Sparta was AES, don't let fascists deceive you. Plutarch describes how King Lycurgus of Sparta was one of the earliest historical figures to redistribute all land into equal plots, ending the extreme inequality he witnessed and giving back to the people. Lycurgus then abolished money, banning gold and silver coins from circulation and leaving only iron which had little value among people. This cut off trade from Sparta, transforming it into a self-sustaining society where people produced what was necessary for their needs and not for monetary gain. Lycurgus also made the rich sit down and eat side by side with the poor through the syssitia communal system, where food and drink was shared among Spartans.
Athens was AES. Athenian democracy was born out of class struggle between rich and poor. The radical statesman Cleisthenes, aka father of democracy, founded the demes and brought the people into politics, which had been the business of the elite, making any male citizen over 20 eligible to participate on government matters, officers chosen by sortition, and founding the council of 500 to oversee the ekklesia. Before him, Solon laid the foundations for democracy by abolishing all debts, banning loans, freeing enslaved debtors, reforming the judicial system to be able to prosecute any privileged citizen, allowing the poor into the assembly and lawcourts, opening archonship to non-nobles. This direct democracy had an important influence in the socialist movement, with many leftists striving towards that system to replace the phony libtard democracy of today.
We must learn from their successes, discard the bad parts and carry the torch of Cleisthenes and Lycurgus. Rome with its corrupt republicanism was liberal insanity, though. And don't forget that the last vestiges of democracy were ended by them. No wonder the modern bourgeois state modelled itself after Rome.
>>2272430I just want to share this interesting blog post on the subject of Sparta.
https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/Sadly, the author ends up citing bullshit Zionist propaganda at some points but whatever.
In general, it's still pretty interesting.
>>2275953where do i say that slavery has ended?
i reference debt to make allusion to today's situation. debt slows things down, so its counterproductive.
Seeing as we're talking about Ancient Greece, I'd recommend reading the following:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/1956/06/every-cook.htm
>We must get rid of the idea that there was anything primitive in the organization of the government of Athens. On the contrary, it was a miracle of democratic procedure which would be beyond the capacity of any modern body of politicians and lawyers, simply because these believe that when every man has a vote, equality is thereby established. The assembly appointed a council of 500 to be responsible for the administration of the city and the carrying out of decisions.
>But the council was governed by the same principle of equality. The city was divided into 10 divisions and the year was divided into 10 periods. Each section of the city selected by lot 50 men to serve on the council. All the councillors of each section held office for one tenth of the year. So that 50 people were always in charge of the administration. The order in which the group of 50 councillors from each section of the city should serve was determined by lot. Every day, the 50 who were serving chose someone to preside over them and he also was chosen by lot. If on the day that he was presiding, the full assembly met, he presided at the assembly.
>The council had a secretary and he was elected. But he was elected only for the duration of one tenth of the year. And (no doubt to prevent bureaucracy) he was elected not from among the 50, but from among the 450 members of the council who were not serving at the time.
>When members had served on the council, they were forbidden to serve a second time. Thus every person had a chance to serve. And here we come to one of the great benefits of the system. After a number of years, practically every citizen had had an opportunity to be a member of the administration. So that the body of citizens who formed the public assembly consisted of men who were familiar with the business of government.
>No business could be brought before the assembly except it had been previously prepared and organized by the council.
>When decisions had been taken, the carrying out of them was entrusted to the council. The council supervised all the magistrates and any work that had been given to a private citizen to do.
>The Greeks had very few permanent functionaries. They preferred to appoint special boards of private citizens. Each of these boards had its own very carefully defined sphere of work. The coordination of all these various spheres of work was carried out by the council. A great number of special commissions helped to carry out the executive work. For example, there were 10 members of a commission to see after naval affairs, and 10 members of a commission to hear complaints against magistrates at the end of their term. One very interesting commission was the commission for the conduct of religious ceremonies. The Greeks were a very religious people. But most of the priests and officials of the temples were elected and were for the most part private citizens. The Greeks would not have any bunch of Bishops, Archbishops, Popes and other religious bureaucrats who lived by organizing religion. Some of these commissions were elected from the council. But others again were appointed by lot.
>At every turn we see the extraordinary confidence that these people had in the ability of the ordinary person, the grocer, the candlestick maker, the carpenter, the sailor, the tailor. Whatever the trade of the individual, whatever his education, he was chosen by lot to do the work the state required.
>And yet they stood no nonsense. If a private individual made propositions in the assembly which the assembly considered frivolous or stupid, the punishment was severe. it should be added that Athens was constantly in a state of perpetual class struggle/ warfare, having its democratic institutions expanded by progressives, and then co-opted and twisted by oligarchs and Sparta sympathisers the next.
https://libcom.org/article/summary-g-e-m-de-ste-croixs-class-struggle-ancient-greek-worldSocrates death was due to a Sparta-aligned Oligarchy, who more or less viewed him as a threat to their rule.
>>2277304Wagies, not landless slaves who were ruled over by aristocrats.
Unique IPs: 31