Category: Democracy

Once upon a time, many thought the internet would spawn a digital democratic utopia: harmonious, boundary-spanning decision-making, reflecting liberty and equality in a global community of “netizens.” Today, sadly, we witness identity theft, cyber-bullying, manipulative analytics, fake news, and authoritarian surveillance— hacking elections and polarizing open societies. Social media companies are hiring thousands of editors to fight hate speech and robotic information corruption, while U.S. state election commissions are scrambling to reinstate paper ballots. Will today’s democracy survive the onslaught of technology-delivered malice?

Yes, maybe: but only if we stop blaming bits and bytes, forget about “global democracy,” and instead tackle the structural deficits of our current representative systems of national self-governance. Thus argues Dr. Roslyn Fuller, a Canadian-Irish academic lawyer and author of the new In Defence of Democracy.

This lively polemic asserts that the problem for western civic societies is not so much defending against hostile and abusive use of technology. Instead, it’s failing to use technology to rediscover what democracy should be for the modern nation state: citizens participating personally in public debate and having meaningful say in policy decisions that affect them—without the distorting and corruptible role of legislative proxies or elitist agency officials. If we’re going to defend—and keep alive—democracy today, she insists, we need a revolution: go back to what the ancient Athenians invented in the 5th century BCE, where every citizen regularly participated in discussion and voting for the laws that would steer their livelihoods and survival. Dr. Fuller believes new technology and communication tools can now provide the means to scale up for millions of people what ancient Athenians did with perhaps (at most) 50,000 citizens.

The book builds on Fuller’s earlier research, further detailing her back-to-the-future proposition. Her central premise is that any modern representative democracy— e.g. U.S. constitutional government, or Britain’s “monarch-lite” parliamentary model—will inevitably slide towards a gridlocked, gerrymandered, influence-peddled partisan morass. “The small number of seats in legislatures serving a major population means elections aren’t really representative—allowing money to grow in influence, which in turn sets up factional fighting and winner-take-all strategies. Meanwhile, what these representatives discuss is increasingly out of touch with most common people’s priorities—leading to rising frustration, disengagement, and declining voter turnout. Which then invites more winner-take-all by powerful interests and increasing partisan focus on policy that entrenches elites. To break the cycle we have to authentically give power back to the people.”

Re-imagining Reinvention

Yes it’s blue sky, and of course fraught with a host of implementation issues (e.g. levels of geographical engagement, infrastructure design, process protocols, security assurances, discussion moderation, etc.). But take a moment to consider other alternatives: what will it actually take “to fix today’s democracy?” Is limiting campaign contributions, changing the tax code, or reforming the Electoral College going to be enough to rebuild freedom, equality, and the pursuit of happiness across America?

Here are five further insights from our conversation for your own imaginative reflections:

1. Technology for large-scale, direct democracy is less about elections and more about empowering policy debate and decision-making en masse. Fuller acknowledges the problems of hacked balloting and cyber-meddling—but no election reform will solve the bigger problem of disconnected citizens working through proxies: “A few hundred legislative members or a president can be easily corrupted by rich powerful lobbies. Which now happens every day. Also, the current pace of decision-making, and the two- or four-year cycle of change in representative government can’t keep up with the global economy. Using technology to give millions of citizens direct involvement in policy-making is faster and more flexible. And lobbyists can’t bribe or intimidate the population of an entire nation state.”

2. Our corrosive political media thrives because virtual conversations are untethered from policy consequences. “Yes of course,” Fuller acknowledged, “we need safeguards against cyber-bullying and moneyed and foreign influence shaping opinion. But Facebook diatribes, Twitter wars, and cable shout-fests keep growing because people can’t turn their own strongly held opinions into action. Give citizens a real say in policy-making, and the cyber negativity will decline.”

3. Reforming democracy with technology-scaled participation requires practical citizen education. Everyone agrees that improving our political system calls for better “civic knowledge” across the population. But that can’t just be more high-school courses on “how a bill becomes a law.” Dr. Fuller argues from another lesson of ancient Athenians: “Education has to be learn-by-doing for all the citizens, all the time: participating in public debate, developing your own opinions by hearing and joining arguments, and observing the consequences of decisions—which are often painful.”

