Thanks. I'll give Wood's book a look though my very limited time is
currently turned in an entirely different direction. I of course agree
with your remarks on Madison etal. Carlo Parcelli

Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" wrote:
>
> >
> > As for democracy, I've never seen it. A friend of mine who teaches
> > classics is preparing (or at least would like to prepare) a paper on
> > Athenian democracy in the raw. His conclusion so far is that our
> > historical knowledge of democracy comes from Athenian writers who
> > actually despised democracy.
>
> You really should read Ellen Meiksins Wood, *Peasant-Citizen & Slave:
> The Foundations of Athenian Democracy* (London & New York:
> Verso, 1989). You are of course correct about the sources of our
> knowledge of Athenian democracy -- and without the hatred that
> democracy inspired in its opponents "western philosophy" as we know
> it would not exist. Just once, and once only, did Plato allow an opponent
> to speak -- in the reply of Protagoras to the proto-fascist Socrates,
> in the dialogue of that name. Plato's usual (deliberate?) distortion or
> subversion of his opponents is best illustrated in that (in)famous debate
> between Thrasymachus and Socrates in the *Republic*. It would be
> hard to recognize from the words Plato gives to Thrasymachus that
> the latter is a defender of Athenian democracy -- the key point of which
> is that it was won by peasant struggle *against* an aristocracy, not
> created by by an Aristocracy (as was u.s. democracy) for the specific
> purpose of preventing the development of popular struggles. One might
> say without too much exaggeration that the heart and soul of the U.S.
> Constitution is to prevent the occurrence of such events as Shay's
> Rebellion. Read Madison's Federalist No. 10 and its hatred of
> "faction" (i.e., democracy in the Athenian sense).
>
> Carrol

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