The recent United States election was framed as a battle for the future of democracy. In reality it was a rearguard action fought by the oligarchy to fend off a descent into tyranny.
As far as the Greek philosopher Aristotle was concerned, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy were all deviant constitutions. But democracy as he would have recognised it was never at stake in Biden versus Trump. As Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, said on the night of European Parliament elections in Athens last year, “Aristotle would be very puzzled by the way in which a world which is completely oligarchic is calling itself democratic. What we now have, which is oligarchy with elections, would have struck him as the worst possible combination of the two.”
I am co-founder and executive producer at All Hands On, a not-for-profit documentary production company. We tell true stories of radical democracy, whereby power is exercised directly by people rather than abdicated to professional politicians. Our aims are to strengthen the resolve of political reformers, and to enthuse, educate and empower people to become politically literate and politically active.
I also have a degree in engineering. And engineering instincts colour my approach to any endeavour. I like to know how things work, under the bonnet, from first principles. And, as it happens, that Aristotle chap knew as much about first principles thinking as he did about systems of governance.
When you lift the bonnet on democracy, it’s immediately apparent that something has gone badly awry somewhere down the line. An awful lot has been lost in translation between democracy as originally intended and democracy as it plays out for most of us.
We went to Athens to look at democracy from first principles. We shot our latest film there in May 2019, during the European Parliament elections. The film is called ‘Out Of The Ruins’ and is embedded below. Athens is the ancient birthplace of direct democracy, “people power”, and filming at that time, in that place, afforded the perfect opportunity to compare and contrast the past, present and future of democracy.
Athens was in frenetic election mode and the circus of ‘politics as usual’ was in full swing, which provided a colourful backdrop for the film. More importantly it provided a catalyst for disillusioned Greeks to consider alternative approaches to self-governance that have more in common with the kind of democracy practised by their ancestors.
Modern-day Greeks have good cause to be frustrated. Their distrust of elections is well placed. There is still a fierce sense of betrayal after the government declined to act on a 61:39 anti-austerity referendum result in 2015. We were impressed by much greater general levels of political literacy amongst the Athenian populace than we were used to at home. These people know an oligarchy masquerading as a democracy when they see one.
We asked philosopher and direct democracy expert, Alexandros Schismenos, to convene and moderate an assembly-style workshop in view of the Pnyx, where the ancient Athenians met in their thousands to share and show the working of original democracy.
“Citizens of Athens would gather up here and rule. They did not only gather to discuss but to actually make political decisions. These were then turned into the laws of the city.”
We called Alexandros our modern-day Aristotle, and he referred to his “namesake” as he prepped our workshop participants for a discussion on the nature of democracy.
“Politics for Aristotle is the most supreme of arts – because it is the art of how we live our lives. In democracy the citizen is truly the citizen. It is the only regime that he considers gives the possibility to the citizen to truly rule himself. Aristotle says that oligarchy is when offices are assigned through elections. That differentiates oligarchy from democracy, where offices are assigned by lot. The demos, the people, are those who rule over everything. And they are right because the few, the oligarchs, are easier to corrupt than the many.”
The art of how we live our lives. Democracy as described by Aristotle is an all-in and always-on affair. It reminds me of something that Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s digital minister, said in a recent “fireside chat” for the Oslo Freedom Forum. She was talking about giving people a taste of what it feels like to live democracy day to day.
“Far more interesting and important is to co-create reasonable things, solutions, decisions that we can all live with.”
Now there are two powerful ideas. Firstly democracy as a continuous, collaborative, creative act. And secondly democracy not as a game in which there are winners and losers, but as an exercise in consensus and compromise.
One of our workshop participants was 17-year-old Nayada Sagris. Nayada is a member of Embros Theatre, whose governance is the epitome of open democracy. She described the raw human reality of this approach to democratic process.
“It operates through an open assembly that takes place in Embros each Sunday. It is open, I mean really, to anyone. Even if you’re a passerby, or you only saw one show, you can come and decide along with everybody. This is a process that is continuous in this space. I believe democracy is a continuous and definitely not easy process. And a lot of problems are created. Democracy is a very open thing that involves many different people. And, of course, not everyone is happy with every decision.”
Nayada’s sentiments were echoed by Eva Michou, who works at Pagkaki Café. The café is run as a workers’ co-operative
“Decision-making is made through weekly assemblies. Every Thursday the place is closed and we give our time to this very important process. It’s not an easy task, it’s a process that makes you assume responsibilities. You have full responsibility for what’s going on. We don’t vote in the process, that’s the most important element. We try a consensual process. What we aim for is unanimity but, of course, that is not always feasible and sometimes not even desired.”
We saw this again in a squatted school building in the Exarcheia district, home to a multinational community of migrants and refugees. Democracy here was based on mutual acceptance and respectful debate to arrive at decisions that everyone could live with, exactly as described by Audrey Tang. These people, who are persistently demonised by the mainstream media, could teach our elected representatives a thing or two about the inclusive, compassionate and dignified exercise of power.
In Athens we filmed three groups of people who were operating under the bonnet of democracy, acquainting themselves with its inner workings, getting democratic dirt under their fingernails. They show that the first principles of democracy are direct participation by everyone who is concerned with its outcomes, power as a means not an end, deep listening, mutual respect, the embrace of complexity, and the hard, human work required to achieve consensus. The US election was a battle neither featuring, nor about, any of these things.