“A lot of American and European cities are successfully experimenting with this form of practical civic education with ‘participatory (or open) budgeting’—allowing citizens to debate and decide how to allocate the public money of their community. The process creates vivid civic lessons about the prioritizing and compromising necessary in a democratic society.”

4. Mass engagement could rebuild fractured communities. Fuller also argues for second-order effects of mass engagement. If millions of citizens participate in political decisions—with appropriate facilitation, rules and encouragement (including some offsetting compensation)— the process can help temper partisan divisions, and build new civic relationships. “When the outcomes of debates concretely effect people’s future, citizens learn to listen to one another, and work for solutions that everyone has to live with. They see that, instead of always pushing for ‘the scientifically perfect answer,’ sometimes accepting compromise can bring other people in, and unify support. Joining together for action strengthens community bonds.”

5. Transformation will depend on leaders with a vision for challenge and excellence. “We need a new generation of politicians who can create a positive vision of what democracy can do. A citizenry responds to challenge—like that posed by John Kennedy’s legendary speech in 1962 to America: ‘We choose to go the moon in this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’”

“And we also have to get away from today’s victim mentality. The ancient Greeks and Romans accomplished a lot with very little—their politicians made the higher call for excellence. Likewise, tomorrow’s leaders cannot just think about themselves. They have to inspire us with what a better democratic future means for all the citizens—and get us all involved to share the task: building a more prosperous society, with a renewed middle class, and where every individual can flourish and reach his or her full potential.”

Originally published on Forbes.com

“Here in the U.S. we’re so used to a stable democracy that we misinterpret any crisis as imminent collapse. We’re going through a rough patch now, yes—but that’s simply a signal that it’s time to reboot.”

The reassuring words I was hearing on my phone came from Josiah Ober, professor of political science and classics at Stanford, and author of a new thought-provoking book, Demopolis: Democracy Before Liberalism in Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2017). I was probing him about the book’s implications for our troubled political state today. Polls suggest an increasing number of voters are losing faith in our system. God knows there’s plenty to shake our confidence. Whether it’s the tweeting antics of Mr. Trump, Russia’s chaos-inducing media manipulation, growing domestic inequality, or the threatening hostility of China and North Korea—this democracy indeed has plenty to worry about. Will our system survive? Will our future leaders be up to the challenges?

Ober with his long historical view is concerned but not panicked. “Democracy,” he continued, “is fragile—but it’s also persistent. It’s within our hands to renew it—and yes, we do need to get to work on that. But the key lies in understanding its conceptual roots. We can’t fix the system without getting back to the essence of true democracy. That’s been lost in our politics today.” This tantalizing assertion led us into Ober’s new book—and a conversation about a “solution vision” for fixing our struggling political system.

Reimagining True Democracy

Ober calls his Demopolis a “thought experiment,” a half-conceptual, half-imagined picture of fundamental democracy, where a well-defined body of citizens govern themselves collectively, free from the endemic strife that he believes certain tenets of modern liberalism are now bringing upon us. However, Demopolis is not some right-wing attack on progressive policies—Ober is himself a self-confessed “modern liberal”—but rather a historical-cum-philosophical journey back towards the essential heart of a body politic whose democratic ways have become flabby and confused by “too many misguided extensions of Enlightenment thinking.”  Ober has spent a long career writing about ancient Greek democracy, but in recent years has applied more of its practice and theory to articulating historical patterns of political thought now shaping modern states. Demopolis aims a sharply focused telescope on age-old questions of freedom, equality, and self-governance—what makes them true, and where they can go wrong in more modern interpretation.

Understanding Today’s Dysfunction

In fact, the problems of our current democracy is where our conversation next turned. Why, I asked, are we so at odds with one another now? Why does current “liberal thought”—and “non-liberal thought”– cause so much rancor, on this side or the other? Why are so many people disengaged or even attacking our democratic system, and what can be done about that? What will it take to rebuild a strong foundation to meet the challenges  now threatening our constitutional way of life?

Five themes stood out as I reflected later on our discussion:

1. Look beneath personalities and political structures to understand our weakened democracy: Many Americans today view our democratic maladies either as a result of bad leadership (e.g. Trump’s “reinvention” of the presidency, or “swamp-dwelling, out-of-touch elites”); or instead the consequences of institutional decay (e.g. gerrymandered political districts, or too much influence of lobbyists and corporate money). Ober suggests that although these are indeed testing civic faith in our free society, the more fundamental problem is that our nation has lost sight of what it means to “govern ourselves.” Demopolis stands as a sort of new root cause analysis, appealing for “revolution” in the literal sense—turning back to first principles of self-governance that started the movement of democracy in western civilization.

