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Comment by cjsthompson | Hacker News Reader

I'm not completely sure about iceland. I think I read it was one vote per family. But as far as ancient athens goes, every male regardless of wealth or status got to vote the laws and decrees. And were in fact very much encouraged to do so. The word 'idiot' actually comes from 'idiotes' which is what people who didn't debate/vote were called in ancient athens. It originally meant people who only care about their private affairs as opposed to public affairs. This made it impossible for the rich to rule, because the rich are always far fewer than the poor. So while one might be right to point out that it wasn't fair that women were left out (but women were second class citizens also in cities which weren't democracies at all like for instance Sparta), it still is very different and far more egalitarian system than what we have today.

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Well, I was only talking about Iceland in my comment. My knowledge of Greek history is insufficient to comment; you might want to take that discussion up with the commenter that was talking about Greece.

As for Iceland, I really recommend you read up on the history if you are going to start correcting people about it, because you seem to be completely misinformed. And no, it was most certainly not "one vote per family"; I have explained how these things worked at least twice in this discussion. I know this because I am from Iceland, and I have read up on our history from primary sources instead of the ridiculous whitewash that gets taught in elementary school and on tourist buses.

But you mentioned Iceland because you were agreeing with the parent poster who was talking about ancient Athens. So I was replying to both of you. I probably need to research Iceland, but I did the work for Athens :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogens_Herman_Hansen

> But as far as ancient athens goes, every male regardless of wealth or status got to vote the laws and decrees.

Except for slaves and former slaves. Also a large portion of the population were resident foreigners, who didn't get the vote.

Wikipedia puts the number of voters at 10% to 20% of the total population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy

Foreign residents by definition are not citizens. They don't get to vote in elections of parliementary regimes either. But assuming foreign residents could vote, then anyone can come en masse and just change the outcome of the vote. As for slaves, they weren't citizens either, but either mostly war captives which were taken into slavery rather then executed or citizens which were stripped of their citizenship for various crimes. War captives or people who commited crimes don't get to vote in elections either in parliamentary regimes.

But both slaves and foreign residents ("metics") transmitted their status by birth: you could be born in Athens, as could your father, and your father's father, and still have no route to citizenship, unless the city chose to grant it as a gift (a rare event). So even if you discount the foreign-born, you still have an elite ruling over a disenfranchised population.

No, it's the other way around. It was athenian citizenship which was transmitted by birth. First you had to have at least one athenian parent. And then later athenians voted to change the law so two athenian parents would be required. And this is in part because 'metekos' were more often than not rich merchants and not underdogs at all. And the athenians were weary about them having influence just like they ostracized any citizen who had too much influence. But anyway, more or less restrictive citizenship conditions is irrelevant to the fact that electing masters is not and never will be democracy.

> electing masters is not and never will be democracy

Neither is having political power in the exclusive hands of a hereditary elite. That's oligarchy or aristocracy.

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