Elite Origins of Democracy

How the father and son presidents foresaw the rise of the cult of personality and fought those who sought to abuse the weaknesses inherent in our democracy.

Roughly 2,500 years ago, the Athenian people established a radical democracy in which power derived from the votes of ordinary citizens. At a time when local governments ranged from oligarchy to tyranny, the elite classes of Athens gradually ceded power to the inexperienced masses, whose votes served as referendums for everything from taxation to war to welfare. The sequence of events that led to this development is astonishing, and the society that flourished under Athenian democracy is one of the greatest—even if greatly flawed—achievements in world history.