2. We can’t fix our political problems today without returning to the essence of democracy: Like others, Ober traces the elements of democracy to its invention as a fully participatory city-state by the ancient Greeks. But his book quickly moves from history to practical paradigm, stripping away the romantic wrapper of Athenian temples, heroes and water clocks to focus on the handful of must-have conceptual elements that distinguished what democracy first meant—and (as he forcefully argues) still means today. It is a community (of citizens, with shared values and traditions) that:

• Chooses to govern itself for three purposes: protecting itself, providing collective welfare, and ensuring a society answerable only to itself (“non-tyranny”)
• Pursues these purposes by embracing three core beliefs (civic freedom, civic equality, and civic dignity for all citizens);
• Expects its citizens to actively participate in public life, making decisions and taking accountability for what they collectively decide.

Various states, with different institutions, and different mechanisms have endeavored through history or today pursue various versions of “democracy” (including our U.S. three-branch, check-and-balance, representative-based Constitution)—but whatever the specific practices, any system of democracy will ultimately fail if this handful of conditions are not met and sustained. Thus, Ober insists, renewing any failing—or even just struggling– democracy must start with a blueprint of this essence. It’s a challenge he poses to all Americans today.

3. Our U.S. democracy is under stress because modern liberal thought has fused with—and sometimes confuses—the essence of self-governance. Ober argues that a sort of superstructure of post-Enlightenment thinking (e.g. highly autonomous personal freedom, global human rights, and economic social justice) has been built upon the original principles of a self-governing political community—and the conflation of the new and the old has caused us to lose sight of what democracy really means. Our modern version has taken us far beyond the historical core of more simple political freedom (of speech and association) and equality (everyone’s voice and vote must have the same value). American culture has become infused with demands about absolute rights, and appeals to universal justice (often left undefined but still claimed as non-negotiable.) The evolution has created strains and even contradictions among ourselves about the appropriate balance between privileges and duties as members of our community; about what it means to “be a democratic citizen”, and answerable to no one except ourselves.

By Ober’s view, what matters now is not the Red State-Blue State war for political power, or the philosophical battles about “more” or “less” government; rather it’s how to find common ground among different belief systems about what our democracy allows us to do and be, and ultimately even—as work and relationships become more global–about who “us” really is.

As liberalizing trends become more extended, our body politic is being torn in two opposing directions, pulled beyond foundational democracy. On the one hand, advocates of non-negotiable freedom in all domains will insist on rights to do things that may harm the community in ways that most citizens do not support (e.g. unfettered ownership of assault weapons or to do business with avowed foreign enemies). On the other hand, many enthusiasts for universal social justice want to prioritize providing education, healthcare or economic assistance to non-citizens and immigrants, even if that may limit serving similar needs of many fellow Americans.

“The real problem,” Ober explained, “is not about a modern democracy adopting this or that policy of ‘rights’ or ‘universal justice’—if the citizens so agree to that. But there are trade-offs and difficult consequences of moving towards that kind of vision, and we haven’t as a nation really debated such things, or developed a shared understanding of what that means for us collectively. And an-every-four-year Presidential election is no substitute for that. A big part of the pessimism and even rage about our current system is that people just aren’t able to participate in the debates and decisions that are implicitly shaping the overall meaning of our democracy today.”

4. The road to renewal must be built with hands-on civic education. The cognitive dissonance between fundamental democracy and the ever-expanding right-seeking liberal version is exacerbated by more and more citizens disengaging from public life, disconnected from any defined sense of membership in a political community. The demonization of “Washington” as a poisonous self-dealing swamp is a token of not just contempt but distance and alienation.

Many commentators have called for strengthening civic education as a strategy for rebuilding the health of American democracy—but Ober makes a critical distinction. “This can’t be about sitting in a classroom drawing charts about ‘how a bill becomes a law in Congress,’ or memorizing the names and dates of presidents. The world’s first democracy understood that civic education was actually ‘doing democracy’—citizens learning not just the craft but the meaning and passion of debating, persuading, compromising, and then accepting the consequences of making decisions together—and being accountable for your own destiny as a member of the community. We have to get back to that kind of civic learning—the lessons of practice and participation, not textbooks.”

