this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2025
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Which greek philosophers said that? and what did they say? do you have any sources to confirm?
Both plato and aristotle, but aristotle thought that any election-based state turned out in practice, to be an oligarchy or aristocracy, not a democracy (which he define as rule by the poor, with random selection by lot).
Aristotle's politics books 4-6 talk a lot about this:
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.4.four.html
In other words, what today we call "representative democracy", the ancient greeks correctly identified as oligarchy.
Did the greeks suggest any replacement?
I see electoralism weaknesses, but what other systems are less prone to power capture and then raw authoritarianism?
If people don't choose their representation, then who does? Or is representation the flaw?
Socialist democracy. The political structure is a way to reinforce the economic base, so by moving onto socialism, the working class is in control of the state. The issue isn't with voting, period, but the idea that we can escape capitalism just by doing so.
That is more clear. I think I should have better defined "electoralism". Social democracy sounds much better than raw unfettered capitalism.
Social democracy is capitalism with safety nets, I mean socialism. Rather than private ownership being principle, ie covering the large firms and key industries with the state dominated by capitalists, public ownership should be principle and the working class should dominate the state.