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 Los Procesos de urbanización en el siglo XX y las transformaciones urbanas de las últimas décadas

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 Los Procesos de urbanización en el siglo XX y las transformaciones urbanas de las últimas décadas

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The History of Urbanization, 3700 BC - 2000 AD

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The world's population is growing rapidly and reached 7.9 billion people in 2022. The highest rates of population growth are occurring in developing countries , such as Uganda, Malawi and Niger. Some countries are experiencing population decline, for example Japan, Russia and Romania.

Today more than 55% of the world's population live in . The number of cities with over 10 million people is increasing. These are called . There are now at least 33 megacities in the world. The table shows the top 10 megacities.

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Urban growth - push and pull factors - Urbanisation - Edexcel - GCSE Geography Revision - Edexcel - BBC Bitesize

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Learn about and revise urbanisation and its causes with GCSE Bitesize Geography (Edexcel).

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In 300 B.C., Carthage was one of the world's largest cities with up to 700,000 people living within its walls. The Carthaginian republic was a force to be reckoned with, controlling inconceivable amounts of wealth and land all around the Mediterranean.

However, just over a century later in 146 B.C., Carthage was burnt to the ground by the Romans. The destruction of Carthage was so thorough that many things are still not known about their civilization today. Carthage went from being a major power to literally being wiped off of the map.

A few decades after the annihilation of Carthage, it was Rome's turn to become the world's largest city for close to 500 years. Of course, Rome itself would fall by 476 A.D. for a variety of reasons.

And so the title of the world's largest city would transfer again, this time to Constantinople across the Mediterranean.

The World's Largest Cities Throughout History

In the grand scheme of history, things change quite fast. One cataclysmic choice or event can turn even the greatest empire into a heap of rubble. Sometimes the decline of a world-class city is more gradual - and it is over time that it loses its title to another place in a far and distant land.

The following animated map from KPMG Demographics tracks the world's largest cities from 4,000 BC to today, and it shows how temporary a city's rise to prominence can be.

(Keep in mind that there is some disagreement by historians over which cities were the biggest in certain time periods.)

The power of industrialization and technology can be seen here. Up until the 1800s, it was almost unfathomable to have a city of more than a million inhabitants.

Sanitation was a major limiting factor, but other issues like transportation and a lack of density also made it a challenge. The Industrial Revolution changed that, and starting in the 1800s you see cities like London, New York, and Tokyo taking the title in an exponential fashion. It caps off with Delhi in 2050, expected to have a whopping 40 million inhabitants by that time.

However, it's worth seeing this urban growth through a different lens. Instead of looking at the biggest cities overall, the below map from Max Galka's Metrocosm blog looks at the founding of major cities to show the progress of urbanization from 3700 B.C. until today.

You can use the sliding bar to adjust the date. The real fireworks begin in the year 1200, with an explosion in cities between 1800 and today.

Here's one final look at cities and their modern populations, this time an interactive 3d globe also from Metrocosm:

This gives an idea of where the largest concentrations of people live today. The globe also puts into perspective a small subsection of Asia, which holds more of the world's population within a small circle than outside of it.

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3 Animated Maps Show the Largest Cities Throughout History

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In 300 B.C., Carthage was one of the world's largest cities with up to 700,000 people living within its walls. The Carthaginian republic was a force to be reckoned with, controlling inconceivable amounts of wealth and land all around the Mediterranean. However, just over a century later in 146 B.C., Carthage was burnt to the ground by the Romans.

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The emergence of cities is closely associated with a significant historical change, which we call the Neolithic Revolution. The Neolithic Revolution marked the transition from exploiting livelihood (hunting and gathering) to production livelihoods (breeding and cultivating = agriculture). It would not be possible to achieve permanent settlement of populations and the consequent emergence of the first cities without this conversion.

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We are learning how the current trend of urbanization affects the environment.

As you watch the video below, consider:

Urbanization is an increasing number of people that migrate from rural to urban areas, causing a growth of cities.
Urban sprawl is the spread of cities into surrounding rural (farm) areas.
Agriculture is farming of crops and animals.

Today, more than half of all people in the world live in an urban area, even though 100 years ago only 2/10 people lived in a city

We went from hunter-gatherers to farmers (agriculturists) that allowed us to stay in one place (permanent settlements)

Farming meant that not everyone had to look for food, so cities were developed

Later we had trade between cities, and people came to cities as more jobs and opportunities became available

During the Industrial Revolution, technology developed to allow for mass production of items, allowing even more people to move to cities

Cities need to change to allow for increased population

Based on the article above, consider:
How did Kobe solves its population problem? Do you think this was a good solution? Why or why not?

To submit your Geography journal electronically, click here.

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We are learning how the current trend of urbanization affects the environment. As you watch the video below, consider: Urbanization is an increasing number of people that migrate from rural to urban areas, causing a growth of cities. Urban sprawl is the spread of cities into surrounding rural (farm) areas.Agriculture is farming of crops and animals.