Ober then put many of the contemporary suggestions for fixing democracy in that light. “Right now there’s a lot of enthusiasm for using technology to help citizens participate more directly, or to establish ‘civic panels or assemblies’ for citizens to advise lawmakers, do more decision-making by popular referenda, etc. These can be helpful, but not as an end in themselves. These can be interim experiments and first steps in a longer-term transformation. The real value of such mechanisms is to teach people anew what it means to operate as democratic citizens. And people have to practice and learn how to do that before anybody starts trying to change our constitution.”

5. Tomorrow’s leaders will succeed by reaffirming the core of democracy and its higher purposes. Ober concluded with a few aspirational thoughts related to leadership. “We’ll never turn today’s crisis into renewal unless we have a different kind of leadership than what we have today. John Kennedy challenged his nation to put a man on the moon, and demanded, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Reagan led us against an ‘evil empire.’ Today we’re talking about marginal tax rates and inappropriate sexual behavior of this or that electoral candidate. Our real challenge is to find and support a new generation of leaders who understand what democracy and the power of a self-governing, purposeful community really is—and who can inspire people to become citizens again.”

Originally published on Forbes.com

Put aside the conspiracy theories, latest Trump tweets and wonky wars of healthcare: let’s think bigger picture and longer term—on the future of democracy itself. Is rising populism, anti-government rage, and scorched earth partisanship destroying self-governance as we have known it? Or just signaling a cyclical downturn? Maybe the political system we hold dear is collapsing into history.

Ah, history. Not just a sad destination but also a helpful friend for serious future-gazing. Can’t democracy’s origins and past development help us understand how resilient our current system of governance might be? And provide insight to the long-term prospects for our democratic way of life?

Those questions brought me to Paul Cartledge, recently retired Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University, and author of a recent magisterial survey on the origins and development of “governance by the people”: Democracy: A Life (Oxford University Press, 2016).  

More Power To The People—Or Less?

I spoke to Professor Cartledge after my January conversation with another thought-provoking academic, Roslyn Fuller. Fuller had voiced pessimism about today’s democracy, but in her own new book, proposed an ancient-style solution: lance the boil of popular frustration about bureaucratic and distant representative government by “going back to an Athenian future”—embrace technology and some other structural changes to give all citizens direct say and participation in political decision-making.

“Heavens, no!” exclaimed Cartledge.

“Yes,” he continued, “for the longest time we’ve had a deficit of democracy in our governing systems—but now we’re having a surplus. Our recent U.K. referendum on Scottish independence (and again in the news), the disastrous and barely majoritarian outcome of Brexit, and the disturbing election of your new President—the last three years have been some of the most tumultuous of my adult life. This kind of decision-making has not represented sound ideas of an informed population, and but it does portend the potential for a dangerous abuse of popular power, perhaps even fascism.”

“Using smart phones to vote or  summon up more direct democracy is not what we need. The best hope lies with moderating populist trends underway. Representative-style government can be improved, but it’s still the best answer for the scale of governance nations must undertake today.”

Democracy Through The Ages

To dive deeper, Paul recounted a brief history of democracy, following his  book.  I probed repeatedly on three questions: What does past practice teach  about what makes democracy strong, and resilient? What makes democracy break down? What should leaders today do to keep it alive for tomorrow?

Our discussion ranged across Cartledge’s years of research (particularly pre-modern history), and some of his own early career politicking. He offered no simple solutions—there are none– but he commented insightfully about challenges and hopes for preserving western democracy. A few of the enlightening themes follow:

1. Democracy in practice has not been a timeless, static concept but rather a march of punctuated experiments that “learn from the past.” Cartledge emphasized that although “democracy” is loosely applied to different regimes in history, its workings—and cultures—have varied, often substantially, over time. “In judging success and resilience, we need to understand that direct, full-on participatory system of ancient Athens was very different from, say, what the Romans developed in their Republic, or of course the representative model of today’s Anglo-American constitutions. In fact, even in Athens itself, the role of the individual, the institutions, and the decision-making practices were different in different phases of its  history. ‘One size does not fit all.'”

