>> The Greeks had it right - "democracy" to greeks was competent people drawing lots for the jobs to perform in government. No politics involved. You did your j

>> The Greeks had it right - "democracy" to greeks was competent people drawing lots for the jobs to perform in government. No politics involved. You did your job right because it was your responsibility, and you'd hate to see the job done improperly. First, there is no "the Greeks" here. You seem to be talking about ancient Athens. (Sorry if that's overly pedantic, but ancient Greece was not at all monolithic.) Second, parts of Athenian democracy involved lots, but by no means all of it. In particular, the ten annual generals were elected precisely because they were supposed to be experts. Third, there wasn't really any competency criterion for the positions held by lot. (This is one reason Plato disliked democracy so much - that theoretically unqualified people could speak in the assembly and hold office.) Fourth, the jobs of the people who were chosen by lot were mostly bureaucratic. As Wikipedia puts it "The powers of officials were precisely defined and their capacity for initiative limited. They administered rather than governed."[1] Finally, politics and petty personal infighting was a huge problem in ancient Athens (ostracism?[2]). The whole "You did your job right because it was your responsibility, and you'd hate to see the job done improperly." is nostalgia for a world that never was. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy#Selection_by_lot_.28Allotment.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy#Selection_by... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism