Economic Equality and Direct Democracy in Ancient Athens

This book argues that ancient democracy did not stop at the door of economic democracy, and that ancient Athens has much to tell us about the relationship between political equality and economic equality. Athenian democracy rested on a foundation of general economic equality, which enabled citizens to challenge their exclusion from politics.

“The book is an extremely valuable addition to the social science literature on democracy and will be appreciated by scholars in political economy, political science and sociology as well as ancient history. … P. has offered a book whose arguments will fascinate and intrigue the scholar and the uninitiated alike.” (George Tridimas, The Classical Review, Vol. 65 (2), October, 2015)

"This book offers a most useful and an original contribution to the field the field being the very broad one of the interrelationship between 'ancient (Greek)' and 'modern' democracy, and the possible benefits for modern of studying ancient. It both engages with and takes forward the modern scholarly discussion, principally by redefining and refining the nature of 'equality' in the economic as opposed to the political sphere of ancient Athenian democracy." - Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow, Clare College, Cambridge, UK

Larry Patriquin is Professor of Social Welfare and Social Development at Nipissing University, Canada. He is the author of Agrarian Capitalism and Poor Relief in England, 1500-1860: Rethinking the Origins of the Welfare State and the editor of The Ellen Meiksins Wood Reader.