Democracy and institutional change

The present essay analyses decision making procedures concerning economic issues such as the choice of public goods in the prototype democracy, Ancient Athens of the fourth century BC (the “Age of Demosthenes”). It analyses the link between political democracy, “economic” democracy, the emergence of new institutions and the finance of public goods like defence, education and “social security”. The prototype political democracy was advanced in questions of public administration, finance and institutions, on which political democracy was based. The paper concludes with some proposals as to what we could “learn” from the workings of “economic democracy” that is relevant for today’s democracies.peer-reviewe