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To expand the possibilities for beachfront tourist development, Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates, undertook a massive engineering project to create hundreds of artificial islands along its Persian Gulf coastline. Built from sand dredged from the sea floor and protected from erosion by rock breakwaters, the islands were shaped into recognizable forms, including two large palm trees. The first Palm Island constructed was Palm Jumeirah, and the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA's Terra satellite observed its progress from 2000 to 2011.

In these false-color images, bare ground appears brown, vegetation appears red, water appears dark blue, and buildings and paved surfaces appear light blue or gray. The first image, acquired in November of 2000, shows the area prior to the island's construction. The image from February 2002, shows the barest beginnings of the artificial archipelago. By October 2002, substantial progress had been made on Palm Jumeirah, with many sandy "palm fronds" inside a circular breakwater.

By November 2003, the palm tree has been constructed, and buildings and vegetation populate Palm Jumeirah in the images from November 2004, October 2005, September 2006, March 2007, and November 2008. The final image, acquired in February 2011, shows vegetation on most of the palm fronds, and numerous buildings on the tree trunk.

Inland, changes are just as dramatic between November 2000 and February 2011. In the earliest image, empty desert fills the lower right quadrant of the image, as cityscape primarily hugs the coast. As the years pass, urbanization spreads, and the final image shows the area almost entirely filled by roads, buildings, and irrigated land.

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To expand the possibilities for beachfront tourist development, Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates, undertook a massive engineering project to create hundreds of artificial islands along its Persian Gulf coastline. Built from sand dredged from the sea floor and protected from erosion by rock breakwaters, the islands were shaped into recognizable forms, including two large palm trees.

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Dubai could be considered the epitome of urbanization, modern architecture and rapid change. Its population has more than quadrupled from about 500,000 in 1990 to over 2.3 million in January 2015, and the changes in its urban landscape have been, and continue to be, equally dramatic. Its past and future projects never fall short of incredible and just one man, Sheikh Mohammad, is the driving force behind it all.

Beacons of urban sustainability - Today's urban city planning creates future beacons for cities which convey the new messages of sustainability, green choices and living responsibly.

Dubai and the man who made it

Forty years ago, most of today's Dubai was nothing but desert. Now, that same space is home to more than two million people from 200 nations, a bustling economy, and nearly 150 skyscrapers over 150 meters tall.

Creating this city has been no easy task in an environment that is neither hospitable to people nor skyscrapers. In addition to high temperatures, strong winds and a lack of water, piles must be driven through 130 meters of sand to reach the bedrock essential to support such huge buildings. Despite these challenges, the city is home to 17 of the world's 100 tallest skyscrapers.

Incredibly, Dubai's radical development can be attributed almost entirely to one man: Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, monarch of Dubai and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. Sheikh Mohammed created a boom in several business areas such as real estate, tourism, finance, media and more. As a result of his untiring efforts, less than 5 percent of the emirate's current revenue comes from oil.

Dubai highlights are world highlights

Dubai's Burj Khalifa is the world's tallest building at a staggering 829.8 meters. The megatall building also currently holds 14 other records such as the world's highest restaurant, nightclub and observation deck. Mirroring the history of the city itself, the site of the Burj Khalifa was nothing but sandy desert ground before construction started in 2004.

The iconic palm-shaped island, Palm Jumeirah, started as a project to provide more beach front property and, upon its completion in 2009, the coastline had increased by 56 kilometers. According to Sheikh Mohammed's wishes, it was built using only local sand and rock. In fact, the island's signature palm shape was designed by the Sheikh himself.

As if one were not enough, another palm island (Palm Jebel) is currently under construction, and the city is also planning two archipelagos of islands: one in the shape of the world (The World) and one in the shape of the Milky Way and solar system (The Universe).

Another impressive structure is the ship-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel, sometimes called the world's only 7-star hotel. Although no rating agencies can actually award more than five stars, it is widely regarded as one of the finest and most expensive hotels in the world. Another hotel, the twin-towered JW Marriott Marquis Dubai, is also noteworthy as the world's tallest hotel at 355 meters.

People-moving systems that move Dubai

With such rapid expansion on the ground and into the sky, human mobility in Dubai relies heavily on critical people-moving systems such as elevators, escalators and the city's metro. This is, in part, due to the fact that Dubai is not considered a very pedestrian-friendly city, but also due to the large distances: it would take an hour to walk to the nearest beach from the Burj Khalifa, for example.

One of the original growth drivers of the city is Dubai International Airport, a major airline hub in the Middle East. It consists of three terminals with a total capacity for 75 million passengers annually making from it the 7th busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic and the 2nd busiest airport in the world by international passenger traffic. thyssenkrupp Elevator has provided the airport with 658 passenger conveyance systems, including 165 escalators, 125 moving walks and 350 elevators. The company is also a key maintenance provider for people-moving systems in the Dubai Metro - an essential piece of infrastructure, considering the distances within the city.

