Part 21 (1/2)

8. My discussion of Athenian democracy is much indebted to R. K. Sinclair, Democracy and Partic.i.p.ation in Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

9. On this topic, see Moses I. Finley, Democracy Ancient and Modern (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1973); G.E.M. de Ste. Croix, The Cla.s.s Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981).

10. Aristotle, Politics 1291b3038, 1310a2836, 1317a40b7.

11. Solon and Cleisthenes were described by some ancient writers as precursors of democracy.

12. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, I.70, p. 40.

13. The most notorious example of ma.s.s slaughter was the Mytilene revolt. See ibid., bk. III.

14. See J. K. Davies, Democracy and Cla.s.sical Greece (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983), 139, for examples of these rivalries.

15. Finley, Democracy Ancient and Modern, 4850, argued that empire made Athenian democracy possible by supplying revenues that could pay for the political attendance of poorer Athenians, by providing land overseas for settlements and investment opportunities for the wealthy.

16. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, V.89, p. 331.

17. Finley argued that both the average Athenian and the wealthy cla.s.ses derived economic advantages from the empire. See Moses I. Finley, ”The Fifth-Century Athenian Empire: A Balance-Sheet” in Imperialism in the Ancient World, ed. P.D.A. Garnsey and C. R. Whittaker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978).

18. See the fine study of the relations.h.i.+ps between elites and demos in Ober, Ma.s.s and Elite in Democratic Athens, and the earlier treatment concentrating on the ”demagogues”: W. Robert Connor, The New Politicians of Fifth-Century Athens (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971).

19. See Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, III.3648; IV.2829, 108; VI.819, 89.

20. Ibid., II.65, p. 120.

21. Ibid., II.65, pp. 12021.

22. The closest were the Italian city-states of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, some of which were republican in character but often dominated by the aristocracy. It is significant that they were cities. See Lauro Martines, Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy (New York: Random House, 1980), 13140.

23. See Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 1:26, 48, 49, 51, 58, 123, 132, 146. There were some rare exceptions, e.g., the speeches of James Wilson in Farrand.

24. For background, see Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas during the English Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975); Perez Zagorin, A History of Political Thought in the English Revolution (London: Routledge & Paul, 1954), chaps. 23; and the fine collection of essays in Margaret C. Jacob and James R. Jacob, The Origins of Anglo-American Radicalism (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1991).

25. I have relied on the pa.s.sages reproduced in G. E. Aylmer, ed., The Levellers in the English Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), 100, 102. See the important essay by Mark A. Kishlansky, ”Consensus Politics and the Structure of Debate at Putney,” in Jacob and Jacob, The Origins of Anglo-American Radicalism, 89103.

26. Aylmer, The Levellers, 121.

27. Ibid., 100, 101.

28. Ibid., 113.

29. Ibid., 107.

30. Ibid., 107.

31. Ibid., 114.

32. See Arno J. Mayer, The Furies: Violence and Terror in the French and Russian Revolutions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

33. I am indebted to the following: Nash, The Unknown American Revolution and his earlier work, The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979). Also Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution (New York: Vintage, 1974), and the essays in Jacob and Jacob, The Origins of Anglo-American Radicalism, 185>th>ff.

34. According to Article I, sec. 2, the House was to be chosen by ”the people,” but the people were promptly defined as ”electors” whose ”qualifications” were those of ”the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.” Thus in states where suffrage qualifications were based on wealth or property, this could mean that most of ”the people” would have no voice in the selection of their representatives.

35. See Gary Nash, ”Artisans and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia,” in Jacob and Jacob, The Origins of Anglo-American Radicalism, 25878.

36. To Dupont de Nemours, April 24, 1816, in Writings, 1387.

37. Ibid., 1385.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

DEMOCRACY'S PROSPECTS: LOOKING BACKWARDS

1. Cited in Elizabeth b.u.miller, ”Not 'the Decider,' but Stirring Anxiety,” New York Times, April 24, 2006, A-17.

2. See Michael Barbaro and Stephanie Strom, ”Conservatives Help Wal-Mart, and Vice Versa,” New York Times, September 8, 2006, C-1, which describes how the major conservative think tanks were paid handsome sums by Wal-Mart and responded by supplying articles praising Wal-Mart at a time when it was facing growing criticism of its low wage and benefit practices. See also Mark A. Smith, American Business and Political Power: Public Opinion, Election, and Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), who emphasizes the role of think tanks in influencing public opinion and furthering the political power of business.

3. Cited in Maureen Dowd, ”The Unslammed Phone,” New York Times, September 9, 2006, A-27.

4. See Frank Rich, The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina (New York: Penguin, 2006).

5. Cited in Michael Abramowitz and Thomas E. Ricks, ”Strategy: Pressures Mount on Bush Policy,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, October 20, 2006, A-1, 15. Reprinted from the Was.h.i.+ngton Post.

6. Bernard Williams, Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 118. This book is the best available discussion of the subject.

7. In his biography, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York: Public Affairs, 2000), 31531, Lou Cannon describes the anguish suffered by Reagan when he was finally persuaded to confess to the American public that he had lied about the sale of arms to Iran in order to aid the Nicaraguan ”contras.”

8. Republic, trans. Francis M. Cornford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1945), 158 (V.459cd).

9. For discussions of lying in Plato's works, see Julia Annas, An Introduction to Plato's Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 1068, 16667; John R. Wallach, The Platonic Political Art: A Study of Critical Reason and Democracy (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 27374. For a defense of Plato's tactic, see C.D.C. Reeve, Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato's Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 50 ff.

10. Republic, 105 ff. (III.414 ff.) 11. Jose Sarramago has written a remarkable novel on the theme, The Cave, 2nd ed. (New York: Vintage, 2003).