Democracy Through Time

Democracy Through Time

Democracy as a concept has changed and evolved through the years. Lao-Tzu, a Chinese philosopher, advised a form of government that had many democratic values to his emperor. His work, Tao-te Ching, was written in the sixth century B.C. before the term democracy was even coined. Some time later, in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., the Greeks gave this idea a name and put it into effect. In the work The Origin of Civil Society (1762) Jean-Jacques Rousseau argues for peoples basic rights, and dabbles on the topic of people governing themselves, which is in essence democracy. Thomas Jefferson, a man that borrowed profusely from Rousseau, also wrote a work that heavily favored the basic right of democracy. His influential work is our very own Declaration of Independence (1776).

The idea of democracy is a timeless one. Before the term for democracy was given, the notion that people are better off governing themselves for the benefit of society as a whole was in the minds of philosophers. One such thinker was Lao-tzu. He advised his emperor to "Practice not-doing, and everything will fall into place."(p.22) Lao-tzu essentially wanted the emperor to trust the people and know that they are better off free. If they are free to govern themselves everything will workout for itself. Today, in a democratic nation, people possess freedom. They are free to vote, for or against potential leaders in government. This is placing much trust in the people, because their voting could potentially alter the way they are governed. They are free to purchase and sell land, they can marry almost whomever they want, and are free to speak against things that upset them. As a democratic nation, people will govern themselves in a way that is for the benefit of society. Lao-tzu points to a ruler that "has let go" so that "he can care for the people's welfare" (p.28). Our nation takes many great steps in caring for the people's welfare. Schools have been made essential so that the people may be more educated. Police have been put in place to protect our rights to be free and funds have been allocated to help those in need.

Lao-tzu's concept of government being for the many and not the few was truly an unorthodox way of thinking. Some Greeks shared this point of view and put a name to it. Demokratia, or literally people-power, was the term they came up with. The Greeks not only thought of the benefits of a people-power government, but they truly put the idea into effect. The democracy that the people of Ancient Greece practiced was democracy, but not the same as we know it to be. There were three main differences: scale, participation and eligibility. (p.3) There were only around 250,000 Athenians and of them only 30,000 were citizens. All those who chose to attend assemblies had a direct say in the governmental happenings. They participated directly as opposed to us; we have a representative democratic government. Eligibility for the Greek to participate in government was exclusive to say the least. To be active in the politics of the day one had to be an adult male of double-descent ( both mom and dad must Athenians). If a person didn't have these credentials, they wouldn't be apart of the process, plain and simple. It seems both their form of democracy and ours has a similar problem however. An oligarch form of government threatened the political way of life. Oligarchy is a form of government in which a small group of powerful individuals run everything. The oligarchy in ancient Greece tried several times to take over but democracy usually resurfaced in short amounts of time. The partisan oligarchy of our democracy is the form that threatens us today. The thing, or person, that finally lead to the collapse of Greece's democracy was Alexander the Great. His journey for "world conquest" took the practice of democracy and converted it back into a concept for centuries.

Just before the great democratic revolutions of modern history, democracy started resurfacing in the arguments of scholars and philosophers. One such man was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who looked back at the Greeks to define his democracy. Rousseau agreed with the Greeks on all but one major point, slavery. Slavery was then becoming a relatively touchy subject, and the colonies in America were touched directly by the arguments for and against slavery, because they heavily practiced it. Rousseau profoundly refuted Aristotle and some modern thinkers' idea that some people are just born to be slaves. Rousseau believes