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Originally Posted by Beebo Brink  In all that time, very few free and open societies have formed and they don't appear to have lasted very long even when the did arise (as in Ancient Greece). |
Small point of order: the Greeks (and later the Romans) weren't all that free and open. The right to vote in Athens (the greatest of the Greek city-state democracies) was reserved to adult males who had completed military training. So women and slaves were excluded, as were those whose failure to pay debts had resulted in suspension of their citizenship.
It was a start, but it was gravely flawed.