[dmd]

Oooh I love this idea. We could have some sort of process where everyone gets a say in deciding how the money is spent. Except maybe rather than everyone doing that you could have instead people whose job it is to do it, and everyone gets a say in deciding who those people are.

I wonder if this sort of thing has ever been tried.

[cogman10]

It was tried once. Unfortunately it was ultimately killed off by a corrupt leader who took over the military and started deploying them the cities to stop crime. That leader ultimately strong armed the other elected officials into doing his bidding leading to the destruction of the once great nation. He ignored the law and the will of the people.

He was ultimately assassinated in 44BC. I believe his name was Julius Caesar.

[wqaatwt]

To be fair Ceasar was replaced by a few even more oppressive wannabe tyrants. He never posted lists of his political enemies to be murdered and was generally pretty lenient.

Probably led to his downfall. Augustus made sure to squash all potential sources of opposition before taking over.

[cogman10]

For sure. Julius ultimately just paved the way for the future tyrants. He consolidated the power into himself which made it a lot easier for his predecessors to take things further.

[Tenemo]

I understood what you meant, but the word you were looking for is "successors", not "predecessors". His predecessors were the senate, consuls, and the rest of the governing bodies of the republic.

[wqaatwt]

> His predecessors were the senate, consuls, and the

Also Sulla and his opponents in the preceding civil war. Who paved the way for Cesar.

[wqaatwt]

Another thing is that I’m not sure he really ignored the will of the people. “The people” were severely oppressed and the policies they supported ignored and rejected for the past 80+ years by the tightly knit oligarchy at the top. The overwhelming majority of its citizens probably had no real reasons to do anything to “protect” the republic.

Also it’s not like Caesar was the first to do what he did. He followed in the steps of a much more brutal and oppressive conservative/reactionary tyrant who almost had him executed a few decades ago.