[Peace-discuss] Balance and liberalism

[C. G. Estabrook]

 From Chomsky (1998) "The Common Good" :

"Aristotle took it for granted that a democracy should be fully participatory 
(with some notable exceptions, like women and slaves) and that it should aim for 
the common good. In order to achieve that, it has to ensure relative equality, 
'moderate and sufficient property' and 'lasting prosperity' for everyone.

"In other words, Aristotle felt that if you have extremes of poor and rich, you 
can't talk seriously about democracy. Any true democracy has to be what we call 
today a welfare state -- actually, an extreme form of one, far beyond anything 
envisioned in this century.

"When I pointed this out at a press conference in Majorca, the headlines in the 
Spanish papers read something like, If Aristotle were alive today, he'd be 
denounced as a dangerous radical. That's probably true..."

http://www.chomsky.info/books/commongood02.htm


David Green wrote:
> If we invoke ancient Greece as an example of democracy and its problems, 
> it seems to me like an example of bad cases making bad law.
>  
> DG
> 
> */Bob Illyes <illyes at uiuc.edu>/* wrote:
> 
>     I'm not sure I get your drift, David, but let me address the Bill of
>     Rights.
> 
>     The Bill of Rights lists rights of individuals that cannot be
>     infringed on
>     by the majority, i.e., the US government. A balance between individual
>     liberty and a type of majority rule is thus built into our amended
>     Constitution. Is it imperfect? Absolutely. You'll get no argument
>     from me
>     there. The issue is whether or not "perfection" is actually what one
>     wants.
> 
>     Discussions of the problem of democracy tending toward tyranny go
>     back at
>     least as far as Aristotle, who saw plenty of examples in Athens. He
>     promoted something he called "polity", which he defined on a class
>     basis, a
>     comprise between rule by the majority and rule by the wealthy, either
>     extreme in his view being bad. Modern liberalism concentrates more on
>     rights beyond property, such as are addressed by the Declaration of
>     Independence (unfortunately a document not part of the legal basis
>     of the
>     US). The issue of property vs. other rights is kind-of artificial,
>     however.
>     John Locke named ones ownership of oneself as the core property from
>     which
>     all other properties are derived, so whatever his flaws, his
>     argument does
>     not allow us to value what we now call property over persons.
> 
>     Does this answer what you ask???
> 
>     Bob
> 
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