> Maybe there is a reason why the ancient Greeks drew their leaders randomly from their population I've actually advocated doing this in the US, only half-face

> Maybe there is a reason why the ancient Greeks drew their leaders randomly from their population I've actually advocated doing this in the US, only half-facetiously. As an aside, though, it's common when discussing democracy to look back at Athens as an archetypal, Platonic ideal of democracy (pun intended). However, Athenian democracy actually had a lot of characteristics that we would find completely objectionable and deplorable today. Futhermore, it wasn't particularly long-lasting. It's hard to get an exact date range, because what people mean when they say "Athenian democracy" isn't very well-defined (there were a few different stages that the Athenian democratic systems[0] passed through, so it depends on where you draw the line). But by almost any measure, Athenian democracy didn't even last as long as the US democratic system[1], and it was stable for a lot less time than that[2]. [0] systems - there were more than one throughout Athenian history [1] In before "we have a republic, not a democracy" - this is a contested point that really boils down to which definition of 'democracy' and 'republic' you use. For example, the definitions used by the Federalist Papers were not entirely self-consistent, and you can cite some that would support this belief, but you can also cite ones that don't. And at the end of the day, it's really just quibbling over antiquated definitions of words that don't really represent how they're used today. [2] I've heard one classicist (a Hellenist, to boot!) conclude that the stable period of Athenian democracy was as short as 35-50 years. This is the lower bound of what most classical historians would respond if you ask them, but it's just as easy to measure it in decades as it is in centuries - that's how short it was.