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It is a common belief that democratic forms of government began in Greece and Rome. However, a newly published global study on ancient societies upends this perception, rewriting our understanding of democracy's origins.
An international team of researchers analyzed archaeological and historical evidence from 31 ancient societies across Europe, Asia, and the Americas and found that shared, inclusive governance was far more common than was once believed.
The study, which appears in the journal Science Advances, is the first comprehensive effort to use archaeological evidence to assess the types of government that existed in early societies.
"People often assume that democratic practices started in Greece and Rome," says Gary Feinman, the study's lead author and the MacArthur Curator of Mesoamerican and Central American Anthropology at the Field Museum's Negaunee Integrative Research Center. "But our research shows that many societies around the world developed ways to limit the power of rulers and give ordinary people a voice."
The researchers, drawing upon art, architecture, and other artifacts, also found evidence of autocratic governments.
"These findings show that both democracy and autocracy were widespread in the ancient world," observes New York University Professor David Stasavage, author of The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today and a co-author of the paper. "Significantly, we now have a deeper appreciation of the many factors that affect how governments form and change over time—knowledge that can guide understanding of present-day geopolitical developments."
The study's authors note that both types of governments come in different forms. In an autocracy, one person or a small group holds all the power; examples of autocracy can include absolute monarchies and dictatorships. In a democracy, decision-making power is shared among the people. Elections often go hand-in-hand with democracy, but not always.
"Elections aren't exactly the greatest metric for what counts as a democracy, so with this study, we tried to draw on historical examples of human political organization," says Feinman. "We defined two key dimensions of governance. One of them is the degree to which power is concentrated in just one individual or just one institution. The other is the degree of inclusiveness—how much the bulk of the citizens have access to power and can participate in some aspects of governance."
[...] The researchers found that population size and the number of political levels did not account for whether a society would be autocratic—contrary to conventional wisdom, populous or geographically expansive societies were not always autocratic. Instead, says Feinman, "the strongest factor shaping how much power rulers held was how they financed their authority."
Societies that depended heavily on revenue that was controlled or monopolized by leaders—such as mines, long-distance trade routes, slave labor, or war plunder—tended to become more autocratic. In contrast, societies funded mainly through broad internal taxes or community labor were more likely to distribute power and maintain systems of shared governance.
The study also shows that societies with more inclusive political systems generally had lower levels of economic inequality.
Journal Reference: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aec1426
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pe1rxq on Wednesday April 08, @07:07AM (11 children)
Remember this next time you are temped to vote for the wannabe fascist 'less taxes' (for the rich) candidate.
(Score: 5, Funny) by PiMuNu on Wednesday April 08, @08:03AM (9 children)
Only if you like roads and schools. Otherwise they are just a money sink.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08, @02:48PM
Hope the place you live never catches on fire.
I guess that gun you have is to protect yourself from gang violence.
(Score: 3, Informative) by higuita on Wednesday April 08, @04:40PM (7 children)
and health service
and police
and firefighters
and support in natural disasters
and food safety
and job security
and anti-competitive (monopoly) rules
and judges
and nature preservation
and history preservation
and ... many other things...
people only give valor to something when they lose it, but that doesn't mean that everything that tax pay is bad.
if you tell that taxes could be better used?! yes, for sure... but what is important to me may not be very important for you
(Score: 1, Troll) by ChrisMaple on Wednesday April 08, @05:30PM (6 children)
Health service, food safety, job security, monopoly rules, nature preservation, and history preservation are not proper functions of government. If you've read 1984, you know why history preservation cannot be trusted to government.
(Score: 3, Informative) by pe1rxq on Wednesday April 08, @06:28PM (1 child)
1984 was fictional.
As a counter example: The US is a real country and it is doing a piss poor job on all the things you mentioned.
Health services (not just for the lucky few) suck.
Food safety is laughable.
No job security
Plenty of monopolies
Nature preservation: your 'national bird' is threatened. You can barely safe that one.
And with history preservation they don't mean doubling down on racism.
Maybe try spending a bit of tax money on it before you start waving with a scifi book.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09, @03:10AM
The setting was fictional. The events were historical. Maybe you had to be there.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aafcac on Wednesday April 08, @07:58PM
Except most of those things are best done by the government. History preservation is a decent point though. None of those other things are more likely to be done properly by private interests.
(Score: 4, Touché) by higuita on Wednesday April 08, @08:18PM
that may be the vision of many USA people, yet people in many other places like those features... maybe, just maybe you were indoctrinated that free market and private sector is perfect and solve everything but tell me:
paying full price of health service = USA health service, one of the worse in the world, except for the rich. Cuba health service is one of the best of the world and they are broke (mostly due to the decade old embargo)
food safety not being properly regulated = USA food, full of extra ingredients, with unknown results to the health and when American travel to other countries report that food taste differently (while not so colorful or big) and feels natural
no Job security = legal slavery (either you accept something that may be dangerous or cause health issues or get fired) and accidents... why not force a gas truck driver travel 48h without stop... it should be fine, right? why wasting money in fire escapes and fire protection? why protect machinery or live wires, it is user fault if they touch it anyway!!
no monopoly rules = yet, USA already had those and the government had to force break ups, they got too powerful and impacted the country grow and abused the clients... there are again similar problems, but at least this government (and previous too) is in their pocket, so no change is expected yet
Nature preservation = if not the government, who will protect it? can a small group of people fight a chemical or oil industry? can Natural parks survive without some control and help?
History, again, who will save landmarks from being demolished, pay the restoration costs, keep memory and history alive? maybe because USA have a somewhat shorter history, but there are still many historical sites and people like to visit them
(Score: 2) by higuita on Friday April 10, @03:24PM
Also, the simply fact that government manage many important roles, doesn't mean that OTHERS can't also do it, one do not exclude the other. That is a common problem, extremists position, either 100% government, either 100% free market. The best option is always in between. for a government, everything is too big and fail to detect or care with small details... private can better monitor local issues and manage them, but fail to solve big issues.
history preservation, nature preservation are great examples that ANYONE can help. Bigger projects are probably only for governments, but anyone can help and do their part. So 1984 can be avoided if there are multiple sources of history (even if some may be flagged as illegal)
(Score: 2) by higuita on Sunday April 12, @04:45PM
by coincidence, we got this related post recently:
https://bsky.app/profile/queenmab99.bsky.social/post/3mjcqk23vfc2i [bsky.app]
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday April 08, @02:22PM
And of course, the usual disregard for what those taxes are spent on. Let's consider the US federal budget example since that's a big political driver for tax reduction and your so-called fascism in the US. Over half is spent just redistributing wealth - usual from poor to wealthy (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid (keep in mind that money goes directly to the medical industry), and corporate welfare). Another large amount (somewhat overlapping with the first) is spent to help make certain services like education, national defense, or health care expensive. Another significant fraction (last check 14% and growing) is spent to pay interest on all the debt acquired in the course of doing these things. My take: at least half and perhaps as much as two thirds of the federal budget is spent on bullshit that doesn't make us better off collectively, especially in the future.
So why delegate important stuff like tax and spending reduction to the alleged fascists? Do you want them to win?
Seriously, this is part of the dysfunction. When you have a choice (two party election) between a "taxes are good" candidate who refuses to even think about why "less taxes" is a thing, and a candidate who offers (not necessarily sincerely) to reduce taxes, the former will lose some votes and the latter gain some votes for their respective stances.