The future's just as bold

With a host of other initiatives underway, Dubai is set to remain at the cutting edge of urban design and modern city living. The city has recently been named the host of Expo 2020, and other projects promise to keep Dubai interesting for decades to come.

Dubai will soon be home to the Taj Arabia, a replica of the Taj Mahal but four times bigger. It will also be home to Dubailand, a theme park twice the size of Disneyworld. Bluewaters Island is also forthcoming and will be home to yet another world record: the world's tallest Ferris Wheel at 210 meters.

The UAE beyond Dubai

84 percent of the people living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) reside in cities, of which Dubai is only one. Other cities are also undergoing rapid urbanization such as Sharjah and Ajman.

Skyscrapers and Museums

Abu Dhabi, the capital of UAE, is also a burgeoning metropolis full of skyscrapers, beautiful beachfront promenades and world-class museums such as a branch of the Guggenheim and, soon, also one of the Louvre. Plus, it's home to the world's largest indoor amusement park and every car lover's dream: Ferrari World Abu Dhabi.

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Dubai - the ever-rising icon of the Middle East

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A city that rose from the desert with islands that rose from the sea. In Dubai, everything's possible. Discover the man responsible for the city's rapid growth and learn more about some of the highlights that make Dubai a modern wonder of urban development.

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If you're a homeowner, there are probably a few things you've been neglecting to do. Perhaps the kitchen needs upgrading, or the roof needs replacing. We tend to procrastinate on these improvements due to large renovation costs, until it hits a point where we can't ignore them anymore. This is the state that U.S. infrastructure has reached-on a national scale.

Today's infographic from New York Life Investments highlights the level of disrepair in U.S. infrastructure. It also explores why taxable municipal bonds, which will finance the required infrastructure upgrades, provide such an interesting investment opportunity.

Falling Apart at the Seams

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ACSE) regularly assesses the nation's infrastructure -things like bridges, airports, and drinking water-and scores it in a 'report card'. After decades of neglect, the U.S. only scored a D+ in 2017.

The ASCE estimates that $4 trillion is needed to bring infrastructure up to a B grade, $1.3 trillion of which will be provided by state and local governments.

The urgent needs for increased investment in America's infrastructure continue to grow and our nation's economic vitality and quality of life are at stake.

- Ed Mortimer, U.S. Chamber Vice President of Transportation and Infrastructure
U.S. municipal bonds will be the primary funding source for this massive financing need. These bonds are quite popular with individual U.S. investors, as the interest income from most municipal bonds is not subject to federal income tax.

However, the U.S. tax code limits the volume of non-taxable bonds issued, and the purposes for issuing them. As a result, many local and state governments have been turning to taxable municipal bonds to finance their infrastructure projects.

The Muni Opportunity

Taxable municipal bonds are a potentially attractive investment for many reasons.

1. Competitive Historical Yield and Strong Returns
In the last decade, a lagging global economy led to historically low interest rates-many sovereign (national) bonds fell into negative territory. Taxable municipal bonds provided an alternative source of yield potential, outpacing the yields of comparable treasury bonds in some cases.

Not only that, but in the post-crisis era, taxable municipal bonds have averaged a return of 6.9% per year, beating the 4.6% performance on U.S. corporate investment-grade bonds, a staple in most institutional portfolios.

2. High-Quality, Stable Credit Ratings
Most municipal bonds are high quality with low default rates, making them attractive to risk-conscious investors.

Historically, municipal bond ratings have also been far more stable than that of global corporates.

3. Inefficient pricing
The municipal bond market is highly fragmented, and most issues are too small to be included in a market index.

This market fragmentation, combined with limited sell-side research and many buy-and-hold investors, often leads to inefficient pricing. Active investors have the potential to generate higher returns by applying their credit research and trading skills.

4. Low Correlations
Correlation measures the degree to which two securities move in relation to each other. In general, taxable municipal bonds have a low correlation to other fixed-income sectors. This means they help provide portfolio diversification and reduce volatility.

5. Longer durations
Since taxable municipal bonds fund long-term capital projects, they are usually financed with longer maturing bonds. Institutional investors welcome this source of long-duration assets, as they can match them up with their long-dated obligations.

A Compelling Portfolio Addition

Taxable municipal bonds have many positive qualities that make them a strong contender for investment. When added to a diversified fixed-income portfolio, they may also improve the risk/return profile.

As the U.S. begins to revitalize its infrastructure, taxable municipal bonds present a strong-and often overlooked-opportunity for investors.

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Video: A Timelapse of Dubai's Astonishing Growth (1960-2021)

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If you're a homeowner, there are probably a few things you've been neglecting to do. Perhaps the kitchen needs upgrading, or the roof needs replacing. We tend to procrastinate on these improvements due to large renovation costs, until it hits a point where we can't ignore them anymore.

