Daily #15

Was Athens really a 'democracy'?


A democracy is "government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system." (dictionary.com)  From this definition, Athens was not exactly a democracy.  They voted to kick people, not elect leaders.  They were also kind of a democracy because the people had the power to vote for what they wanted.


But, when I honestly think about it, I think they were a democracy.  We have no right to say what a democracy was or was not!  They were there first.  They started the tradition of a democracy.  We just improved it from what it originally was.  Without this early democracy, we wouldn't have the democracy we have today and we would still have tyrants.  There wouldn't be voting, and we wouldn't get to chose our leader or decide what laws we want legalized.  We would have the kind of chaos there is in Egypt.  They don't like the way their government is, so they are protesting.  This is just like the Athenians did before they created their democracy.  Athens was run completely by the people because all the leaders were afraid of being overthrown.  Athenians could vote on someone who was becoming too powerful, and they could kick him out of the city.  They could vote on what they wanted to do.  Everyone had a say.  In democracies of today, we just get to vote on our leaders.  They are allowed to make their own decisions.  Obviously, my first answer was wrong.  Athens was a democracy, even if it is not the democracy we have today.