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バートランド・ラッセル「ギリシア市民」

* 原著：The Authority and the Individual, 1949, chapt. 4: The conflict of technique and human nature
* 出典：牧野力(編)『ラッセル思想辞典』　

　下記は牧野力氏による要旨訳に少し手を入れ、英文を追加したものです。

ラッセル関係電子書籍一覧

　ギリシア市民（注：ただし自由市民のみ）は誰でもどんな問題についても直接投票ができ、代議員を選ぶ必要はなかった。行政官も将軍も裁判官も市民が選んだ。多数者の意にそわなければ、処罰もされた。誰も自分は重要な役割を果していると感じ市民の数が少なかったので、知人との議論で顕著な影響力を発揮できた。
　私はこの制度が全体的に（全体として）良いと言っているのではない。個人の創意・発議権（イニシアティブ）を発揮できるという点は、現代世界には存在しないすぐれた点であると考える。納税者たる市民が将軍の俸給を議会で票決した（のである）。
　今日、公式には役人は大衆に奉仕する者と考えられているが、一般の納税者は、自分が陸海軍、警察、文官制度、一切の権力の根源と思うどころか、逆に自分を卑しい、「お上に従う者」と感じている。また、行政が中央集権化されている限り、政府に対する個人の無力感は避け難い。
　民主政治の実感を育てるには、無力感を与えてはならない。

（ Democracy, as it exists in large modern States, does not give adequate scope for political initiative except to a tiny minority. We are accustomed to pointing out that what the Greeks called democracy fell short through the exclusion of women and slaves, but we do not always realise that in some important respects it was more democratic than anything that is possible when the governmental area is extensive. Every citizen could vote on every issue; he did not have to delegate his power to a representative. He could elect executive officers, including generals, and could get them condemned if they displeased a majority. The number of citizens was small enough for each man to feel that he counted, and that he could have a significant influence by discussion with his acquaintance. I am not suggesting that this system was good on the whole; it had, in fact, very grave disadvantages. But in the one respect of allowing for individual initiative it was very greatly superior to anything that exists in the modern world.
... The ordinary voter, so far from finding himself the source of all the power of army, navy, police, and civil service, feels himself their humble subject whose duty is, as the Chinese used to say, to 'tremble and obey.' So long as democratic control is remote and rare, while public administration is centralised and authority is delegated from the centre to the circumference, this sense of individual impotence before the powers that be is difficult to avoid. And yet it must be avoided if democracy is to be a reality in feeling and not merely in governmental machinery. ...