My high school relative is in an AP history class and was telling me about how democracy was practiced in Athens where men were chosen at lottery to run government. Aside from the sexism part it sounded like a better system than what we have now. I am more than likely overlooking something but would appreciate any expert helping me to better understand the Athenian system and explain why perhaps it is better or worse than our modern system.
Athenian Democracy is an extremely complicated subject and there are many pros and cons. In fact, there is still discussion about whether or not it was effective and just. To simplify it a bit, i will only write about the athenian political system at the time of Perikles (around 450 b.c.). First, here are some pros. If you take away the sexism, racism and the slavery, the system promoted political equality on a high level.
1.Every male had the same right to speak in the assembly, to run for office or to get elected. Most officials got paid for their job so that poor people could also work in politics without going bankrupt.
2.The discussion of politics was very open to the public, as everything was discussed on the peoples assembly and almost all things were voted on.
3.It made abuse of power complicated, as you could always bring a charge against an official in the peoples assembly. Also, the so called Ostrakismos made it possible to ban corrupt politicians from athens.
4.Every citizen was included in politics. Because they actively worked in politics, they realized its importance and how they could change their own live if they get active.
Now some cons:
There were no human rights, there was slavery, women had practically no rights, foreigners got discriminated against. The system was highly undemocratic because only a small share of the population was actually included in politics.
Only a few officials got elected. Most of them got into extremely important offices through random chance. Basically, somebody who couldn't even write was allowed to decide about the live of other citizens. That is not supposed to happen in modern democracy (i don't want to make a political statement about the succes of western democracy in that area :D).
As there was no parliament elected for a longer period of time, politics were more unstable than in many western democracies.
The peoples assemblies were hard to organize. Only about a quarter of the citizens regularily attended them, whereas a real parliament allowes proportional representation of everyone all the time.
Even today, not everybody is an expert in every area of politics. So, if you still have the power to decide, you might very well fuck it up, just because you don't know better. This also happened in athens and isn't that likely in systems where elected representatives do politics professionally and are better informed.
I hope that these few points help you a bit. If you like the system is still up to you. My personal opinion? The human right deficits and the cons of the system (especially the stupidity of the public) outweigh the pros. I am a big fan of a representative system, but that is only my personal opinion.
The Athenian Democracy existed before the Enlightenment, before Kant, and before the Dignity that we moderns see as inherent to every individual human was recognized as having value, let along every person being theoretically equal. This has knock on effects such as the exclusion of woman and slaves from politics, lack of protections for minorities, and protections of individuals by from actions undertaken by the state. There really is no way around this particular weakness.
The checks and balances in the system, were effective at limiting the power of the aristocrats and individuals. The Democracy survived the existential crisis of the Peloponnesian War and conquest by Philip, but there was nothing systemic to protect the individual. This would have most likely made it untenable on a larger scale, and caused it to collapse under its own weight like it did for Rome after the Social War, but in the confines of Attica and the Aegean islands it was stable for hundreds of years.
Its very easy (as it was in my AP class back in the day) to "ding" the Athenians for not living up to our post Enlightenment ideals, while skimming over the fact that Athens was one of the most liberal states in the world prior to the Enlightenment. Yes bad decisions were made, and yes in justices were committed, but the same can be said for any human institution.