I'm Christopher Leighton, and this is open source on the democracy question and the embattled fate

of our own. Be set as it is from within. Philosopher, historian Danielle Allen, is our guest

examiner of the cranky American condition. Feels to me shaken, defensive, divided, embarrassed, as I don't remember

ever before, around questions that go to our character as a country, too. Questions about

democracies morphing, sometimes disappearing, even dying. In all the talk I'm hearing, Danielle

Allen, what's different about you is your timeline. Your eye goes back to ancient days in Athens

and Rome, especially to your friend Aristotle, who wrote the book on democracy and its corruptions

in oligarchy in other ways. Just for starters, set our troubles in 2025 alongside the wisdom of

Aristotle, and that spectrum of, say, 3,500 years from ancient Athens at its best,

the Longview, where are we?

Well, thank you, Chris.

Good to see you.

Thank you for having me.

Great pleasure.

The Longview takes us back to the first distinction of politics, which is just the question of, is rule being

conducted in the interests of the ruler or the interests of the ruled? That's the first distinction

between good politics and bad politics. It's Plato and Aristotle both.

And it didn't matter really from Aristotle's point of view

whether you had rule of the one, rule of the few,

or rule of the many, so monarchy, aristocracy,

or democracy, as long as, whichever form you had, it was conducted in the

interests of the people. So that really is the first test when one watches a government.

...