The west regards Greek civilization as the source of its own civilization, but in fact, classical civilization has been forgotten for a long time in the Middle Ages. Until the Renaissance, especially the Enlightenment, European scholars looked for spiritual weapons from classical civilization to criticize and fight against the feudal system and defend the political and economic ideas of the emerging bourgeoisie.
As a result, classical civilization, including ancient Greek civilization, was gradually regarded as the originator of European and Western civilization. The Greeks are also regarded as the earliest Westerners, " the spirit of the West, the spirit of modernity, is the creation of Greece, and the Greeks belong to modern society. "
Europeans are proud of the democratic political system represented by Athens in the heritage of ancient Greek civilization, and they even believe that " the development of democracy in Athens has become the main source of modern political thought."
Athens' democratic system is regarded as a model of modern democracy. ) However, looking at the entire development of human beings, no matter whether it is compared with the common political system in the ancient world or with the modern Western political system, democratic politics in Athens is a special political system, not universal.
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The establishment of democracy in ancient Athens went through a long process. The city-state of Athens also implemented a monarchy at first, and all the powers of the country belonged to the monarch alone.
Solon’s reform, which began in 594 BC, broke the monopoly of nobles on land by canceling debts and replacing blood as the criterion for dividing social classes by property, and the common people began to be liberated; The Council took over many of the powers exercised by the original Council of Nobles; created a jury court in which all citizens could serve as jurors.
Solon's reforms greatly limited the traditional privileges of the aristocracy, " then the rule of the aristocracy came to an end ", and laid the foundation for the world's first democratic government. After that, there was a short period of tyrant rule in Athens, but as tyrant, Pisistratus continued to attack the nobles and established order and legal habits in the turbulent society, which was objectively conducive to the development of democratic politics in Athens.
After the tyranny was overthrown, the reformation of Christine, which began around 509 BC , became a key step in the development of democratic politics in Athens. The reform replaced the traditional blood-related tribes with regional tribes, thereby eradicating the residual prestige of the nobility and ensuring the political equality of the people; various official positions were changed to a tenure system, and every citizen could hold them, which expanded the political participation rights of the common people; pottery fragments were exiled The law was enacted in order to prevent the recurrence of centralized tyranny or oligarchy in Athens.
So far, aristocratic politics has been completely overthrown. By the late period of the Hippo-Persian War in the 5th century BC, the operation mode of Athens' democratic politics was fully formed. Through the further adjustment of Effiarte, Athenian democracy reached its peak in the era of Pericles. Athenian democratic politics embodies the following characteristics in its operation process.
The first is immediacy. The political operation of Athens is realized through the direct participation of citizens, rather than the modern representative system or agency system. In Athens, the so-called "citizen" concept has the meaning of directly participating in state affairs.
The second is equality. Under Athenian democracy, "people enjoy a certain form of political equality". This greatly curbed the concentration of power and maintained the democratic political system of Athens.
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The political system of Athens in the classical era was a democratic political governance model in which citizens directly participated in state management and citizens' rights and obligations were highly integrated. It forms the "rule of the majority" and goes to extremes in political equality. This special political system is not universal in human history, especially in the history of political system evolution.
First of all, in ancient society, Athens’ democratic politics was a special political system. Compared with the whole world, the area and influence of Athens’ democratic politics were limited.
The democratic politics of ancient Athens is not as perfect as it is appreciated and praised by western scholars after modern times, and its role is even more limited. "Democracy" has been a derogatory term for a long time, even equated with mob politics, "
For most of its long history, from ancient Greece to the present day, democracy has been regarded by wise or educated people as the worst form of government and society imaginable. Democracy has become more or less synonymous with " the law of the mob, " and, more precisely, a threat to all the core values of a civilized and orderly society. "
Secondly, from the perspective of the vertical development of democratic politics, the democratic politics of Athens is also a special political system.
Apart from being similar in concept and spirit, Athenian democratic politics and modern western democratic politics are quite different on the basis of formation and existence, operation mode, and embodied characteristics. The modern democratic system was gradually formed in the process of opposing the feudal autocracy and hierarchical system after capitalism was fully developed, out of the need to establish a free market. There is no inheritance relationship.
The basis of the survival of Athens' democratic politics is a small city-state with few people characterized by people's survival and security interests democratic concept comes from the prehistoric democratic tradition.
Modern democracy is formed and operated under the framework of the nation-state, and it involves population and geographical scope that is incomparable to the ancient city-states. The idea of modern democracy was germinated in the transformation of European politics, economy and ideology, and culture in the late Middle Ages and early modern times.
In terms of the operation of the political system, Athens is realized through the direct participation of citizens. The most prominent feature of modern Western democracy is precisely the representative system. The representative system is an indirect democracy whose essence is elite politics.
Its basic principle is: " A small group of people manage the government. These people are responsible to the voters who elected them. Their power comes from the voters ." The representative system abandons the principle that the people directly manage the country and replaces it with the people who elect the country's managers. The people declare their status as rulers through the process of elections.
In the ancient Athenian democracy, laws and systems were also used to restrict individual power, and there was a division of labor between different political institutions, but it was still far from perfect. But the foundation of modern western democracy is the strict separation of powers, which is standardized by constitutionalism. It should be said that the mode of operation of modern western democracy has effectively avoided the difficulties that modern nation-states must encounter in implementing direct democracy due to the expansion of population and territory.
Modern Western democratic politics has achieved a high degree of integration of democracy and liberalism, which is mainly reflected in the tolerance of social diversity and respect for individual freedom, which is also lacking in ancient Athenian democratic politics.
