On 10/15/06, Carrol Cox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> As for Pericles, wages for jurors, which allowed common men to serve
> as jurors and thus participate in politics, was introduced by Pericles
> (the rich did not need wages to participate in politics for they had
> their own money and thus free time for politics), and Aristotle
> clearly weren't enthusiastic about allowing common men to judge rich
> men:
It's a bit more complicated. The _real_ source of Athenian democracy was
in the demos, the village, which was essentially self-ruling and immune
to outside interference. That was what made the Athenian peasantry for
almost two centuries the most fortunate peasantry in world history: no
compulsory services to a lord, no taxes. They fought hard for this, and
they went down fighting, and knowing what they were fighting for, when
the democracy was finally overthrown by Macedonian conquest.
That must have been the base of peasant democracy in ancient Athens,
but it seems to me that they turned to Solon, Peisistratus, Pericles,
etc. to ensure that their gains would become laws, consolidated, and
durable (cf.
<http://www.bartelby.com/67/180.html>). That makes sense, for no
people, however rebellious, can keep up rebellion year in and year
out.
That's where the question of leadership counts, I think, i.e., after
people rise up, can they find leaders who establish a new order based
on demands expressed by the uprising?
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
