrates, disapproved selecting officials by the lottery and the practice of diets for them. He considered diets as an incentive to idleness and inactivity. In his opinion, people who were receiving money for official’s work became lazy cowards.

There were many conceptions how to end the crisis of democracy. One of the methods, strongly supported by Xenophon and Isocrates, was the idea of creating a “good monarchy”. Xenophon purposed a conception of aristocratic kingdom, where a king as a father and shepherd of his nation shares the power with aristocracy. The king is obligated to rule in a good, not tyrannical way, together with the elite and the elite is obligated to obey the law and be loyal to the king. According to Xenophon, this monarchy had a task to conquer Persia and create a powerful Greco-Asian empire ruled by Hellenes. This conception of panhellenism was even stronger supported by Isocrates. It shows the weakness of the realistic trend in the Ancient Greek philosophy.

However the synthesis of the criticism of Athenian democracy appears in the thought of most important ancient idealist – Plato. Plato was born in an aristocratic Athenian family, what had an impact on his radical conservative views. As a young man he received an accurate education in the fields of philosophy, politics, poetry, music, painting and geometry. He is also known as the most prominent student of Socrates. Plato spent eight last years before his mentor’s death with him. The death sentence and execution of Socrates had a great influence on Plato’s views. It induced his deep resentment to the Athenian democracy and a pessimistic opinion that the evolution of a city-state is directed on a disaster. According to Plato, all forms of the governing a country lead to a systematic degeneration. A state declines from a timocracy, ruled by the brave, to an oligarchy, ruled by the few. Then it changes into democracy, where the power belongs to the people, and finally becomes a tyranny with an only one person as a ruler. Plato characterized democracy as the most unstable regime of all, a political system with no social disciple , no respect for law and a demoralization among people. He considered freedom in democracy as both supreme good and a slavery. The lower class becomes more and more powerful and people are free to do what they want, what leads to an anarchy, instability and a class war. The only rescue for a state is to introduce the rule of “perfect guardians” – sages and philosophers. Plato’s philosophy was based on the theory of coexisting of two worlds: a perfect world of ideas and the second one that can only reflect them. That’s why he claimed that only the wise and educated philosophers are able to explore the mysteries of the world of ideas and make a use of them. Plato’s ideal state was a system of permanent, good and stable laws, which were based on a social hierarchy.

Undeniably, the Athenian democracy introduced a lot of important changes and reforms into the ancient form of ruling. The changes that we cannot imagine the modern political system without. However, as everything else, the Athenian democracy had its imperfections, which were strongly criticized by the ancient philosophers. Some of their views seem reasonable, some for a modern man appear as a holdover. It is hard to clearly assess the Athenian democracy, considering all the good and bad sides. The ancient philosophers had certainly their rights while criticizing this political system, however, nowadays, living in a democracy and having a different point of view, the majority of us will take their arguments with a grain of salt.