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What's Wrong with Democracy? From Athenian Practice to American Worship

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Loren Samons's What's Wrong with Democracy? shatters the common misconceptions that Americans hold regarding democracy in general and Athenian democracy in particular. Samons traces the history of Athenian democracy from its foundations during the Peisistratid tyranny to its dissolution by the Macedonians. Along the way, he asserts that it was not democracy itself which made Athens great but that Athens was greatest when the citizens felt the obligations of citizenship. He encourages Americans to stop worshipping democracy as an end unto itself, claiming that the practice of viewing democracy as an unalloyed good actually threatens society.

In What's Wrong with Democracy? Samons catalogues the various actions taken by the Athenian democracy which would make the modern democrat uncomfortable. Democracies are not supposed to be aggressors in war. Democracies are not supposed to extort money from other states. Democracies are not supposed to execute a city's population en masse. Democracies are not supposed to kill philosophers. Thus Samons shows that democracy in and of itself is not a moral good. It must be founded on some moral values. He claims that America is in dire straights because it lacks fundamental values to support its democratic form of government. For all their mistakes, according to Samons, the Athenians maintained a value structure to guide them during much of their democracy.

Samons's argument regarding the Athenians' foundational values is fairly nuanced. In some passages he seems to be condemning the hawkish democracy for subjugating other city-states and provoking Sparta. Democracy, therefore, is at best morally neutral since the demos can abuse it so. In other passages, however, Samons lauds the same generation of Athenians because they understood citizenship to be an obligation as well as a privilege. Samons has few kind words for the generation of Athenian citizens whom democracy and its entitlements seduced. In the fourth century the democracy was unable to sacrifice its theatre subsidies for the city's defense.

Samons addresses his most scathing critique to current American sensibilities. When democracy becomes a moral imperative, Samons argues that freedom, choice, and diversity become the cardinal virtues. Samons refers to these three as anti-virtues, and he claims that the individuality that they promote will eventually undercut the democratic ideals that spawned them. What's Wrong with Democracy? laments the lack of leaders in America, and the West in general, who would tell the "people" that they want the wrong things. His thesis is bound to ruffle feathers. His reading of the sources is very convincing, but many undoubtedly will object to his application to the American situation. Not only is the analysis worth reading, but the book is very entertaining too.

Samons brings us to the painful realization the genuine democracy is an unsustainable aberration in human history, which has been dominated by oligarchy, a far wiser and stronger form of governance.

Using the demise of Athens as an example, Samons reveals democracy's fatal flaws. In a nutshell, the inmates cannot be trusted to run the asylum. In the end they will bankrupt society by paying themselves with public treasure that they are unwilling to fund through taxes, and exempt themselves from military service rendering their state defenseless.

America is well down this road to ruin. To survive, it seems evident we will have to practice de facto oligarchy to survive, as the US has to various extents in its history. If we move toward greater de facto democracy (as opposed to the illusion thereof, a useful tool to placate the masses), we will perish as Athens did.

While it may make sense for us to promulgate the weak form of government that is democracy among our enemies to undercut their strength, it will become difficult to do so if we ourselves abandon it.

"What's wrong with democracy" is a book which argues against democracy, using Athens (especially under Pericles) as a negative example.

Are we to believe the author, democracy leads to overspending, imperialism and war. No less!

This line of argument is, of course, difficult to take seriously. What about dictatorships? Don't they lead to overspending, imperialism and war? What about the Roman Empire? What about the Macedonians: Alexander the Great, Ptolemy, Cleopatra? Weren't they into overspending, imperialism and war? Please note that the Macedonians never went through a democratic phase. They were always oligarchic or autocratic. The argument that the Roman Empire happened because of the democracy of the Roman Republic, cannot be used here. And what about the overspending and wars of the "constitutional" monarchies in Europe during the late medieval and early modern periods?

The author doesn't seem to want an outright "dictatorship", however. But what on earth does he want? An oligarchy with strong civic spirit? Something like Sparta, perhaps? Sparta also waged wars of conquest. Or like Carthage? They, too, waged wars of aggression and conquest. Hannibal, anyone? What about the plans of the oligarchic slave states in the American South to expand at the expense of American Indians, Mexicans and Cubans? Oligarchies are no better than autocracies in these regards. Or democracies, for that matter.

Loren Samons attacks "diversity" in contemporary America. But a strong civic spirit isn't incompatible with diversity, since the citizens can agree to be united on some issues and diverse on others. The State of Israel is an example of such a nation. Besides, what kind of diversity is the author attacking, anyway? It's been a while since I read this book, but I don't remember him ever speaking out on the subject. Desegregation? Gay rights? Female math professors, perhaps? What about the right of Jews not to attend evangelical-controlled public schools (an issue about 100 years ago in New York State)?

I strongly suspect that Loren Samons' isn't really against "democracy" as such. He seems to have a crush on Pericles, whom he admires because he was a strong leader who dared to tell the demos when they were demanding all the wrong things. I think ideas such as those of Samons, idiosyncratic as they might sound, reflect the thinking of elite groups who long for the time when democracy was the preserve of White, male heterosexuals of a mostly Protestant extraction. "Wars" and "overspending" have nothing to do with it.

Of course, a similar system to the one these people long for, did exist in ancient times.

Ironically, that system was...Athens.

Ach, my fiance, my mother and I are all big into politics, and they are both big into history. So we all read this book, thinking it would make for some interesting discussions over the holidays. No one got through it. This book is horrible! It skips around, I have no idea what the actual thesis of the book is, and I almost made it to the end.