How Democratic could Sparta ever be?

I'm curious to see your thoughts.

Sparta did have the first constitution, and had a system of checks and balances over it's two kings, and seemed to have the freedom to openly disagree with the government. In theory, any Spartan man who was old enough could run for gerousia and the ephors. Women also had much more rights in Sparta then in the other city-states like Athens. They also believed that all (Spartan) men were created equal. While it was an oligarchy, it does have democratic ideas, and technically started a century before Athenian democracy.

So, how democratic could Sparta become without not being the Sparta we think of, a Sparta that's called the "Birthplace of Democracy"? I'd like to see if we can have something non ASB.
 
It's an interesting question; and a bit of a challenge, given that Sparta had a way of finding itself on the other side from the democracies IOTL, except when common cause like the Persian Wars brought them together.

There certainly was no equality between classes; and birth determined class: king, spartan citizen, money-handling and thing-making lesser service classes, or majority helot slave.

And there was meant to be no sense of freedom, and especially not individualism, for citizens. They were perpetually militarized until age thirty. a state where you'd be equal only to your rank-cohorts, and after that still kept in institutions encouraging the same kind of group bonding armies do. That's another problem.

The militarization was thought to be needed to keep the majority Helot slave population under control. So, maybe if the Spartans had committed genocide or ethnic cleansing instead of mass enslavement, oh, boy?
 
But who would then work the fields? There was a reason why Helots were left alive.
The same people who worked Athens' fields - slaves. The 'Universal Democracy' of Athens was only for MALE CITIZENS, who were IIRC something like only 10% of the population.

Athens wouldn't be considered a democracy today.
 
The 'Universal Democracy' of Athens was only for MALE CITIZENS, who were IIRC something like only 10% of the population.
-more like 30%, and they had better slave rights than we did. But, they also oppressed women, thinking respectable women shouldn't be seen. And, Athenians also etnnically cleansed and killed to make space for countless Athenian colonists, just like us.

All, of course, is relative. Things slowly get better. Our founders thought only elites should vote (worse than democratic Athens!) and that women existed only to serve men. We've come a long, long way. In its time, the ideas that the poor should help determine national destiny, that anybody should be allowed to try whatever businesses they wanted, that they should mostly be able to grumble openly, all were radical and new back then. So was the idea that it's worth giving observations more weight than religions, old hat today.
 
-more like 30%, and they had better slave rights than we did. But, they also oppressed women, thinking respectable women shouldn't be seen. And, Athenians also etnnically cleansed and killed to make space for countless Athenian colonists, just like us.

All, of course, is relative. Things slowly get better. Our founders thought only elites should vote (worse than democratic Athens!) and that women existed only to serve men. We've come a long, long way. In its time, the ideas that the poor should help determine national destiny, that anybody should be allowed to try whatever businesses they wanted, that they should mostly be able to grumble openly, all were radical and new back then. So was the idea that it's worth giving observations more weight than religions, old hat today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy#Participation_and_exclusion said:
Estimates of the population of ancient Athens vary. During the 4th century BC, there may well have been some 250,000–300,000 people in Attica. Citizen families may have amounted to 100,000 people and out of these some 30,000 will have been the adult male citizens entitled to vote in the assembly. In the mid-5th century the number of adult male citizens was perhaps as high as 60,000, but this number fell precipitously during the Peloponnesian war. This slump was permanent due to the introduction of a stricter definition of citizen described below. From a modern perspective these figures may seem small, but in the world of Greek city-states Athens was huge: most of the thousand or so Greek cities could only muster 1000–1500 adult male citizens and Corinth, a major power, had at most 15,000.
30k of ~300k is pretty close to 10%. Seems to have varied some. Of course, this IS Wiki, and so not terribly authoritative.
 
The Lacedaemonian Constitution doesn't really read like a democratic constitution. Sparta was ruled by titular dual Kings who led the religious sacrifices, led the army in war, and headed the judiciary. The Senate, numbering 28 men over 60, according to Plutarch, originated legislation, were the supreme court for capitol crimes, and made public policy. When a senator died, a new one was selected by leading in likely candidates, one by one. The one who got the loudest reception won. The largest body of government, the apella, or assembly, consisted of 8,000 males over 30. Proposed laws were submitted to it, and no law could be passed without it's consent. At some point, the constitution was amended so that the Senate could determine that the assembly reached their decision incorrectly, and reverse it. There were 5 ephors, comparable to Roman consuls, elected by the assembly. Their administrative power could be checked by the Senate, but after the Persian Wars, their power increased to where they decided disputes in law, commanded armies, and punished kings. One king was fined for marrying a small woman.

The ephors also created a secret police, the kryptreia, a fore-runner of the SS. They could spy on anyone, and in the case of helots, kill indiscriminately. After the Peloponnesian War, according to Thucydides, they asked helots to choose the noblest helots among them, so that they would become free. Those selected celebrated, and then disappeared.

There were elements of Spartan government that could be construed as democratic, but overall, it was a government of the landowners only. Incidentally, eugenics was the rule in Sparta. And I don't know if they had a word for "fair". I don't see a trend for greater democracy.
 
The above information is from "The Life of Greece" by Will Durant, one of a series on Civilization from the Eastern domains through to the French Revolution. A life's work.
 
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