All political tendencies subservient to the bourgeoisie, from the extreme right to the left and the extreme left of capital, reformist, contemporary neo-Bolshevik (Stalinophile and Trotskyist), libertarian, claim democracy as the ideal model of governance. This common mystical and religious adherence deserves to be examined in the light of the historical foundations of democracy itself, in particular Athenian democracy. This article offers a documented analysis of this historical period, based on academic sources, as well as a critical reflection on the contemporary alternatives proposed by the PLATEFORMEJAUNE.COM group.
Bourgeois tendencies and the myth of democracy
This is not about putting on the same level the deeply reactionary and neo-fascist nature of the figure Marine Le Pen with other political tendencies subservient to the bourgeoisie to varying degrees, are not of the same nature. Obviously, Lutte Ouvrière despite its original defects is clearly in our social camp. This preliminary aims to remove any ambiguity or unhealthy interpretation. It is crucial to note that the Trotskyist organization Lutte Ouvrière evokes in its traditional narrative the concept of "workers' democracy" without clearly specifying its contours, thus remaining vague and abstract. This organization claims to be the legacy of Bolshevism, which, let us recall, had crushed with extreme violence any attempt at the emergence of a true workers' power. In reality, for these activists, "workers' democracy" would translate in fact into the dictatorship of a party, and more particularly into the domination of an elite of enlightened bureaucrats. Thus, far from representing a true proletarian power, this conception remains locked into an authoritarian and centralized framework, denying the principles of self-management and direct participation advocated by revolutionary currents such as those of PLATEFORMEJAUNE.COM . We invite our readers to read our various articles critical of Trotskyism, but also those concerning LUTTE OUVRIERE , on our blog.
Some contemporary statements regarding "democracy"
Marine Le Pen : " We will establish a local democracy where everyone's voice will be taken into account, notably through the referendum, at the initiative of the head of state, I foresee, and I will respect their results, or at the initiative of the citizens themselves, but also through better representation of all political sensibilities in the National Assembly via proportional representation. "
Jean-Luc Mélenchon : "The time has come for those who believe in democracy to take a new step to break this unacceptable spiral. We must put an unjust, inefficient and unsustainable economic system at the service of life and under the democratic control of citizens. We need institutions at the service of public freedoms and social rights, which are the very material basis of democracy. We need a popular, sovereign, democratic movement that defends the best conquests of our grandmothers and grandfathers, our fathers and mothers, and can bequeath a just, viable and sustainable social order to future generations" https://melenchon.fr/2018/04/14/maintenant-le-peuple/
Workers' Struggle: " On the other hand, the existence of a real democracy in the ranks of the workers would be a factor of considerable importance, because from the moment that there exist fascist groups acting publicly, an effective anti-fascist struggle can only be the work of the entire working class, and such a struggle can only be conceived under the banner of workers' democracy. "
Origins and Structure of Athenian Democracy
The Founding Reforms
Solon and his reforms
Solon, a renowned Athenian lawgiver, initiated crucial reforms in the 6th century BC to ease tensions between rich and poor. In 594 BC, he abolished debt slavery and instituted economic and political reforms that laid the foundations for citizen participation. Christian Meier, in Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes (1991), points out that "Solon's reforms paved the way for broader political participation, thereby reducing internal tensions within the city" [1].
Cleisthenes and the reorganization of the tribes
In the early 6th century BC, Cleisthenes continued Solon's work by reorganizing Athenian society through the "Cleisthenian" reforms. He divided the population into "demes" and "tribes," breaking down old clan structures and promoting a more egalitarian citizenship. Mogens Herman Hansen, in The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes , argues that "Cleisthenes was instrumental in breaking down aristocratic lineages and promoting a new vision of citizenship."[2]
The Golden Age of Athenian Democracy
Pericles and the Funeral Discourse
Pericles' "Funeral Oration," recorded by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War , remains an iconic defense of Athenian democracy. In it, Pericles proclaims that, unlike oligarchic societies, the Athenian constitution promotes justice and equality through citizen participation in public affairs. [3]
Exclusions and Contradictions
Women, Foreigners and Slaves
Despite its idealization, Athenian democracy was based on exclusion. Women, metics (foreigners residing in Athens), and slaves were denied political participation. Moses I. Finley, in Ancient and Modern Democracy (1973), observes that "Athenian democracy was an exclusive club reserved for male citizens, a fact often ignored in modern celebrations of the system" [4].
