Power and the People

(From A.G.Woodhead's Thucydides On the Nature of Power)

The Greek Democracy's 1987 commemorative stamp for Aristophanes

I shall be told that democracy is neither a wise nor a just thing, and that those who have the money are most likely to govern well. To which I answer, first of all, that the people is the name of the whole, the oligarchy of a part; secondly, that the rich are the best guardians of the public purse, the wise the best counsellors, and the many, when they have heard a matter discussed, the best judges; and that each and all of these classes have in a democracy equal privileges. (Thucydides VI 39, 1)

Democratic power recognizes no other authority in Society than itself, and claims always to go just as far as the General Will carries it. But this power, if there is no stopping it, is on the other hand eminently open to be wooed and won. (B. de Jouvenel, Le Pouvoir, 225)

The Common people are always impressed by appearances and results. (Machiavelli, Il Principe 18)

               Nor is the people's judgement always true;

               The most may err as grossly as the few.

                                       (John Dryden, Absolom and Achitophel, Pt 1, ll. 778-9)

   

A perfect democracy is ... the most shameless thing in the world. (Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France)

“There can be no doubt that, whatever his views on the nature of power, Thucydides regarded it as a mistake for a state to vest that power in the demos at large. Demokratia, a word newly in currency in the fifth century, emphasises that the kratos lay with the demos. There was an imbalance of its distribution. Although the equality which democracy introduced was much praised and, as D. Kagan notes, 'Athenian literature is full of references to its virtues', and although Thucydides draws attention to that basic principle not only by means of such men as Athenagoras but also through Pericles himself, nevertheless isokratia was something which Sparta was credited with having championed. Under democracy the upper classes and the bourgeoisie, to whom Thucydides himself belonged, could feel that some in the time-honoured phrase were beginning to be more equal than others. The pendulum had swung too far.

“To us, of course, the term democracy coveys the idea of equality, duty, service, priovilege, and justice which it conveyed to a conscientious Athenian democrat but failed to convey to Thucydides and his friends. We must not however forget that to them ‘demos’ had two senses – a sense in which in an Athenian decree, it could mean the sovereign Athenian people as a whole, and a sense in which it could mean a political faction, the ‘left wing’, as we might say. So that when the demos had kratos, it did not necesarily imply, without equivocation, that a completely egalitarian society had been realised. It meant, on the interpretation of some, that ‘the left’ had taken over. To the aristocrats this was almost to say that power was in the hands of the mob, and the word plethos emphasises the numderical aspect of this concept. The ‘many’, hoi polloi, now controlled the state, and Thucydides was one of those who saw with misgiving the era of the common man, the tyranny of the plebs which in 424 BC Aristophanes bravely parodied in his fiercely critical comedy The Knights.

“Aristophanes there depects Demos as a foolish and arbitrary old man, a harsh master of his slaves Nicias and Demosthenes, but easily led by the nose by his favourite politicians. However, the poet was not being wholly just to the qualities and good sense of the Athenians. Given the character of power as we discussed it in the previous chapter, and granted that the possessor of it will be motivated by self-interest in its exercise and retention, it was arguable that the Athenian in fact followed out with great effectiveness the principles we have examined. That, at any rate, is the line which that anonymous pamphleteer known as ‘The Old Oligarch’ pursues in his treatise on the Athenian state written, most probably, early in the Peloponnesian War. He uses all the phraseology and jargon of party politics i the Athens of his time. The people are the ‘base ones’, the πονηρoί, while the upper classes are the βέλτιστοι, the best people, in Roman terms the optimates. He writes in effect,as M.F. McGregor put it, ‘I do not approve of democracy, but, if you must have it, I admit that the Athenians make a fine job of it’. But this is not Thucydides’ view. Thucydides did not approve of democracy, and saw no strength of wisdom whatsoever’ in the rabble. The only stage at which it appeared to him to shie in any virtuous light was in the period of Pericles’ lifetime; but that was because of Pericles, and in despite of the nature it was subsequently shown to possess. Once the great man was gone, it stood condemned by its own inadquacies and by the verdict of historical facts. We are in consequence led to consider what are the particular factors at work when we put the principles of power illustrated in Thucydides’ history, which were considered in the first chapter, into relation with his views on democracy and his record of that democracy in power.

“The possessor of kratos acquires from his possession a certain dynamis. By using the verb cognate to that noun, he δύναται, he ‘can’, he is potens in the Latin sense. He has the capabilities, resources of strength and materials, all that is implied in words like the adjective δυνατός and others of the same root. Under the principles already investigated, the demos, thus equipped, will look to its security, under the influence of δέος , will act always with regard to its ultimate self-interest (ωφελία) and will believe in, and seek to foster and defend, its dignity and honour (τίμη). It may or may not temper its rule with justice (δικαιοσύνη); Thucydides implies that it did not so temper its rule, but is honest enough to allow the more general Athenian view that it did to be given a hearing. In fact, althougbAristophanes depects the demos as arbitrary, and in the Melian Dialogue Thucydides argues that the springs of action are pretty close to those which Callicles and Thrasymachus would endorse, that particular interpetation of power is the interpretion least likely to be used by a popular government. For popular opinion, as we shall investiagte in alater chapter, is more emotional and sentimental, diverted from a strict recknoning of policy on the basis of expediency by the intervention of what people consider to be humane and moral factors. When in 427 BC the Athenians reversed their orignally harsh decision to execute all the male citizens of Mitylene, which had revolted from them, they are rebuked by their own hero Cleon on this very score of over-great humanitarianism. A democracy cannot rule an empire in the way it should be ruled because the people are too sentimental, and are therefore weak and hestitant when a crisis demands that they be strong and ruthless. ‘The City’, as Sir Frank Adcock put it, ‘embodies power, and power grows from power and nothing else.No other interests may prevail against it, no other criterion is in place. The ancient mythical past of Athens is full of stories of generosity and protection of the weak, but, in the present, exhibition of these qualities is limited by the immediate interests of the state. If moderation is politic, a means to create a more lasting power, it is a virtue, but only then.’

”

Not as nice as they looked, especially to the Melians

We should note separately here that Thucydides identifies three advantages which accrue to the possessor of power:

1)    δέος (deos):  apprehension one feels or inspires. 

2)    ωφελία (ōphelia): advantage, benefit or profit. 

3)    τίμη (timē): honour, status, standing in the world.

When these are threatened, a power feels pressure to respond and the way it responds is a measure of the power it has or retains.