“But ‘democracy’ does demonstrate some thematic historical consistency—organizing people around concepts of freedom, equality, and participatory self-governance, though varying in different constitutions. Leaders today should understand how those concepts worked in different cases—the dynamic of how different versions of democracy  functioned—and what made each succeed or ultimately fail. Democracy in the west has been a series of ongoing experiments, each attempting to improve upon the shortcomings of previous models.”

Mixed Constitutions

“For example, the Athenians took measures during the fourth century BCE to minimize the volatility of the more free-ranging participatory politics of the fifth century. The Roman Republic similarly adopted a so-called “mixed constitution” which institutionalized checks and balances between popular and elite governing bodies, building further on the painful lessons when Greek democracy degenerated into “mobocracy.” Those same lessons were taken to heart by drafters of the U.S. Constitution to produce your system of “checks and balances,” separating powers among branches of government.”

So what are today’s leaders learning from history? Campaign rhetoric still rings about “draining the swamp” and changing this or that procedural rule to beat the other party—but who’s really thinking about fixing the failures and improving our system overall?

2. Each new “experiment” brought fresh compromises and  new vulnerabilities to the democratic model. Just as every organizational design has strengths and weaknesses, so have different models of democracy through history. Cartledge referenced Athenian efforts to stabilize their democracy in the fourth century BCE—reducing legal lawmaking authority of the people, creating new officials to quality-control decision-making—that lessened the dangers of “mobocracy” but also “made for a less vital, more top-down culture of participation.” The “safer” mixed constitution of the Romans reduced citizen participation to “mostly voting in elections and town hall- style discussions,” but it also contributed to rising popular anger that opportunistic generals would later mobilize against one another, in civil war that destroyed the Res Publica. The same model encouraged bribery and favoritism by elite politicians to get plum assignments in the growing empire—another blow to the common good.

Now consider our democracy today, with its own trade-offs and compromises. Rigorous checks and balances offer critical stability—but also enable our system to get bogged down in litigation and lobbying, cross-branch in-fighting, and molasses-like decision-making for a global economy demanding ever more agility. What might a future model of democracy do to alleviate  that? 

The Power Of Community

3. Despite differences, all democratic models try to create “a community of citizens.” Athenian democracy, the most radical form of self-governance, was built on a community that promised political freedom and equality coupled with giving citizens a say—and obligation—to steer their own destiny. Its ethos was to share commitment, opportunity and sacrifice, all on behalf of the community that citizens themselves comprised.

Later democratic constitutions through history designed different versions of a “citizen community,” though inevitably systems of checks and balances, and “mixed approaches” ended up creating conflict among different groups of stakeholders.

Far-seeing politicians have tried to mitigate that, as Cartledge points out, by redefining, and shifting the emphasis of freedom—away from “freedom to [do something, e.g.. having a say in one’s governance],” to “freedom from [interference, e.g. protection of personal rights].” One great advance of the Roman constitution, as he explained, was a  broader extension of citizenship than Greeks allowed in their time, providing a range of special protections to people in the growing imperial state.  But the privileges did not include the same kind of freedom that Greek citizens enjoyed—while the sacrifices Roman citizens were asked to make (military and financial) were comparably onerous.

From ‘We’ To ‘Me’

The imbalance between rights and sacrifices has often made democracies vulnerable to popular backlash. Thus Cartledge again: “The demise of the Roman Republic was a collapse of the ‘culture of we’ into a ‘culture of me.’ Power-hungry generals built factions of citizens to back them first in political power and then out-and-out civil war, trading military support for grants of conquered land.”

“The breakdown of community has throughout history been a driving causes of democracy’s failure. You can even argue that the rise of  philosophical schools in the fourth century BCE and later, and the turning away from community towards personal ethics and knowledge contributed to the loss of Greek democracy.”

How much, in our current culture, are the growing popularity of self-help and personal improvement, advocacy for deep individual rights versus community prerogatives stoking the decline of democracy today? Is there a way to rebalance the mix, to recapture a “greater good”?

4. Democracy thrives on economic growth and moderation of inequality. Today there’s plenty of talk about how the ravages of globalization and slipping wages are fueling populism; and why growing economic inequality is not just morally unfair but bad for our own democracy. Professor Cartledge once more invokes the lessons of history.