Martin Ostwald, in From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law (1986), states that " the exclusion of women, metics, and slaves was not merely formal but deeply rooted in the social and cultural structures of the time ."[5] Aristotle, in his Politics , specifies that citizenship is defined by active participation in public office and in the courts, thus excluding a large part of the population.[6]
Slavery: Economic Pillar of Athenian Democracy
The Central Role of Slaves
The Athenian economy depended heavily on slavery. Slaves worked in the fields, mines, and households. Paul Cartledge, in Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice (2009), notes: "The Athenian economy was impossible without slave labor, a fact that the Athenians themselves recognized" [7]. Paulin Ismard, in Democracy Against Experts (2015), reinforces this idea: " Slavery is intrinsically linked to Athenian democracy" [8].
Slavery was omnipresent in the Athenian city and represented the economic foundation on which this democracy rested. Slaves were captured during wars or purchased. They were imposed on them for various tasks, ranging from domestic work to agricultural and artisanal work.
Paul Cartledge, in his study Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice (2009), explains: "The Athenian economy could not function without the constant and massive supply of slave labor" [8]. This dependence on slavery is highlighted by Paulin Ismard in Democracy Against Experts (2015), who claims that "slavery is constitutive of Athenian democracy" [9]. Historian Claude Mossé also writes: "Slavery is the sine qua non of Athenian democracy" [10].
When Pericles extolled the virtues of Athenian democracy, he often failed to mention how much it relied on slave labor. In The Birth of Politics: Eight Greek and Roman Political Ideas and Why They Matter (2015), Melissa Lane notes that "the democratic ideal of citizen participation and freedom was made possible by the systematic exploitation of non-citizens." [11]
The role of public slaves in the administration of the city
Slaves were not confined solely to private labor; they also played a crucial role in public administration. Public slaves, or " demiourgoi ," were integrated into essential administrative tasks, ranging from financial management to the maintenance of public records to surveillance and enforcement of order.
Robin Osborne writes in Athens and Athenian Democracy (2010): "Public slaves maintained a paradox at the heart of Athenian democracy: the city relied on them to function effectively while excluding them entirely from the political sphere" [12]. Public slaves played an important role in the administration of the city, but were excluded from citizenship, thus illustrating a major contradiction.
Public Slaves and their Functions
Public slaves, or " demodices" , held key responsibilities in the public administration of Athens. They were secretaries, scribes, clerks to magistrates, and even members of the police force. Robin Osborne, in Athens and Athenian Democracy (2010), points out: "Public slaves paradoxically kept Athenian democracy functioning while being excluded from any political participation" [9]. Their crucial role reveals a fundamental paradox: Athenian democracy depended on the labor of those it oppressed.
The City and its Slaves: Paulin Ismard Explores the Shadows of Athenian Democracy
Analysis of the work
Paulin ISMARD's book, entitled "The City and its Slaves" , explores in depth the intrinsic link between the emergence of democracy and the institution of slavery in ancient Greece. It dissects the status of the slave, his economic role and his place in the Athenian judicial system, thus offering an innovative perspective on the law of slavery in Athens.
The author goes beyond simple legal analysis and places slavery at the heart of the Greek experience. He demonstrates how the city of free men, Athens, is intrinsically shaped by the institution of slavery. The Athenian political imagination, often associated with political autonomy, is in reality the fruit of this experience of slavery. It is through the prism of slavery that the city defines its borders, its relationship to the body, to writing and to representation.
