After the Athenian Democracy, was direct Democracy ever ruled as form of government?
By: Mario J. Pinheiro
Tags: Technological Advances, Democracy, Society Politics, Network, Kondratieff

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We all have the feeling that there is a new open space to be occupied by humans in their short span of time. Technology, for good or for evil, are giving us new tools, tools that gave the opportunity to a few, with no substantial difference of initial conditions from us, to become unreasonable rich, and, without special preparation, except lots of money, are becoming the leaders of the new form of society that unfolds in front of us. Like a cosmic pendulum, the balance seems tending to dictatorship or to democracy. In dictatorship, there is no place for debate, so, we are mostly interested on the possibility of Democracy. But, has Democracy had ever a place in governance? We believe not despite all the propaganda and mind manipulation to force us to believe otherwise.

«Athenian democracy developed around the 6th century BC in the Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica. Athenian democracy is often described as the first known democracy in the world. Other Greek cities set up democracies, most following the Athenian model, but none are as well documented as Athens’ democracy.» — [1]

The Athenian Democracy and the modern forms of Democracy, direct and representative, are first drafts of the idea that emerges from the observation of the universe and as it was understood by the great Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno: «There is no absolute up or down, as Aristotle taught; no absolute position in space; but the position of a body is relative to that of other bodies. Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer is always at the center of things.»

This is the 19th-century monument to Giordano Bruno on the Campo de’ Fiori in Rome, the exact place where he was burn at the hands of the Inquisition.

To harness the full strength of our societies it is necessary to implement a citizen-centred form of governance. And we are at the verge of a transformation that may allow this type of governance that is due to the advance of technology. The work of Nikolai Kondratyev (1892–1938), the Soviet economist and mathematician, gave us important clues with their contributions to the understanding of the importance of business cycles.

Kondratyev's K-cycles and the new phase of capitalism: In the 1930s, the Soviet Union commissioned to the mathematician Nikolai Kondratieff, a mathematical model to prove that capitalism would fall and communism would survive the troubled course of history.

Kondratieff studied economic history in depth and came to the conclusion that economics is better explained by technological evolution than by class struggle, the Marxists' preferred explanation. He concluded that technological evolution is not linear, and evolves in cycles of 50 to 60 years, the famous patterns now called Kondratieff cycles, or K-waves, to his homage. This conclusion was not to Staline's satisfaction and, on September 17, 1938, Nikolay Kondratieff was sentenced to 'ten years in prison without the right to correspondence'. In other words: he was shot down by a firing squad that same day.

K-waves have been studied and confirmed by a branch of mathematics called spectral analysis. There is controversy about the number of cycles, and when they are triggered, but Table 1 gives an interpretation of the cycles and the technology that activate them.

Kondratyev's findings thus shows that technology does not necessarily harmonize with dictators, I think, on the contrary.

(see Ref.[2])

In Ref. [2]

AI, blockchain, deep learning, automation, accommodate the building-up of networks that are spontaneously established and are opposed to the linear structure of autocracies, and favour a society where each one citizen can be a center of activity and contributions to a better society. This is the essence of democracy.

It is predictable that the agendas from UN and WEF and BG, or any authoritarian, soul impoverishing society, will face the counter-action of historical evolution, self-organized structures, and non-linearity. In fact, with the new era in technological evolution, the working driven forces tend to be bottom-up, democratic leadership, and not the old top-down organization (preferred by the international-socialists and Bilderberg group, as we surprisingly realized with their recent discourse) which is characterized by linear relationships, counterproductive nowadays, and contrary to the historical evolution. When Klaus Schwab, and others leaders, refer to the «small window» available to implement the new world order, they recognize slightly this powerful ongoing process, that’s why they conquered the support of a faction of the left-wing to the cause of fascism.

The future is not adapted to top-down, authoritarian leadership, I believe, and I stand up for Democracy. Unless, the few powerful rich with the new sociological phenomena of intellectual deviation, allow it [3]. In fact, «we see that any government — local, state, or national — wanting to embrace complexity and systems thinking must work towards:

«-Viewing themselves differently: Governments thinking in systems need to adopt a more humble mindset; one which recognises that government sits alongside other actors in the system, rather than above or at the centre. Governments must also invest in understanding the system — who is part of it, and how actors work together.

-Engaging differently: Governments need to build trust with other system actors, and work to address power imbalances by understanding the importance of different perspectives and voices. A co-design approach is critical.

-Leading differently: Leadership needs to shift from having the answers to asking the right questions. As Senge et al explain, “To be a systems leader one needs to: (1) see the larger system (2) be able to foster reflection and generative conversations (3) shift the focus from problem solving to co-creating the future.”

-Structuring themselves differently: Silos and hierarchies don’t work well in complex systems. Government agencies embracing a systems approach need to think about how to take a cross-portfolio, cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to their work.

-Working differently: Every interaction within a complex system changes the system itself. This means that governments must move away from the concept of developing ten (or even two!) year plans. Instead, they should adopt an approach of experimentation, learning and iteration. Interventions must be adaptive and responsive to the new conditions that constantly emerge.

-Governing and measuring differently: Thinking in systems also means that governments must adopt a different approach to evidence and evaluation. As John Burgoyne writes, “Measurement should not be used for top-down control, but rather to learn about complex problems and the people experiencing them, so we can adapt and improve our approach.”

-Viewing themselves differently: Governments thinking in systems need to adopt a more humble mindset; one which recognizes that the government sits alongside other actors in the system, rather than above or at the center. Governments must also invest in understanding the system — who is part of it, and how actors work together. to the new conditions that constantly emerge.» [4]

As Noam Chomsky stated, «The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations» [5].

When the outstanding German mathematician (and not Jewish), Kurt Gödel immigrated to the USA, with the support of Albert Einstein and the economist Oskar Morgenstern (game theory), during the act of asking US citizenship, Gödel detected a breach in the US Constitution, a crucial contradiction that could open the door to dictatorship. So, the danger is still there.

Of course, we can altogether imagine an hatred society — the dual of Democracy-, where each citizen is the source of hate and the mandatory of a rigid, constricted and authoritarian society. Could the design of this dual be already planned in the fine printings of the Agenda 2030 and The Great Reset, the seeds that open the doors to a global dictatorship? Democracy needs vigilant citizen, this is the necessary but not sufficient condition to let true, citizen-centered, Democracy, expand.

Fortunately, Nature has its own ways to congregate harmony and chaos, and as we have seen in the small beautiful gardens, to ensure that things work.

GOOGLED REFERENCES:

[1] Athenian democracy — Wikipedia

[2] https://participate.melbourne.vic.gov.au/city-future/city-future-1/embracing-complexity-government-story-about-gardening-and-thinking-systems?fbclid=IwAR3XFHqe780vFZpXc0Bg7LytzUNC2EmbzMBUjjB6LxlY1WZQpDnmHKSReFQ

[3] https://knowledge.insead.edu/strategy/the-next-cycle-of-capitalism-5226?fbclid=IwAR1TKhz35P6FCCNR0tm0Sq3yD25QEms1mQwnT5b9r65u8hSQNxtUs16_nwo

[4] https://booksandideas.net/White-Collars-Dirty-Hands-and-Clean-Records.html

[5] Domestic Constituencies (chomsky.info)