Ancient Greece, Democracy, and All That
By Taylor Moffitt of Halydean
Ancient Athens is the venerable cradle of democracy, the symbol of modern government, and the icon of enlightened world order. Aside from being the birthplace of our democratic system of government by the people and for the people, ancient Athens was also the birthplace of Greek philosophy, a form of rhetoric that anyone with a PhD will tell you is the bees knees.
In other words, democracy and philosophy are as to the ancient Greeks as baseball and apple pie are to the Americans.
Socrates was known as being the founding father of Greek philosophy. Socrates gave his thoughts of democracy in Book VI of The Republic by Plato as follows: “If you were traveling on a long journey across the ocean in a great large rented ship with a group of tourists, you would need to have somebody in charge of the maps, navigation, how to run the ship and so forth. Who should get to decide the person who is in charge of the large ship and all of its important decision making? The tourists and passengers, or people who are experts in sea faring and maritime veterans?” The man to whom he was speaking wisely answered that certainly experts in sea faring and maritime veterans should make that decision. Socrates then asked, “If this is what you say, why then do you think that any citizen of Athens should be allowed to vote?
Socrates was making the point that voting in an election is an exercise in subject matter mastery, and that letting all citizens vote is as irresponsible and feckless as allowing a group of tourists to vote for their own ship captain. If you have not gathered the point yet, Socrates did not like democracy at all.
Socrates went to his grave hating democracy. In an ironic representation of the intelligence of democracy, Socrates was put on trial for (sic) corrupting the youths of Athens with his now famous Greek rhetoric that has become the backbone of Western logic and science. In this witch hunt, the fate of Socrates was determined, rather iconically, by a popular vote of 100 Athenians. He lost by a vote of two and was sentenced to death by a large group of mostly ignoramus simpletons.
If a group of children were allowed to vote for their developmental care regimen, one scholar might prescribe a regular bedtime, proper diet, exercise, certain routines, limits on video games, and plenty of study. Another might suggest no bedtimes, lots of candy and treats, no mandatory exercise, no limits on video games, and reduced study times. The children would almost certainly always vote for the developmental care regimen that offers them the most instant gratification, even to their detriment.
One need not compose a list of outstanding stupid decisions made by large groups of people voting for what they want. There are ample examples throughout history of elected leaders who acted irresponsibly fawning to the masses by giving people what they wanted rather than what was best for them.
Niall Fergusson is a Scottish historian who formerly taught at Harvard and has published a lot of work on economic history. Fergusson identified a pattern in democratic nations that seem to run their course through a cycle of democracy which includes a growth phase, several other steps involving inflation and currency debasement, and then the inevitable implosion as the nation votes so much free stuff for itself that it eventually faces economic collapse. The correlation to the U.S. is staggering and very sobering.
What, then, is the answer to the best form of government? Socrates taught that the only people who should be allowed to vote are those who have thought about the subjects rationally and deeply. The founding fathers of the US believed that only land-owning males should be allowed to vote, most of whom were wealthy and educated. When people ask me personally, I often like to state that I am Neither a Republican nor a Democrat, but a feudalist. Yep, bring back feudal dictatorship. Try it folks, just vote me in with irrevocable power for a while and give it a try. I’ll be great! The U.S. eventually settled on a representative democracy, which operates on the theory that the masses are too stupid to govern themselves, so elected representatives can vote on their behalf. An example of this is the electoral college that officially votes for the president. Actually, two members of the electoral college defected and did not vote for The Donald, and five abandoned Hillary. In total throughout the history of the U.S., the electoral college has voted contrary to the wishes of its constituents 157 times, including one who was too drunk to properly write out the name of the candidate he wanted. In a representative democracy, the representatives fawn to special interest groups and always vote themselves more salaries and benefits, contrary to what their constituents would want. So that may not be the best option either. The two-party system as a whole even has its flaws, offering one platform or the other, resulting in gridlock, politicians opposing even great ideas that come from the opposing party, and “win-lose” decision making. This is about as effective as trying to get to your destination with someone occasionally throwing your car in reverse.
As underwhelming as all of the above alternatives to democracy are, the advance of technology may afford some better alternatives. As long as artificial intelligence does not become evil and try to extinguish humanity, an artificial intelligence program (“A.I.”) can use algorithms and massive amounts of data gathered about individuals to determine their needs and wants, and then the A.I. can be allowed to vote on behalf of the individual, for what is in the best interest of that individual. Given the votes, another A.I. can be free to govern according to the percentage of votes. Rather than “win-lose”, the A.I. can be free to develop a happy medium in cases where that makes sense. Rather than succumb to pleas for “more taxes” or “lower taxes,” Such an A.I. can be free to objectively calculate the optimum taxation matrix for maximum economic prosperity within the system.
Perhaps Socrates would have struggled to understand algorithms, but maybe he would have been the biggest advocate of just such a new system. So, some day when people finally start to talk about a real possibility of cybernetic democracy, we have the ancient Greeks to thank?
Taylor Moffitt of Halydean 