“The golden age of Roman Republicanism came in the third and second centuries BCE, when their proto-empire was growing  across the Mediterranean world—providing benefits for a wider population and new material wealth for social generosity. And the terrific expansion and prosperity of the fifth century Athenian empire—further enabled by their use of slave labor—greatly enhanced that city-state’s ability to invite, and also pay for, all citizens to participate in self-governance.”

Elite Competition And Sauve Qui Peut

“During the most vital years of Athenian democracy, the danger of unequal distribution of wealth, and corresponding social volatility, was offset by a strong culture of public contribution by the rich. Wealthy people were heavily taxed to pay for public festivals, naval ships, and athletic games (“liturgies”). The genius of the model was how it created benign competition at the top—the elite were constantly trying to outdo each other in giving the most magnificent gifts to the public good. Everyone benefited.”

“But the mechanism was fragile. When Athenians started losing militarily to the Spartans, rich people blamed the demos and began resenting public contributions. Athens suffered a couple of oligarchic revolutions against its democracy, and the delicate social compact always broke down into well-to-do vs. poor.” In the final phase of its democracy, the wealthy elite abandoned  public liturgies, and instead used their money to curry political favor with the new Macedonian rulers who  conquered Athens in about 330 BCE.”  Community became sauve qui peut.

5. Democracy’s viability is tested under external pressure and survival is never guaranteed.

Different democratic systems have risen and fallen through history, noted Cartledge, often collapsing when some external shock tore apart the fabric of political community.

“When Athenian democracy yielded to its oligarchic revolutions, and then later to external conquest, those events threatened the survival of the state—breaking the social compact between rich and poor. Even great leaders—like Pericles in the fifth century— struggled to stem civil destruction in such crisis. Throughout history, war and resulting domestic strife have repeatedly undermined democratic systems–in Rome, England and France, and of course, in a very close call, your own Civil War.”

That said, Cartledge also reminded me that, on the long view, democracy in its various forms has bounced back repeatedly, evolving into different configurations of power-sharing. “But you can’t take the survival of any constitutional system—including our current ones–for granted. Athens’ version did eventually disappear, as did the Republicanism in Rome.”

Consider now today’s challenges. If war erupts from simmering conflicts with Russia, China, or North Korea, will our own constitutional way of life necessarily survive? Will our leadership be strong enough not just to prevail in a showdown of force but also to preserve civic freedom, equality and decision-making?

A Blueprint For Leaders

Paul Cartledge closed with a few practical suggestions for strengthening current democracy.

1. Double down but improve the system of checks and balances. For Cartledge, the growing populist empowerment—proliferating referendums, mobilizing movements through social media and the like—now threatens stable democracy. Rather than abandon our “mixed constitution” he argues simply to strengthen it—make it simpler, more nimble, and ultimately more participative, while still preserving its core of check and balances.

2. Revitalize representation and political parties. Cartledge argues that the size and scale of nation states, and their breadth of population will continue to require representative government; similarly political parties—“though full of various compromises, these are still the best way to unify different policy points of view, and avoid fragmentation.” But he also believes both can do more to engage citizens—not necessarily as decision-making arms, but for discussion, town-hall conversation and debates, and generally to include many more people of all backgrounds in the broader formulation of policy choices. If there is a good use of social media and technology, he adds, it should be more for this— to engage citizens in a more vital way, but not as a substitute for decision and policy-making by elected representatives.

3. Build (and rebuild) a stronger sense of political community, especially through the education of citizens. Cartledge pointed repeatedly to the importance of “community” in different democracies, and emphasized why an educated and informed citizenry must be one of the cornerstones of such culture. 

“Old fashioned civics lessons had some value—but frankly, even more important, is ‘education by doing’—I think there’s much to learn from ancient democracy, which saw the engagement  of citizens in public life—in courts, festivals, assemblies—as a focus of learning and growth for every member of the community. Creating modern mechanisms to build increased participation of our citizens—for example selecting people by lot (“sortition”) to perform more government roles, engage in policy forums, etc.—might recreate the kind of civic education that was core to Athenian democracy. Instilling such experience could be one of the strongest ways to protect our democracies today.”

Originally published on Forbes.com

The January 2017 stock market is showing plenty of optimism, but the political sphere swirls with anxiety. People—of all partisan stripes—worry about our democracy’s decay. Will the political system of freedom and equality as we know it survive? Will it weather the leadership style of the U.S. president-elect? Meet the challenges of rising populist nationalism and growing totalitarian regimes?

