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Californians thus explicitly chose a path that diverged from the one America’s founders had taken. To understand California’s problems today, you need to know what tradition California departed from. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and their peers, as they met for the constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787, had deliberately rejected direct democracy. So why did Californians second-guess them?
Deeply versed in the classics, the founders had seen ancient Athens as the main historical example of direct democracy. In that city every male adult citizen voted in the assembly and there were no distinct executive or judicial branches. But this was also the Athens that condemned Socrates to death, rashly launched a disastrous pre-emptive war against Syracuse and barely survived repeated oligarchic coups before succumbing to undemocratic Macedonia.
Greek thinkers such as Aristotle and Polybius concluded that democracy was inherently unstable because it led to mob rule (in the same way that monarchy deteriorated into tyranny and aristocracy into oligarchy). Those three elements, monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, thus had to be balanced for a state to remain free, they argued. Rome (before the emperors) became the prime example of such a mixture. It was a republic, a “public thing”, but not a democracy, a thing “ruled by the people”. It had executives (in the shape of two annually elected consuls), an elite in the senate, and outlets for the vox populi in the popular assemblies.

A. 어휘
explicitly 명백하게. diverge 갈라지다, 分岐(분기)하다, 벗어나다.
peers 동료, 귀족. constitutional convention 헌법회의.
deliberately 고의적으로, 신중하게, 思慮(사려)깊게. reject 거부하다.
second-guess 再考(재고)하다. versed 造詣(조예)가 깊은, 精通(정통)한.
classics 古典(고전). assembly 집회, 입법의회.
distinct 별개의, 확실한, 독특한.
executive or judicial branches 행정부나 사법부.
condemn 선고하다, 유죄로 판결하다, 비난하다. rashly 경솔하게, 조급하게.
pre-emptive 先制(선제)의, 선매권의. barely 겨우, 가까스로, 거의...않는.
survive 위기를 이기고 살아남다, ...을 면하다, 보다 오래 살다.
oligarchic 寡頭政治(과두정치)의, 소수독재정치의.
succumb 굴복하다. inherently 타고나게, 선천적으로.
mob 폭도. monarchy 군주제. deteriorate 타락하다. tyranny 暴政(폭정).
aristocracy 귀족정치. oligarchy 과두정치. executives 행정관.
consuls 집정관, 영사. outlets 방출구, 대리점. vox populi 백성의 소리.