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Mumbai is one big urban sprawl, from the air!

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Old Bombay City (Mumbai) // History of Mumbai

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Probability - Concepts and Tricks - Part 1

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Find me on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/thedanieldsouza In this online aptitude lecture, lets understand the basics of Probability which is an important aptitude section that appears in BANK PO, GATE,XAT, MAT and CAT exams.

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Probability shortcut tricks are very important thing to know for your exams. Time is the main factor in competitive exams. If you know time management then everything will be easier for you. Most of us miss that part. Here in this page we give few examples on Probability shortcut tricks. All probability tricks are provided here. Visitors are requested to carefully read all shortcut examples. These examples will help you to understand shortcut tricks on Probability.

Before doing anything we recommend you to do a math practice set. Then find out twenty math problems related to this topic and write those on a paper. Do first ten maths using basic formula of this math topic. You also need to keep track of the time. Write down the time taken by you to solve those questions. Now read our examples on probability shortcut tricks and practice few questions. After finishing this do remaining questions using Probability shortcut tricks. Again keep track of the time. The timing will be surely improved this time. But this is not all you want. You need more practice to improve your timing more.

Few Important things to Remember

You all know that math portion is very much important in competitive exams. That doesn't mean that other topics are less important. You can get a good score only if you get a good score in math section. A good score comes with practice and practice. All you need to do is to do math problems correctly within time, and only shortcut tricks can give you that success. But it doesn't mean that without using shortcut tricks you can't do any math problems. You may have that potential that you may do maths within time without using any shortcut tricks. But so many people can't do this. So Probability shortcut tricks here for those people. We try our level best to put together all types of shortcut methods here. But it possible we miss any. We appreciate if you share that with us. Your help will help others.

Probability is very important chapter,Here we put down some formula and Facts that are based on this chapter after that we give some examples related on formula and chapter,which help you better understand about this chapter. In exams only Dice, Coin and ball related examples are given.

Now we will discuss some basic ideas of Probability. On the basis of these ideas we will learn trick and tips of shortcut probability. If you think that how to solve probability questions using probability shortcut tricks, then further studies will help you to do so.

Important Facts

When we throw a coin on the air, the coin appears either a Head (H) or a Tail (T).

A dice is a solid cube having 6 faces, marked as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 gradually. When we throw a dice the outcome is the number that appears on it's upper face of the dice.

What is Experiment?

The actions of that Appear some well-defined outcomes is called an Experiment.

What is Random Experiment?

A Random experiment is an experiment in which all probable outcomes are known and we cannot predicted the accurate outcome in advances.

What is Sample Space?

Sample Space is an set S of all possible outcomes in a particular actions.

Examples of Sample Spaces

In tossing a coin on air, S = { H, T }.

If two coin tossed, then S = { HH, HT, TH, TT }.

For rolling a dice, S = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 }.

What is an Event?

Any subset of a sample space is called an Event.

Probability of occurrence of an Event
Probability of any Event P(E) = n(E) / n(S).

Here,
P(E) = Probability of Event.
n(E) = Total number of required outcomes.
n(S) = Total number of Possible outcomes.

Result on Probability

P(S) = 1 ( 1 means maximum probability is always 1 ).

P(∅) = 0 ( Maximum probability is always 0 ).

0 < P(E) < 1

For any event X and Y, we have, P(X ∪ Y) = P (X) + (Y) - P (X ∩ Y).

P( ) = 1 - P(E), where E bar denote not E.

Few examples of Probability with Shortcut Tricks

We provide few tricks on Probability Tricks. Please visit this page to get updates on more Math Shortcut Tricks. You can also like our facebook page to get updates.

If You Have any question regarding Probability Tricks then please do comment on below section. You can also send us message on facebook.

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Probability Tricks - Math Shortcut Tricks | Competitive Exams

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Probability Tricks Probability shortcut tricks are very important thing to know for your exams. Time is the main factor in competitive exams. If you know time management then everything will be easier for you. Most of us miss that part....

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quantitative aptitude questions and answers

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Important Concepts and Formulas - Probability

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Quantitative aptitude questions and answers, Arithmetic aptitude, Probability , Important Formulas

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Mumbai is a city of imbalance. With an estimated wealth of $950 billion, the city is the 12th richest in the world, ranking ahead of major urban centers like Paris and Toronto. Much of this prosperity is due to the combination of a large billionaire population and the presence of India's oldest, and most prominent, stock exchange.

At the same time, more than half of the city's population lives in slums, or areas of extreme poverty that often lack access to clean water, electricity, and public transportation. With an estimated 6.5 million people residing in these conditions, Mumbai has the largest slum population of any city in the world.

This disparity is not unique to India. As cities around the world become denser and more urbanized, the gaps between rich and poor have widened to intolerable extremes.