The book also examines the subtle links that unite the history of ancient slavery to our contemporary era. It questions the Greco-Roman heritage and the way in which slavery, a sine qua non condition of its development, has contributed to shaping our history and persists in our modernity.
Through a series of essays, the author explores themes such as labor law, cybernetics, modern forms of political representation, calling upon authors such as Hermann Melville and Aimé Césaire. He concludes that the Athenian configuration, marked by slavery, is in some way still ours.
Some striking excerpts:
"The Athenian political imagination, with which we associate the experience of political autonomy, is in fact the product of the experience of slavery." (Introduction)
"If we claim today, rightly or wrongly, to be the heirs of Greco-Roman antiquity, how has slavery, which was the very condition of its development, contributed to writing a part of our history to the point of persisting even in our most extreme modernity?" (Introduction)
"Through slavery, the city thinks and gives form to its borders, and it is a certain relationship to the body, to writing, or to the very notion of representation which is then brought to light." (Introduction)
These excerpts illustrate the depth of the analysis proposed by Paulin Ismard, which invites us to reconsider our understanding of Athenian democracy and its legacy in our contemporary world.
So we are billions of years away, very far from the simplistic and vulgar translation of the ancient Greek term "demos kratos" as being the famous belief in a so-called " power to the people" , but in reality, since its beginnings, it is rather a system of optimized "democratic" management of slaves...
The Denunciation of Bourgeois Democracy: The Critique of
Marx and the Critique of the Gotha Programme
Karl Marx was a working class activist but also a prominent thinker and theoretician of modern communism, having in his youth written a doctoral thesis on Democritus and Epicurus, two philosophers of Greek antiquity, defended in 1841, "Difference of the philosophy of nature in Democritus and Epicurus" . In analyzing bourgeois democracy, Marx considers it as a means by which the capitalist class exercises its domination over the proletariat. In Critique of the Gotha Program (1875), he argues that apparent political equality conceals deep economic and social inequalities.
For Marx, only the proletarian revolution can abolish exploitation and establish a classless society in which the State will have withered away: " Between capitalist society and communist society lies the revolutionary transformation of one into the other. This also corresponds to a period of political transition, in which the State can be nothing other than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat" [10].
We wish to emphasize our position that we make a clear distinction between the necessary dictatorship of the proletariat, a social class evolving from a class in itself to a class for itself, and the Bolshevik-Leninist genocidal dictatorship regimes, as well as the dictatorship exercised by a political bureaucracy that appropriates power to become a new exploiting and oppressive class of the proletariat.
Marx's Military Writings
In his Military Writings , Marx notes "When the energetic Napoleon took up the revolutionary work again by identifying himself with the revolution - the very one that had been stifled on 9 Thermidor 1794 by the money-hungry bourgeoisie - when, in successive waves, he submerged Germany with democracy, of which he had preserved only one face, as a French author says, "Christian-Germanic" society was definitively ruined. Napoleon was not for Germany the arbitrary despot that his enemies like to evoke. Napoleon was in Germany the representative of the revolution, the propagator of its principles, the destroyer of the old feudal society." and continues: "The French Revolution developed democracy in Europe. Democracy is a contradiction in terms, a lie, and at bottom a pure hypocrisy (a theology, as the Germans would say). And this applies, in my opinion, to all forms of government. Political freedom is a sham and the worst possible slavery; this fictitious freedom is the worst enslavement. The same is true of political equality: that is why democracy must be torn to pieces as well as any other form of government. This hypocritical form must not remain. The contradiction it conceals must come to light: either real slavery, and that means undisguised despotism, or genuine freedom and genuine equality, and that means communism. The French Revolution produced both: Napoleon established the one, Babeuf the other."
PLATEFORMEJAUNE.COM : A Call for a Self-Managed Liberation Socialism
Starting from Marx's critical analysis of the notion of "democracy" , PLATEFORMEJAUNE.COM opposes the idealized vision of "democracy", as well as authoritarian fascist, neo-fascist regimes, and past regimes stemming from Bolshevism, to promote a radically emancipatory self-managed socialism.
