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18 votes
What do you see as the pros (good things) and cons (bad things) of the Athenian democratic system? Why do you think the system was set up this way?

User Blizz
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1 Answer

16 votes
16 votes

Answer:

Pros:

1.Every male had the same right to speak in the assembly, to run for office or to get elected. Most officials got paid for their job so that poor people could also work in politics without going bankrupt.

2.The discussion of politics was very open to the public, as everything was discussed on the peoples assembly and almost all things were voted on.

3.It made abuse of power complicated, as you could always bring a charge against an official in the peoples assembly. Also, the so called Ostrakismos made it possible to ban corrupt politicians from Athens.

4.Every citizen was included in politics. Because they actively worked in politics, they realized its importance and how they could change their own live if they get active.

Cons:

There were no human rights, there was slavery, women had practically no rights, foreigners got discriminated against. The system was highly undemocratic because only a small share of the population was actually included in politics.

Only a few officials got elected. Most of them got into extremely important offices through random chance. Basically, somebody who couldn't even write was allowed to decide about the live of other citizens. That is not supposed to happen in modern democracy.

As there was no parliament elected for a longer period of time, politics were more unstable than in many western democracies.

The peoples assemblies were hard to organize. Only about a quarter of the citizens regularly attended them, whereas a real parliament allowed proportional representation of everyone all the time.

Even today, not everybody is an expert in every area of politics. So, if you still have the power to decide, you might very well mess it up, just because you don't know better. This also happened in Athens and isn't that likely in systems where elected representatives do politics professionally and are better informed.

Step-by-step explanation:

User Leon Freire
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