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The particularity of the political system of ancient Athens was determined by the special natural environment in which Athens was located and the special economic and historical development conditions formed in this natural environment.
Athens was one of the most important city-states in ancient Greece. Geographically, the Greek peninsula is divided into units of different sizes and independent of each other by numerous bays and stretches of mountains. The residents here are therefore divided into relatively independent living areas and gradually evolve into isolated and self-reliant practices. Autonomous political community - city-state.
There are basically no close economic ties between the regions. Such a geographical environment caused the city-state to be the main political unit in ancient Greece during its historical development, and there was no cross-regional unified country like other civilized areas. As one of the largest city-states in ancient Greece, Athens had a total population of only 250,000 to 300,000 until its peak in the 5th century BC, with a length of about 50 miles from north to south and about 30 miles from east to west.
Although there were alliance organizations in the history of ancient Greece, for example, Athens established the "Athens Empire" led by itself based on the Delian League when it resisted the Persian invasion, but it did not directly annex the foreign territories and control the allies. The method of paying tribute is loose. This state of a small country with few people is a prerequisite for the formation and development of Greek democracy represented by Athens.
In ancient times, a large-scale society inevitably implemented autocratic politics, and only a small-scale society could implement non-authoritarian politics, including democratic politics. The city-state society of a small country with few people facilitates the concentration of citizens and the exchange of information, which also makes the Athenian direct democracy possible.
However, it is not feasible to implement direct democracy in unified countries in agricultural areas and modern nation-states, and can only adopt other political operation methods with relatively centralized power. Another basic condition for the normal operation of direct democracy, that is, the basic consistency of the interests of citizens participating in democratic politics, can only be achieved under the city-state system with limited territories and strict restrictions on the acquisition of citizenship.
However, the population size of ancient unified countries or empires and modern nation-states, and the complexity and diversity of people in terms of identity, economic conditions, and cultural and educational backgrounds far exceed that of city-states. Due to the diversification of public interests, it is impossible to reach a common will on general issues like the citizens of Athens.
If direct democracy is implemented, it is difficult to imagine how the people will gather, how to obtain political information, how to conduct discussions, and how to make decisions supported by the majority. Therefore, countries in other regions in ancient times could only choose the monarchy or aristocracy in which a few people were in power, and modern nation-states could only adopt the mode of indirect democracy.
Greece's special geographical environment and the development of its industrial and commercial economy promoted another special phenomenon in its history —the occurrence of large-scale colonization, which also became a stimulating factor for the occurrence of its democratic politics. Gu Zhun noticed that the gradual disappearance of kingship in Greece in the 8th century BC might have been influenced by the city-states of Asia Minor.
Most of the city-states in Asia Minor are the product of Greek colonization. Toynbee pointed out in his Historical Studies The principle of the organization according to law and area rather than according to custom and blood first appeared in these overseas colonies of Greece, and it was not until later by the Greek European Parts of the mainland followed suit."
The special natural environment of Greece and the narrowness of the city-state make the population it can support limited. Coupled with its outward consciousness and the need for overseas trade and commercial development, Greece began to colonize foreign countries as early as the Achaean era, and later Doria The scale of human colonization is even greater. The colonial model in Greek history was the automatic combination of colonial groups and overseas colonization.
"A remarkable feature of cross-sea migration is the great mixing of different ethnic systems because the first social organization that must be abandoned is the kinship relationship of primitive society", which is different from the migration of agricultural peoples on land. "Another notable feature of cross-sea migration is the shrinking of the primitive social system..." The politics formed at this time was not based on blood clans, but on contracts.
Because the immigrants moved to the colony, in order to defend against pirate attacks and the local people's revenge, they had to build a city and live in an independent society. The cooperative relationship formed during their migration has also been maintained. The feelings of fellows will exceed the feelings of blood clans, and the method of choosing a reliable leader will replace habit and tradition.
In fact, organizing a fleet to go overseas to open up a new residence will naturally form a city-state at the end, and the people of all ethnic groups there will be managed by a public administrator. Of course, a number of leading figures must be elected, mainly relying on legislation and acting in accordance with the laws agreed upon by all. Therefore, such a city-state can easily move toward democracy politically. The close relationship between the overseas colonial city-states and the local city-states affects the development direction of the political system of the local city-states.
The special natural environment in which Athens was located prevented it from being conquered and ruled by outsiders at the beginning of civilization, and also created conditions for the formation of its democratic politics.
Without foreign invasion, there would be no sharp contradiction between the conqueror and the conquered brought about by foreign conquest, and this kind of contradiction in history is often the catalyst for the formation of power and autocracy represented by kingship. The stable social environment also made Athens keep the original concept of democracy relatively intact in the process of establishing the national system.
Ancient Greece lacked the secular characteristics of the oriental strong religious atmosphere, which made its political thought linked with Greek rationalism. They conceived of themselves as something self-sufficient, not as insignificant servants before God.
In their society, everyone is worth what they are worth and plays their part in society. They are a union based on common social concepts and social ethics.
In such a country, similar people pursue common goals, they are closely linked in partnership, and they form a country in sharing. The political concept under this non-religious rational consciousness respects people and their rights, which is conducive to the survival of democratic politics.
The uniqueness of the natural and social historical environment in Athens is the decisive factor for the formation and development of Athens' special democratic politics. Because it brought the strength of Athens and the prosperity of economy and culture, especially the similarity of its basic concept with modern western democracy, it made Athens' democratic politics get people's attention, and even exaggerated its influence and elevated its historical status. But this cannot change the particularity of Athenian democracy in its long history. Therefore, the role of other political systems in specific regions and specific times cannot be simply denied based on the practice of Athenian democratic politics.
