This note is a part of my Zettelkasten. What is below might not be complete or accurate. It is also likely to change often.
21st July, 2020

Democracy and the balance of power

Was democracy always a thin veil for the rich and the elites to hide behind and rule?

Since the first Democracy was established in ancient greece, democracy has always been a game of tug of war between the rich elites and masses. The elites are afraid the majority is fickle, is vulnerable to demagogues and might try to redistribute wealth from the rich to themselves. The majority is afraid the elites will take advantage of their wealth and power to exploit and enslave them.

They have usually reached a compromise at varying levels of balance:

  • In Athens, power was distributed amongst the Ecclesia (the assembly of all adult male citizens: around 40000), the Bolas (500 elites from the 10 major tribes) and the courts (presided by a subset of 6000 jurors from 10 major tribes). They each had different functions and had to keep each other in check. In practice, the courts seemed to have the most power. This was seen as an unjust system by many including Aristotle and Plato who condemned this as a system where the poor terrorized the rich.
  • In the Roman Republic, while most of the Senate was filled with aristocrats and rich merchants, almost all public offices were elected by the masses. The idea was to prevent the masses from annexing the wealth of the rich through their majority, while also giving the masses the power to block the rich from exploiting them. But corruption broke the system and lead to civil war eventually.
  • In modern democracies, the governments are usually divided into the judiciary, the executive and the legislature branches to check and balance each other. Also, numerous supermajority rules exist in order to make sure that minorities are protected.

However, requiring unanimity gives a lot of power to a few. It gives the individual the ability to hold out for unreasonable concessions (leading to a Monopoly problem) and leads to Gridlock.