Too Much Incrementalism?

Alas, most ideas about “fixing democracy’s problems” seem narrow, self-serving or incremental: abolish the Electoral College so the popular vote always prevails; end gerrymandered voting districts, so representation is more fairly mixed; support President Obama to pass more executive orders to protect against abuses by Donald Trump.

Is that really enough to save democracy? Maybe we need to swing for the fences—not just mend the procedural edges, but instead rethink the whole system today. Why not really disrupt our powdered-wig representative model that’s become a morass of distant legislators, conniving lobbyists, and aloof commanders-in-chief (#DTS)?

Yeah, rock on, argues Roslyn Fuller, in her cracking recent book, Beasts and Gods: How Democracy Changed Its Purpose and Lost Its Meaning. Fuller, a researcher in Law at the Waterford (Ireland) Institute of Technology, has been writing about the limits of status quo democracy for several years—and believes the only hope now is complete revolution.

No, not armed insurrection. Fuller wants more literal revolution: circle back to democracy’s invention, in Greece about 440 BCE. What’s needed now, she insists, is recapturing the spirit and mechanisms of deeply participative and engaged political communities, as ancient Athenians once created. We should rediscover the world of real civic life, as when, in the shadow of the Parthenon, every citizen served, deliberated, and voted month after month to steer their own futures.

Giving People The Power

Beasts and Gods (invoking Aristotle’s famous discussion of man’s socio-political nature) makes an impassioned case for why, in an age of declining political institutions and growing social media, it’s time to double down on democracy’s true essence: full-on civic engagement by all, hands-on contributions to the government by everyday people, and organized mass decision-making. Forget fixing gerrymandering or changing rules for lobbyists: just give millions of people a direct role in making their own laws, and deciding how their money will be spent. Imagine if you someday had real and regular say in the kind of healthcare you’d have, the schools you want for your children, what to do about terrorism, and the taxes you’d pay–and that you even played an occasional hand in implementing the policies?

Of course our founding fathers explicitly steered the U.S. Constitution away from such “people power” (let us beware of “mob rule”!)—but Fuller believes their design decisions have wrought debilitating, unintended consequences: representational elections that neither represent nor excite people; game-changing influence of wealthy interests; decision-making gridlocked in a blindingly fast global economy.

Channeling Pericles And Aristotle

The book begins with an edgy and acerbic question: if modern democracy is so great, why is everyone now so unhappy? Fuller answers coolly, buttressed with plenty of data: today’s system simply isn’t engaging the people it’s supposed to empower. She goes on to explain why small fixes won’t ultimately fulfill freedom-loving citizens; and then, as if channeling Pericles and Aristotle, insists that western civilization once created a better version—and whose time for rediscovery has now come.

Ms. Fuller next explores adapting the model and spirit of Athenian direct democracy to a modern world hungry for more self-governance. Fuller is no antiquarian—she doesn’t envision chiton-wearing citizens arguing before water clocks in the open air. She simply advocates replacing the musty 18th century constitutions we still live under with the classical practices and humanistic values that, some two-plus millennia in the past, allowed hardworking farmers and shepherds to govern themselves successfully.

Social Technology For The Best Political Purposes

So how to reinvent this ancient model for ourselves? Perhaps predictably, this young legal scholar emphasizes the promise of technology, imagining an institutionalization of the real time conversations, debates and decision-making already underway across social media networks today. She further argues that technology could help scale up classical-style democratic experiments emerging in a few American cities and other parts of the western world, such as virtual open town meetings (where citizens debate schools, traffic patterns, or plans for affordable housing, etc.); and participative budgeting (providing opportunities for everyone to see and vote on priorities for local spending).

Her discussion at times seems incomplete–but in fairness, this 260 page book is less a reengineering blueprint than a visionary thought experiment. Skeptics will nitpick many of the suggestions, and scorn the incomparability between ancient and modern– but I guarantee Ms. Fuller will make you think differently about the trillion dollar bureaucracies we call democracy today.

In Search Of A Few Core Principles

When I spoke to Roslyn Fuller, I asked her to extend her analysis by offering some “core principles” of the classical democracy, to frame a more accessible summary. We kept the discussion general enough to be applicable to both political and business contexts (since many companies today are also wrestling with democratic-style management.)

