In ancient Greece, a great deal (or even most) of the population were slaves. Yet, it does not prevent us from treating their system as democracy and compare it with the modern democracies and "democracies".
> Poland had the szlachta, a broad citizen-warrior class that can be thought of as an upper middle class. This amounted to 10% of the population. That might sound like a very limited form of democracy, but it is the same percentage of the population as voted in the famous democracy of ancient Athens
I'd suggest reading the article if you haven't already. It doesn't argue or force a definition of 'liberal' or 'democratic' but describes the period of Polish history apparently poorly highlighted in the curriculum of US schools.
> Poland had the szlachta, a broad citizen-warrior class that can be thought of as an upper middle class. This amounted to 10% of the population. That might sound like a very limited form of democracy, but it is the same percentage of the population as voted in the famous democracy of ancient Athens
I'd suggest reading the article if you haven't already. It doesn't argue or force a definition of 'liberal' or 'democratic' but describes the period of Polish history apparently poorly highlighted in the curriculum of US schools.