But unlike in many cities, Mumbai's slums sit at the heart of economy activity in the urban core. This has resulted in a unique geography, wherein packed single-story dwellings border the city's expensive high-rise buildings.

In his ongoing photo series, Unequal Scenes, photographer Johnny Miller captures the troubling inequality of Mumbai, whose remarkable progress has given way to many unfortunate side effects.

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Drone photos of Mumbai reveal the places where extreme poverty meets extreme wealth

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Mumbai is a city of imbalance. With an estimated wealth of $950 billion, the city is the 12th richest in the world, ranking ahead of major urban centers like Paris and Toronto. Much of this prosperity is due to the combination of a large billionaire population and the presence of India's oldest, and most prominent, stock exchange.

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What did democracy really mean in Athens? - Melissa Schwartzberg

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While we might consider elections to be the cornerstone of democracy, the Athenians who coined the term actually employed a lottery system to choose most of their politicians. Melissa Schwartzberg describes the ins and outs of the Athenian democracy, and addresses some ways in which a lottery system might benefit us today.

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El abordaje de distintos tipos textuales en la enseñanza de las disciplinas en la lengua adicional

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How many people hold power in a society, and how they exercise it, are eternal themes of political debate.

At one extreme a single person rules. Such a system is usually called a monarchy (Greek for 'rule by one') when the position can be inherited within a family. It is likely to be given such names as tyranny (from examples in Greek history) or dictatorship (from Rome) when power is seized by or granted to an individual member of society.

The other extreme is democracy (Greek for 'power of the people'), in which theoretically every adult can influence group decisions. Such an egalitarian approach is familiar to anthropologists, studying the customs of small tribal groups, but it has been a rarity in more developed societies.

Between the two extremes is oligarchy (Greek for 'rule by a few'). In a sense all early clashes between oligarchy and democracy are an argument over how many to include in the few, with democrats pressing for a higher figure than oligarchs can accept. Even in Athens, where sophisticated democracy begins, only a small proportion of the community can vote.

In the 5th century BC Athens pioneers an experiment in direct democracy, as opposed to the representative democracy of modern societies. It is copied by her Greek allies and colonies at the time, but it has rarely been attempted anywhere else since ( Switzerland in the 13th century is one example).

Democracy of this kind has two preconditions. The community must be small enough for citizens to be capable of attending debates and voting on issues. And its economy must give these citizens enough leisure to engage in politics; in the ancient world this means that there must be slaves to do most of the work. Both circumstances prevail in Athens.

The citizen democrats of Athens are those males, over the age of eighteen, who are sons of an Athenian father (after 451 BC the mother must be Athenian as well). They number no more than 50,000 in the whole of Attica. In addition to these citizens the population includes about 25,000 metics ( metoikoi, or foreigners trading in Athens, for this is a major commercial centre), together with free women and children and perhaps 100,000 slaves. This gives a total of about 300,000 people. So the voting citizens form at most 20% of the population.

Democracy is achieved in several stages, through reforms linked with Solon in 594, with the Ten tribes of Cleisthenes in 508, and with Pericles in 462.

The move towards democracy reflects other changes in society. In the prehistoric period, throughout Greece, aristocratic families have provided the main fighting force, as cavalry.

In the 7th century the Greek city-states develop the new military concept of the heavily armed infantryman, the hoplite. A remorseless phalanx of hoplites becomes as effective on the battlefield as the tank in modern times. These soldiers provide their own weapons and armour, but this is expensive. Several of the Greek oligarchies, including that of Athens in the 6th century, reflect the power of this middle class of citizens.

The poorer citizens of a Greek state, unable to afford armour, can only play their part in the army as light infantry - useful in a skirmish, but relatively unimportant on the battlefields of the day.

A strategic change of direction by Athens, early in the 5th century, gives these poorer citizens a new power. The military effort is diverted into building up an Athenian navy. Triremes, the fast warships of the time, need men to row them. Suddenly every citizen has a part to play, and the crews of a fleet of warships have a self-evident political strength. A more radical democracy, introduced by Pericles in 462, is almost an inevitable result.

The system which emerges in the mid-5th century involves citizens in government in a variety of ways.

Each has a voice in the highest forum of the nation, the ecclesia or assembly, which meets four times a month on the Pnyx, a flat-topped hill in Athens. On major occasions, with important issues to be decided, as many as 5000 citizens attend. It is not always easy to assemble a large crowd. Scythian slaves (serving as state police) are much in evidence at the start of each meeting, tightening a long red-dyed rope to net any nearby loiterers. In about 400 BC pay is introduced for attendance, to compensate for loss of working time.

Any citizen may answer the herald's question 'Who wishes to speak?', but addressing such a large crowd in the open air is difficult. Most of the debate is carried on by regular speakers - in effect the leading politicians, who are known as rhetores (orators).

