Ancient Greeks would not recognise our ‘democracy’ – they’d see an ‘oligarchy’

We owe to the ancient Greeks much, if not most of our own current political vocabulary.

All the way from anarchy and democracy to politics itself. But their politics and ours are very different beasts.

To an ancient Greek democrat (of any stripe), all our modern democratic systems would count as “oligarchy”.

By that I mean the rule of and by – if not necessarily or expressly for – the few, as opposed to the power or control of the people, or the many (demo-kratia)…

Source: Ancient Greeks would not recognise our ‘democracy’ – they’d see an ‘oligarchy’