Artifacts of Democracy: How the Government Worked in Ancient Athens
“Software is eating the world”, says Marc Andreessen. It is also eating politics. Digital disintermediation affects representative democracy, where the representants are in the position of intermediaries. Thanks to the Internet, there is no technical obstacle for citizens to discuss and vote on every subject.
But then come the critics of direct democracy: “Citizen aren’t knowledgeable to decide on complex issues”, they say. “The ignorant majority can be manipulated by populist leaders”. Such arguments are usually made in the abstract without a clear understanding of how direct democracies really work. The best way to do it is be going where it all started, Ancient Athens. Let’s study Athenian democracy as archaeologists, by analyzing their artifacts. The truth is that, since Cleisthenes democratic reforms in the 6th century B.C., the polis had quite sophisticated information technologies for managing its political institutions.
The kleroterion (Κληρωτήριον), an ancient allotment machine
The kleroterion was a randomization device that was used for alloting citizens for public office and jurors for trials. Athenians were aware of the risks of corruption. A judge or a small tribunal could be bribed. Not a crowd. Athenians used to form big juries (500 people) that were selected randomly and shortly before the trial.
Each citizen brought his personal ID (a piece of wood or bronze called pinakion). A justice officer (archon) slotted it into one of the kleroterion’s columns. The slots were filled starting at the top row and working down. When all the candidates’ pinakia were slotted in the archon took some small bronze balls (some white, the rest black) and poured them into the funnels at the top of the kleroterion.
The balls fell down the tube. At the bottom, they were stopped by a crank- driven device. The crank was turned, and one ball dropped out. If the ball was black, the first row of pinakia was removed, and their owners were dismissed. If the ball was white, the first row of tickets remained in place, and their owners were jurors for the day. Another ball was released, another row of candidates dismissed or accepted, and so on. At last the final ball was dropped and the trial began.
El ekklesiasterion (ἐκκλησιαστήριον), a reputation system
In defense of representative democracy, it is commonly argued that representatives have greater knowledge of the issues at stake, which favors decision making. The Athenians, however, had another answer.
The polis had two legislative bodies: the Council of 500 (boule) and the Assembly (ekklesia). The Council was composed of 500 members elected by lot for one year. It was in charge of daily government management and preparing the agenda for discussion at the Assembly where all citizens participated and met every ten days.
The geometry of the ekklesiasterion, where the Assembly met, was optimized for each participant to see everyone else. Citizens decided their vote by the reactions they saw in their trusted experts. It was a reputation system. Nobody knew everything on finance, foreign policy and construction. But they all knew who were the experts in each subject.
Plato (Protagoras 319b–c) claims that when the subject before the citizen Assembly was shipbuilding, the “wise Athenians” refused to listen to anyone lacking expertise in naval architecture. Thus, the Assembly took decisions on complex issues without representatives.
Ostracism, prediction markets against tyranny
Ostracism was a key reform by Cleisthenes. It was designed to avoid the risk of rising tyrants. Every year, the Assembly decided whether an ostracism vote needed to be held. If the majority of a quorum of 6,000 citizens voted yes, an ostracism vote was carried out with a very specific procedure.
An area with 10 doors was enclosed, one for each of the Greek tribes. Citizens came in with an ostraka (a piece of pottery) where they had previously recorded the name of the citizen they thought was more dangerous to the state. Officials collected the ostraka at the door and kept the citizens in the enclosed area until they had all voted. The citizen who had more votes was sent into exile for 10 years.
Ostracism was a safeguard against tyranny. It was used to cut the political career of rising populist leaders.
To learn more about the information technology of Ancient Athens democracy, clic here.