The business of the day is fixed by another body of 500 members, called the boule or council. Here the principle of amateurism is more firmly established, for the members are chosen by drawing lots. Fifty are selected at village level by each of the ten tribes which make up Athenian society (the reforms of Cleisthenes, in 508, have imposed these arbitrary tribal divisions in order to share out democratic power).

The principle of selection by lot is carried even further in the council of 500. Each member serves for a month as one of the 50 prutaneis, or presidents, who run the everyday administration of the city (there are ten months in the Athenian year, so every councillor has one monthly term of office). Furthermore the chairman of the boule changes every day, again selected by lot from the 50 prutaneis. So almost every councillor is effectively head of state for one day of the year.

Non-specialization can hardly be carried further. But the Athenians do have the common sense to use election, without any time limit, for the most important posts.

The effective leaders of Athens, because of their responsibility for war (an almost constant state of affairs), are the ten strategoi or generals. There is one from each of the ten tribes, elected each year by the ecclesia in which every citizen has a vote (see the Ten tribes of Cleisthenes). The dominant position of Pericles in mid-5th century Athens is reflected in his election, year after year, as the leading strategos.

The only other officials to be elected rather than chosen by lot are the treasurers, with responsibility for the state's accounts - evidence again that the Athenian citizens recognize the areas where expertise rather than common sense is essential.

The functions associated with a modern civil service are carried out in Athens by citizens chosen randomly by lot. Such tasks range from supervising the markets and checking weights and measures to keeping the minutes of the council or travelling abroad on diplomatic business. All such offices are held for a year.

Even in law, an important area of each citizen's responsibility, there are no experts. Jurors are selected by lot and a second lottery assigns each man to a particular case. Pericles introduces payment for jury service so that no citizen is excluded by poverty. Without professional judges or lawyers, and with huge juries, an Athenian court of law is rough and ready justice.

The most dramatic example of direct democracy in 5th-century Athens is the system of ostracism, used from about 487 to 417. Anyone ostracized must go into exile for ten years but no harm is done to his family, his property or his own subsequent rights. Intended as a way of ridding the city of a powerful but unpopular figure, it can all too easily be used for political vendetta. There is no charge to answer, and no redress.

At a mass meeting, summoned specifically to decide on ostracism, each citizen writes one name on a broken shard of pottery (an ostrakon). Anyone featuring on more than a given number of shards (variously interpreted as 6000 or a majority from 6000 voters) is removed from public life.

Democracy survives the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War, in 404 BC, only to come to an abrupt end a century later. After the death of Alexander the Great, the Athenians join other Greek states in an unsuccessful revolt against Macedonian rule. The Macedonians retaliate in 322 by placing a garrison in Attica. An oligarchy is imposed, with the franchise restricted to the rich.

Among modern countries where democracy is the favoured system, the Athenian experiment eventually acquires a hallowed status. But more than 2000 years will pass, after the heyday of Athens, before anyone again regards with approval the dangerous idea of giving real power to the people.

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How many people hold power in a society, and how they exercise it, are eternal themes of political debate. At one extreme a single person rules. Such a system is usually called a monarchy (Greek for 'rule by one') when the position can be inherited within a family.

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Democracy is the name given to a number of forms of government and procedures which have legitimacy because they have the consent of the people they govern. The two main criteria for a democracy are, firstly that the officials exercising power have legitimate authority because they have been elected, as opposed to inheriting that authority or holding it by force; and secondly, the mechanism for changing the government is through peaceful and regular elections, as opposed to revolts, coups, or civil war. Democracy is not a theory about what the aims or content of government or law should be, only that those aims should be guided by the opinion of the majority, as opposed to a single ruler (as with an absolute monarchy, dictatorship, or oligarchy). Just because a government has been democratically elected does not mean it will be a good, just, or competent government. Thus, some polities have used the democratic process to secure liberty while others have used it to promote equality, nationalism, or other values.

Democracy is also a peaceful way for a group of any size to settle arguments or make decisions. Everyone has a vote and is committed to respecting the decision that wins. This does not mean the decision will be the best one, or even a good one. It is simply a mechanism for enabling everyone to be involved in the decision making process, which gives the decisions binding legitimacy.

Most of the procedures used by modern democracies are very old. Almost all cultures have at some time had their new leaders approved, or at least accepted, by the people; and have changed the laws only after consultation with the assembly of the people or their leaders. Such institutions existed since before written records, as well as being referred to in ancient texts, and modern democracies are often derived or inspired by them.

Democracy in the modern world evolved in Britain and France and then spread to other nations. The main reason for the development of democracy was a dissatisfaction with the corruption, incompetence, abuse of power, and lack of accountability of the existing polity, which was often an absolute monarchy whose legitimacy was based on the doctrine of the divine right of kings. Instead of defending their country, kings were often engaging in ruinously expensive wars against other countries. Instead of using their power to enforce the rule of law and justice, they were often using this power to oppress their subjects and stifle opposition. People thought that if they could have a say in how they were governed, these abuses could come to an end.

