‘America shouldn’t do this. That’s undemocratic!” “America has to do things this way. That’s how a republic works!”
People often toss around labels to justify their opinions. Labeling a government by type is like grouping people by broad categories — it’s a flawed way of analyzing anything individually, as everyone and everything has unique characteristics.
But in the process of believing our country should act certain ways because we’ve labeled it as a democracy or a republic, it’s useful to look back at how those forms of government were created and decide how similar we really are.
“Democracy” comes from the Greek words demos, meaning “the mob,” and kratos, meaning “power.” The most famous ancient Greek democracy was found in Athens, but what did it look like?
First, it governed for less than 200 years, functioning like this — each day, issues were presented for yes-or-no votes before the demos, which was whatever group of citizens (free men born to Athenian parents) happened to show up to the voting grounds before space ran out. Citizens would make speeches and a vote would be called, conducted battle-of-the-bands style. Loudest bloc of voters carried the issue, no actual counting took place. And yes, this led to problems.
The demos was drawn from the full pool of Athenian citizens, some living upwards of 25 miles away from the city. If you wanted to vote, you had to give up the day of work and head into the city, spend the day long hanging out at the grounds, hoping you got in before space ran out. This favored a few groups, particularly the very broke without a job (as voters were paid a day’s minimum wage for participating) and the wealthy elite.
Eventually, Athens progressed from a city into an empire spanning parts of mainland Greece and islands stretching to the coast of Turkey. When it came to governing this empire, how did the first-several-thousand-voters-paid-to-show-up-each-day strategy fare? Let’s look to Mytilene, a city which revolted from Athenian rule and declared independence. The Athenian military swept in, subdued the rebellion, and awaited instructions from the demos on how to proceed.
A citizen presented that day’s voters with a straightforward question: punish the instigators and move on or execute every man, sell every woman and child into slavery? The demos went with the second option. A ship was sent to Mytilene.
The next day, some citizens wanted a re-vote, perhaps feeling pangs of conscience. The same choice was presented to that day’s voters, who voted for the first option: spare the general public. A ship was sent off, hopefully faster than the first.
When another city, Melos, similarly tested Athenian supremacy a few years later, the demos, regretting their leniency with Mytilene, switched back, choosing to execute the men and enslave the rest of the populace.
And so, the decisions of an empire swung on whatever the first few thousand free Athenian men to show up voted to do that day.
But we don’t do that! We invest that power into the hands of elected representatives. We’re a republic! Well, Rome coined republicanism, so let’s turn there. “Republic” comes from Latin res, for “affair,” and publica, meaning “public.”
Representatives were free men, typically with no requirement to own land or be rich. In practice, however, these positions were overwhelmingly held by citizens who were from a select few families, incredibly wealthy, or both.
Although people voted for representatives, it had a Roman twist — the Mafia-esque patron-client system. A patron was a wealthy citizen who did favors for his clients, in return for the client voting to support the patron’s agenda. Patrons were in turn clients to more powerful patrons, the society forming a pyramid. Thus, elections were less about convincing the populace as a whole, and more about winning over a few key patrons at the highest levels, who would each carry with them hundreds of thousands of votes.
Lastly, public offices were held in a certain order (imagine if one was required to be a governor before becoming president). Each lower office presented an opportunity for Roman aristocrats to make a lasting impression on the public by personally funding extravagant enterprises (gladiatorial games, free-food-giveaways, theater festivals, etc.). Often, one would borrow enormous fortunes from a super-wealthy patron, use that money to finance his own political gain, and when time the came to pay the bill, instigate a war with a foreign people and take their money. And so Rome dominated Europe.
Are these governments ours? No. We didn’t replicate them, we Hollywood based-on-a-true-storied them. There are seeds of similarity that grew into different trees. We clearly have things in common, but in several critical ways the American system is unique and different, and we should be glad for how different it is.
So it does our modern government a disservice when we casually categorize ourselves by the ancient terms of democracy or republic with an aim to justify some political argument. Such claims create shields for people to hide behind, to protect them from actually exploring the merits of an idea. Let’s instead throw those labels aside as we debate decisions for America today.
(Chris Pappavaselio taught Latin and is studying law at UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law.)