Inclusivity is a major characteristic of democracy for the modern advocates of more democracy in the world. The more inclusive a government is, the more it includes all of the members of its population, the more democratic it is. It is appropriate, then, to examine how inclusive the Athenian government, the ideal for many advocates of democracy, was. In fact the Athenian government was not inclusive at all.
To begin with, the median member of the Athenian city-state was a slave, who had no rights at all in the government. As much as 80% of the population was enslaved. In these terms, the government was not inclusive at all, and there was no “popular” control. See Winters’ Oligarchy for more details.
If we consider only the citizens of the city-state, as most do, even there the involvement of the citizens in the government was not great. If we assume that 6000 citizens showed up for the assemblies, and that there were another 600-1000 citizens involved in the Council of 500, the juries, and the various magistrate positions, this would be no more than 20% or less of the entire population of citizens. Further, discussion in the assemblies was clearly strongly manipulated by the ruling oligarchs and their chosen orators. This would be no better than the percent of those involved in New England town meetings as indicated by Graham Smith. Is this all that is meant by inclusiveness and popular control?
Of course an equal proportion of those participating in the government of a country with a population of 300 million would mean that 60 million would be participating in the government. Does anyone really want a government of 60 million people?
I conclude that the Athenian government was not a democratic government simply by virtue of how inclusive of its citizens it was. Inclusiveness cannot be considered a viable criterion for how democratic a government is.
If participation in the government is at most at the level of 20% of the population, as it was in ancient Athens and in modern New England town meetings, then that 20% is by definition an elite group. They become elite just by being the ones who participate. The problem is not that they are elite, and therefore, by that simple fact, not representative of the entire population—they are by definition not representative of the rest of the population. The problem is rather one of how to make sure that this elite group is responsible to the rest of the population.
In a small town or city-state, where this elite is likely to know personally most if not all of the rest of the population, it is not hard to imagine how it could be responsive to the rest. Responsibility would be almost automatic, although the elite would likely be more responsive to the powerful and wealthy than to the poor and powerless. This is a fact of human intercourse that will never be changed.
The problem becomes more acute when the population increases to the extent that personal contacts with most of the population is no longer possible. Then the problem becomes one of how to ensure that the (self) chosen elite continues to be responsive to the rest of the population. Two solutions are possible. One could institute a system of choosing the elite proportionately from all of the relevant demographic subgroups in the population—age, gender, ethnicity, etc. The choice within each group would be effectively by lot. Or one could have elections. Selections by lot was used in ancient Athens, at a time when the relevant demographic groups was quite narrow—adult, male citizens, but it has not been used since, outside of a few very special circumstances.
Historically, where power was not acquired through force of arms, the preferred non-violent method has been election. Elections become especially necessary when the relevant population is large and the elite constitute a very small percentage of the total population. Elections are the means by which the responsiveness of the elite is ensured.
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