There is a tension in democracy between the rule of law limiting government and protecting individual liberties, and the rule of the people being able to override individual liberties. In modern history this has led to two competing versions of democracy. One emphasizes the purpose of the whole, but when it became atheistic has tended to slip into totalitarianism and the suppression of individual liberty. The other emphasizes individual liberty, but with the decline of its Christian underpinnings has tended to slide into social disintegration.

There are many different types of democracy, from the minimalist direct democracy of Switzerland to the totalitarian democracy of communist states such as North Korea, as well as mixed systems such as the blending of monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy in the United Kingdom. As democracy is now regarded by many as the highest, or even only, form of legitimate authority, many states claim to be democratic even if they do not appear to be. One of the most damaging accusations in today's international arena is that a group or process is "undemocratic." In the Islamic world, there are democracies such as Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Pakistan, although there are also Muslims who believe democracy is un-Islamic. Though the term democracy is typically used in the context of a political state, the principles are also applicable to other groups and organizations.

In the past, philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas and Hobbes have considered democracy to be among the worst forms of government because it could easily be corrupted and result in injustice. The chief danger is that a majority can impose its will upon a minority in a way that violates their liberties. Thus during the twentieth century, besides liberal democracies, there were also dictators such as Hitler who came to power through the democratic process and totalitarian democracies like the Soviet Union, where the populace gave strong support to the regime at various times.

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To function properly, democracies require a high level of education and maturity among the people who vote. If not, the process can be captured by demagogues if too many vote in a self-centered way, as happened in Weimar Germany. It can also be very claustrophobic or oppressive as majorities can use their position to intimidate minority opinions. Modern democracy has benefited from the mass education of citizens, the free press, and most especially the Protestant Reformation, which encouraged self-restraint and public-mindedness and trained people in self-government.

History of democracy

Classical Greek democracy

The word "democracy" derives from the ancient Greek demokratia (δημοκρατία). It combines the elements demos (which means "people") and kratos ("force, power"). Kratos is an unexpectedly brutish word. In the words "monarchy" and "oligarchy," the second element, "arche," means rule, leading, or being first. The Athenian democracy developed in the Greek city-state of Athens (comprising the central city-state of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica). Athens was one of the very first known democracies and probably the most important in ancient times. Every adult male citizen was by right a member of the Assembly and had a duty to participate and vote on legislation and executive bills. The officials of the democracy were elected by lot, except generals (strategoi) and financial officials, who were elected by the Assembly. Election was seen as less democratic and open to corruption because it would favor the rich (who could buy votes) and the eloquent, whereas a lottery gave everyone an equal chance to participate and experience, in Aristotle's words, "ruling and being ruled in turn" ( Politics 1317b28-30). Participation was not open to all the inhabitants of Attica, but the in-group of participants was constituted with no reference to economic class and they participated on a scale that was truly phenomenal. Never before had so many people spent so much of their time in governing themselves. However, they only had the time to do this because of the huge number of slaves that underpinned the Athenian economy. Political rights and citizenship were not granted to women, slaves, or metics (aliens). Of the 250-300,000 inhabitants, about one third were from citizen families and about 30,000 were citizens. Of those 30,000 perhaps 5,000 might regularly attend one or more meetings of the popular Assembly.

Athenian polity was an expression of its philosophy. One of the distinguishing features of ancient Greece was its lack of a priestly class who would mediate between the people and the gods and also be channels of the divine laws and will. Instead, the philosopher Aristotle summed the humanistic Greek view up in his definition of human beings as "political or social animals," or as another philosopher put it, "man is the measure of all things." Men could only live perfect and self-sufficient lives if they became active citizens, knowing how to rule and be ruled by participating fully in the life of the state. Thus, for Athenians, making laws and arguing about policy was their duty and right. This contrasts with a religiously based culture where it is the gods who make or hand down the laws and human beings do not have the authority to make or change these laws. So individual citizens of Athens had the right to take the initiative: to stand to speak in the assembly, to initiate a public law suit (that is, one held to affect the political community as a whole), to propose a law before the lawmakers, or to approach the council with suggestions.

There were many critics of Athenian democracy and twice it suffered coups. For example in 406 B.C.E., the Athenians won a naval victory over the Spartans. After the battle, a storm arose and the eight generals in command failed to collect survivors: The Athenians sentenced all of them to death. Technically, it was illegal, as the generals were tried and sentenced together, rather than one by one as Athenian law required. Socrates happened to be the citizen presiding over the assembly that day. He refused to cooperate, objecting to the idea that the people should be able to ignore the laws and do whatever they wanted just because they were in the majority.

