Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens [Hardcover]

Bravo to Josiah Ober for this timely, well written book about the essential link between knowledge and democracy. Professor Ober writes for all audiences, not just academics. His carefully lays out the evidence for why Athens stood above other ancient societies in achievement; namely, an outstanding set of approaches to make sure that the knowledge, learning and innovation needed for success would always be available.

This is no small feat. Today, we face many difficult problems and challenges. Yet, it's very often the case that we have the know-how to meet those challenges if we can only figure out how to tap and apply it. Athens did figure this out. And any among us who would like to learn how to do in our lives and situations have much to gain from reading this clear and compelling book.

This is a fresh and a stimulating effort to identify and model the singular factor which accounts for the unique success of Ancient Athens.

According to Professor Ober's hypothesis, the latter's unique democratic processes are the wellspring of its wealth, power and preeminence amongst the other city-states in Ancient Greece. That outcome was due to the its "superior capacity to make use of dispersed knowledge" through mechanisms which allowed for the "aggregation, alignment and codification" of information. In sum, he reasons that a distilled knowledge-base Athenian democracy trumped rule by competing authoritarian realms including those led by despots. He provides a clear exposition of these processes and several insightful examples how they functioned.

This exposition is fascinating and gives the reader much to ponder. However, I wished for a consideration of other possible parallel success factors which were in Athens favor. For example, its maritime and silver mining industries as well as its strategic location on the Aegean Sea were beneficial resources which contributed to its status. Moreover, some reasonably argue that Pericles, its "first citizen," was the singular factor for its success. And still others could argue that it was Athens' imperialism which drove its achievements. All of these are reasonable alternative interpretations and are as compelling as that presented here. I would have liked a discussion.

Clearly, Athens made monumental cultural contributions to the dramatic arts, philosophy, architecture, mathematics, sculpture and poetry as well as governance. Yet roughly during the same period under study (508 BC-322 BC), Athens lost the Peloponnesian War to Sparta (431-404 BC), made a disastrous invasion of Sicily (415-413 BC), fought almost continuously with Persia (499-449 BC), experienced a devastating plague exasperated by a decision to accept a siege (430 BC), naively and knowingly accepted the treacherous and duplicitous leadership of Alcibiades (450-404 BC), and was eventually conquered by Macedonia (338 BC). Are these successful examples of a "superior capacity to make use of dispersed knowledge?"

The Athenian democratic processes which required the all-inclusive involvement of its citizenry are also somewhat unwieldy. Most of us instinctively subscribe to Professor Ober's notion that the "benefits of a well-designed democracy far outweigh its cost." However, I think that upon reflection he would probably also agree that the terms "well-designed" and "democracy" are oxymorons. Reading hiss account of Athens democratic knowledge-gathering processes may not dissuade many from that perception. To some they seem to be bordering on chaos.

(I purchased the Kindle edition as well. It facilitated my reading when in locations where a book is not possible. I can also donate the hardbound to the library and keep the Kindle version for my virtual library.)

This thoughtful and interesting book is a sustained attempt to defend participatory democracy by a careful examination of classical Athens. Ober draws on a large range of modern social science literature to discuss the key problems that must be solved by a successful polity. He argues against a broad range of opinion that these problems can be successfully solved by a broadly based, participatory democracy because such a state has advantages in the dissemination and use of knowledge. He argues as well that these characteristics provide a participatory polity with considerable flexibility and ability to deal with the novel. Athens is Ober's prototype example. He shows that it was the most successful Classical Polis, that it succeeded in the unusually competitive and violent environment of the Greek poleis, and that Athenian success correlates well with the emergence of the participatory democratic regime. He follows with a detailed examination of how Athenian institutions dealt with key problems of effectively running a state. In many ways, this is the best part of the book, showing the interesting complexity of Athenian institutions. Despite Ober's interesting exposition and analysis, I'm not sure that he really completes the argument. He shows well how Athenian institutions drove effective governance in a highly participatory democracy but does not clearly demonstrate that these were the key factors that permitted Athenian success. There are also a couple of probably minor problems with his analysis. He complements his qualitative analysis of Athenian success with some correlation analysis based on an extensive database of the poleis. I think Ober used the wrong statistical method. More important, I not sure that he properly adjusted for the fact that Athens was an unusually large polis.

Ober wishes to apply the success of Athenian participatory democracy to our modern society. As he admits, there is a significant problem of scale. Athens at its peak had an estimated population of 250,000. Modern Iceland, a very small polity, has a population of >300,000. Ober does suggest that participatory methods could be used in smaller scale organizations. An important point that Ober doesn't address, however, is the increasing complexity of industrial civilizations which puts a great deal of expertise beyond the capacity of the great majority of citizens.

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