Summarizing a complex system of institutions and human beliefs is no easy task. But the list that follows can get any would-be democratic revolutionary started:

1. First understand why democracy matters. Advocates of current democracy stress the freedom, equality, and personal rights it guarantees citizens. Fuller argues that the fully participative, Greek-style version produced greater justice and performance for society overall. “The Athenian model surpasses modern democracies in three ways: greater legitimacy—when everyone is involved and deciding the critical issues of the state, there’s no filter of depending on some representative who can pervert your preferences; greater stability—instead of the every four year big fight about elections, participative democracy is more of an ‘agile organization’—ongoing deliberation and decision-making, and thus smoother adaptation to change; and greater accountability—there’s nobody else to blame when the policies are truly decided by the people who also have to implement them.”

2. Clarify and build the member community. Fuller acknowledged that the Athenian system was as much about the strength of a community as it was about egalitarian institutions and processes. “Obviously it’s difficult to recreate the kind of cohesive relationships they had. Like it or not, we’re all organized in nation states now. But there would be opportunities to build more truly democratic communities on a smaller scale, in cities and regions. And technology is now unifying groups of people across time and space; networked democracy is an emerging new model. But whatever the scale, without the right human relationships—and a clear understanding of who ‘belongs’ to the engaged community—the classical model won’t work.”

3. Create “pull” for large-scale participation: Declining voter participation bedevils modern democracy, according to Fuller. She argues we need to make it much more worthwhile for people to play a role in their own governance—in lots of different ways. “I don’t suggest citizens should be required to vote, but they ought to be paid for their civic service, of all sorts. That was a real innovation in the Athenian revolution. When you couple material incentives with giving everyone an opportunity to do real work and decision-making, you’re promoting participation that will build more legitimacy and accountability. When people see the value of engaging, they will engage—and democracy becomes more vibrant.”

4. Amateurs and experts side by side. The author of Beasts and Gods was passionate about undoing the modern “tyranny of the elites”– but also calling on expertise when needed. “Ancient democracy was more alive because a large part of the government was literally chosen by lottery. Citizens took turns serving in different public and administrative offices, and on juries—all the time, regardless of their previous experience. But some critical positions were also reserved for people with demonstrated skills (chosen by vote). The military generals—on whom the city’s survival depended—were not amateurs.”

“The model thrived through the combination of deep knowledge when needed, coupled with everyday experience and perspective that kept things practical and meaningful for citizens.”

5. Decision making that’s fluid, efficient and consequent for all. Athenian citizens argued and voted to make policy on an ongoing basis—but decisions weren’t based on consensus, nor was there tolerance for endless debate.

“Issues and court cases were debated within rigid time frames. Many people think of democracy as a talking shop, but efficiency was actually a major priority for ancient democrats,” commented Fuller. “They believed in closure and had procedures designed specifically to prevent entrenched factions from forming, and, above all, from paralyzing effective state action. They recognized that there was a point when arguments had run their course, and that they were better off throwing their weight behind a democratic decision than seeking to wage a war of attrition among themselves. They knew they had to survive as a community before they could prosper as individuals.”

6. Ensure the value and civility of community communication. Fuller attributes much of today’s democratic decline to media practices. “Communication is essential to creating community, and we live in a world very different than ancient times—where people were primarily informed by public debate, or by friends or family members. Today’s mass media now dominates thinking; and it has the potential to unfairly shape and trivialize important issues (which it often does).”

“These imbalances are similarly reflected in social media, which can be unduly negative. There is little point to being constructive when you don’t have the power to implement positive outcomes. And lacking that power, people have learned the dubious pleasure of ‘venting.’ We’ve come to a point where a stream of criticism is seen as helpful conversation– rarely the case. A participatory community needs to focus on constructive outcomes.”

“Unless democratic leaders have the courage to elevate the discussion of important problems, their participative community will fail.”

The Moment Is Now

I closed by asking Ms. Fuller why reinventing classical democracy was now so urgent.

“People everywhere have good ideas–but also pent-up frustration. They’re just not being listened to. Democracy can’t be an every four-year event anymore. Technology affords us better means to engage and tap into those being governed, and ultimately letting all of us govern ourselves.”

“Of course more will be needed than just technology. But if we don’t create the mechanisms to harness the talent and energy of all people in democracies, our governmental systems are just going to collapse—or be taken over by somebody else.”

Originally published on Forbes.com