The Sentinel Philosophy: Why Democracy Is Broken (And How Ancient Greece Solved It)

Polybius

Pure Democracy is rubbish. You get an uncaring, politically illiterate mass vote in somebody who sounds good and looks good, and what you end up with is inevitably mob rule when the mob know nothing about ruling. But according to Polybius, there is a better way.

Plato compared democracy to a ship, and this ship is run by a captain who is deaf and short-sighted. He's not very good at his job. And so the crew think that they can take over. They say things like, 'Oh, navigation is easy. Anybody can run a ship.' They jostle, and they fight, and they scheme to become captain. But of course, navigation is not easy, and not everybody can be a captain, and so the ship is destroyed.

The ancient Greeks argued that every form of government has its faults. A monarchy will lead to a cruel tyranny, which leads to an aristocracy, but the aristocracy becomes corrupt and self-serving. This leads to a democracy, which becomes a mob rule, which leads to anarchy. And so, people crave a strong leader, and you get monarchy all over again.

But Polybius argued that the perfect form of government involves elements of each. You have to have a monarchy (like a consul, or a president), an aristocracy (like a senate), and a democracy (like a parliament or a Congress).

A long time later, the Founding Fathers of America agreed with Polybius, and they modelled the Constitution on ideas like his. Plato argued that all parts of a government should agree, but Polybius argued that we need a degree of creative disagreement for democracy to stay fresh. We need rival voices from rival parts of governments to offer different visions for democracy to survive. In other words, we have to have it so that no one person or one body ever becomes too powerful. And that's why we have checks and balances.

Edit: I'll end this article with a photo from my copy of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy: