Greek polis

Sat, 06 Sep 1997 12:41:33 +1100
Rene Barendse (barendse@coombs.anu.edu.au)

I tend to agree partly with Derluguian's comment regarding the link
between warfare and `primitive' democracy. (Although this is also one of the
main arguments advanced by both Giddens and M. Mann against classic Marxism
- namely that power also depends on military capability - and Giddens and
Mann are far from popular with some contributors to this list)

Yes, certainly, only those who could muster a shield and weapons
could vote in the Athenian assembly; one of the main issues of contention
during the period of Pericles when Athens developped a powerful navy was
whether rowers in the galleys (these were free men - in the latter period
galleys tended to breed slavery) should be permitted the vote.
There is a theory that Athenian democracy was to a high extent
predicated upon the need of foot-folk organized in a falanx to extremely
closely keep together so that the unbroken row of shield would not be broken
this necessitated much closer collaboration between warriors and thus
between fellow-citizens than for example in Persian warfare in the same
period which was heavily based upon mounted archers. Again, there is an
argument that the need to closely worker together for rowers in a galley (in
the Greek way of rowing) necessitated warriors to work very closely together
and was thus instrumental in the rise of popular democracy. To some extent
it may be said that closed heavy infantry formations breed democracy just
like - a much surer case - heavy cavalry tends to breed feudal arrangements
- this can be seen from Mali to Japan, from Persia to Ethiopia - but as
Derluguian rightly writes `mountain democracies' are also quite common. It
is really a pity that Mann appearently does not grasp this (but, then
again, we should have something to complain about should n't we ?)

However
I disagree on two points:

a.)Athens was not a mountain-state and it was certainly during the height of
democracy not a poor state having monopolized much of the trade of Greece
and of course with its mines more or less controling Greek coin-production.
Athenian income in the fourth century was primarily trade and `tribute'.
(Interesting thought - come to think of it - if you wonder what the prime
income of Athens was later - it was probably tourism from the second century
B.C. until now !) Athens is not a simple `peasant democracy'. If you look
for classic examples of `mountain-democracies' it would be more useful to
look for the smaller city-states and, perhaps, to the fifth - sixth century
B.C. I like the comparison between Checnia and ancient Greece but I don't
think it's appropriate - if I were to compare Checnia with a society in
antiquity I would rather pick Minoic Greece with its aristocracy of proud
warriors and their bands of followers (much of the present values of Checnia
seem to be pretty well depicted in the Illias).

b.)The remark that the Athenian light was extinguished after a `mere' two
centuries (that's a long period !) by the despotic empire of Macedonia
involves a misunderstanding of Macedonia and, more importantly, ` the
stagnation' of the Hellenistic period involves a misunderstanding of the
Hellenistic period. Due to its great achievements in science in particular
and in `classical' scholarship - creative or not - the Hellenistic period
may also be ranged among the great creative periods. In fact, Ptolmeaic
Egypt is one of the few societies which very heavily invested in abstract
science before capitalism and is an excellent case of a society where
scientific innovation was not driven by the profit-motive.

I added something to my remark on slaves: `the Athenian elite had
slaves (so that they could devote themselves to creative work), we now
increasingly have mechanical slaves to relieve us of the drudgery'. If this
seems mightily abstract remember that in most pre-industrial societies 90%
of the population had to work on the land 9% do other manual work to feed 1%
of the population who were engaged in non-manual work; in most developed
societies that would now be 1%, 60%, 39%, so that we have come a long way in
only two centuries. Since the 60% is constantly falling too, who knows where
we're heading in the next two centuries ?

Since Marx and Engels envisaged communism as the realm where man is
relieved of the necessity to do heavy manual work, I think that as regards
to the condition of the forces of production we are heading for communism.
But that would take me too far.

Cheers

R.J.Barendse

P.S. I should indeed note with Chass-Dunn that it is remarkable how
civilized the exchange of mail still is, in spite of dealing with the
highely emotionally charged issue of Stalinism.
Keep it going !
This posting on antiquity may seem like an exotic aside but remember that
Marx was primarily a classsic scholar (his Ph.D. was on Herakleitos) and his
idea of socialism was probably heavily influenced by the image of Greece in
Germany ca. 1830

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