Political perspective of PLATEFORMEJAUNE.COM
Premise and Proclamation of the Superior Right to Communism
"Conscious that no numerical majority, and even more so an electoral majority composed of passive voters, is competent to justify relations of exploitation and political domination, we proclaim, before the face of the Earth, the existence of a superior and inalienable right inherent to every human being, that of not being reduced to slavery. We recall that capitalism is par excellence the contemporary social relationship of slavery generalized to the entire planet. We affirm that a minority has the right to reject the legitimacy of a numerical majority, and even more so that of an electoral majority, of a reactionary nature, wishing to impose in an authoritarian manner a social relationship of exploitation and political domination. We proclaim the superior right to communism for every human being!" [12].
Critique of the Historical Falsifications of Communism
"We are fully aware of the serious attacks on the original vision of communism and the precious teachings of Marx and Engels by the authoritarian regimes that claimed their theories during the 20th century, particularly under the Stalinist, Leninist and Maoist eras. Nevertheless, we firmly maintain that these historical diversions should not condemn humanity to resign itself to an existence dominated by the universal servitude inherent in the capitalist system" [13].
Vision for an Egalitarian and United Society
"Our ambition is to create a living environment where the basic needs of each individual are met without coercion, allowing each person to flourish and increase their well-being. Such a society would be built on principles of equality and solidarity, with collective management of production for the benefit of all, a distribution of the fruits of production according to the principle 'to each according to his needs', 'and the withering away of the division between manual and intellectual work. The implementation of these ideals is inseparable from our fight against all forms of enslavement and supremacy' [14].
Overcoming Democratic Illusions
Reconnecting with the original ideals of communism as imagined by Marx and Engels implies denouncing all regimes that maintain a social relationship of exploitation and political oppression, even if they are dressed up in a "democratic" cosmetic. The analysis of PLATEFORMEJAUNE.COM brings a revolutionary and innovative perspective, echoing thinkers like Pierre Rosanvallon, who considers self-management as essential [16].
Towards a Society Without Exploitation
The fight led by PLATEFORMEJAUNE.COM is not limited to current state or capitalist structures, but aims at a radical transformation of society. They invoke a "right superior to communism", an inalienable right of every human being not to be subjected to exploitation and domination. This aspiration can only be achieved through active and direct participation of individuals in all spheres of life, going beyond the simple mechanisms of electoral representation.
Conclusion
The history of Athenian democracy, idealized, reveals fundamental contradictions linked to exclusion and exploitation, still present in modern forms of contemporary bourgeois democracy. By advocating self-managed socialism, PLATEFORMEJAUNE.COM proposes a radical alternative aimed at refocusing the debate on the abolition of all forms of domination and exploitation, by highlighting real and substantial equality as well as direct and active participation in decision-making processes. There can be no real freedom without social equality and in a regime of exploitation. In this perspective, PLATEFORMEJAUNE calls on revolutionary socialist activists to break with this mystifying democratic religion and focus on overcoming holy "democracy" with self-managed socialism.
Notes and References
[1] Christian Meier, Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles, and Ideology , Macmillan, 1991.
[2] Mogens Herman Hansen, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles, and Ideology , Oxford University Press, 1991.
[3] Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War , Book II.
[4] Moses I. Finley, Ancient Democracy and Modern Democracy , Payot, 1973.
[5] Martin Ostwald, From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law: Law, Society, and Politics in Fifth-Century Athens , University of California Press, 1986.
[6] Aristotle, Politics .
[7] Paul Cartledge, Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice , Cambridge University Press, 2009.
[8] Paulin Ismard, Democracy against experts , Seuil, 2015.
[9] Robin Osborne, Athens and Athenian Democracy , Cambridge University Press, 2010.
[10] Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme , 1875.
[11] Karl Marx, Military Writings .
[12] PLATEFORMEJAUNE.COM , Political Platform .
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Pierre Rosanvallon, The Society of Equals , Seuil, 2011.
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