Democracy

-Our system goes by the name of 'liberal democracy'.

-The word democracy comes from Ancient Greece, 'demos' meaning 'people' & 'kratos' meaning 'power'.

Democracy in Ancient Greece

-It is commonplace to say that democracy was invented in Ancient Athens

-It was a direct democracy

-Another type of democracy was in Ancient Rome: people voted for magistrates, who then did the actual governing

-The public did not govern directly: this was done by magistrates

-Democracy disappeared during the Archaic Dark Ages

-Rome was governed by emperors until the empire succumbed

-Plato wrote 'The Republic', where he said that democracy was the second worst form of government, the worst being tyranny- above democracy was oligarchy, then timarchy, then aristocracy

-Romans had part democracy & part oligarchy('rule of the few')

-Aristotle said that 'democracy usually turned out to be the rule of the poor over the rich'- because the poor is the majority in most societies

-Medieval people thought that democracy was absurd

-Stirring for democracy began in 17th century England when Latin scholars read ancient works, and then realised that there were alternatives to a monarchy

-The Levellers & Diggers began to campaign for democracy

-The idea was taken up by the Founding Fathers of America

-'King Numbers' speech: John Rnadolph argued that it was pointless to change a monarchy to a democracy

-Tyranny of the majority means that a majority in a democracy will…