This tension in democracy between the rule of law, limiting government and protecting individual liberties, and the rule of the people, being able to override individual liberties, resurfaced in modern history with two competing versions of democracy.

Middle Ages

Most parts of Europe were ruled by clergy or feudal lords during the Middle Ages. However, the growth of centers of commerce and city-states led to great experimentation in non-feudal forms of government. Many cities elected mayors or burghers. There were various systems involving elections or assemblies, although often only involving a minority of the population. Such city states, particularly on the Italian peninsula, often allowed greater freedom for science and the arts, and the Renaissance blossomed in this environment, helping to create conditions for the re-emergence of democracy.

One of the most significant influences on the development of democracy was Protestantism. The hierarchical Roman Catholic Church supported absolute monarchy and was a powerful opponent of democracy and liberalism. The fragmentation and restructuring of Christianity that accompanied the Reformation enabled groups of Christians in some countries to experiment and set up their own congregations based on different ecclesiologies, such as Presbyterianism and Congregationalism. These arguments and discussions over church polity spilled over into politics and influenced the development of democracy.

Instances of democracy that have been cited include Gopala in Bengal, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Althing in Iceland, certain medieval Italian city-states (such as Venice), the tuatha system in early medieval Ireland, the Veche in Slavic countries, Scandinavian Things, and the autonomous merchant city of Sakai in sixteenth century Japan. However, few of these have an unbroken history into the modern period-an exception being the Althing, which lays claim to being the oldest parliament in the world. Furthermore participation in many of these post-feudal governments was often restricted to the aristocracy.

Liberal democracy

The development of democracy in England

The origin of the modern liberal democracy that has expanded so rapidly in the past century lies in the evolution of English political institutions. The government of the English in the tenth century, before the Norman conquest and the imposition of feudalism, was derived from the customs of the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled in England during the fifth century. The English were a nation of freeholders living in homesteads. A group of these homesteads formed a village which had an assembly, the village-moot presided over by the village-reeve. A hundred or so of such villages constituted a Hundred, which also had a meeting presided over by an elder where they managed their own affairs. A number of hundreds formed a shire, presided over by an earldorman appointed by the King and Witan. The kingdom made up of these shires was ruled by the Witenagemot and the King. The Witenagemot was the "Meeting of the Wise Men," who could elect and depose the King, decide questions of war and peace, make and amend the laws, confirm the appointment of bishops and earldormen and settle disputes. The King was greatly respected but could not alter the law, levy a tax, or make a grant of land without the consent of the Witenagemot.

The English system of government worked from the bottom upwards, from the freeman to the King, every person holding his own land as his right, choosing his own earldorman who in turn helped to choose the King. The law was customary law, which formed the basis of Common Law, a body of general rules prescribing social conduct. It was characterized by trial by jury and by the doctrine of the supremacy of law. The law was not made, but discovered as revealed in the traditional life and practices of the community. It was thought of as God's law which had been handed down through custom from generation to generation. Thus no one had the authority to unilaterally go against the wisdom of the past generations and make new law.

In 1066, William the Conqueror invaded England and imposed the feudal system, which worked from the top down. The King owned all the land and gave it to his knights, earls, and barons. In this way he gathered up, and concentrated in himself, the whole power of the state. Subsequent English history has been a long struggle to reassert the Anglo-saxon principles of government against this imposed feudalism.

Some landmarks in this not always progressive struggle were:

The attempt to bring the Church under the law of the land so that priests who committed murder could be punished with the Constitutions of Clarendon (1164);

The confirmation of trial by jury (1166);

Magna Carta, issued by King John under pressure from the barons led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, which restated the ancient principle that no person should be imprisoned but by the judgment of his equals and by the law of the land (1215);

The Provisions of Oxford which demanded that there should be three Parliaments a year and that the King could not act without the authority of his appointed advisers (1258);

The first House of Commons summoned by Simon de Montefort with representatives from all classes of the kingdom (1265);

The First Complete Parliament (1297) summoned by Edward I on the principle that, "it was right that what concerned all, should be approved by all," which passed the statute that there was to be no taxation without the consent of the realm;

The right of the Commons to impeach any servant of the Crown who had done wrong (1376) and the necessity that the two Houses of Parliament should concur for the law to be changed;

The abolition of the authority of the Pope in England (1534);

The growth of non-conformity that accompanied the Reformation popularized the idea that a congregation should be able to elect its own minister-these expressions of democracy in the churches spread to the political realm;

The declaration by the Commons that their privileges were not the gift of the Crown, but the natural birthright of Englishmen, that they could discuss matters of public interest and that they had the right to liberty of speech (1621);

The Petition of Right (1628) which demanded that no man could be taxed without consent of Parliament;

The National Covenant (1637) signed in Scotland to resist the imposition of Popery and Episcopacy;

The abolition of the Star Chamber (1640) which dispensed arbitrary justice;

The English Civil War, which arose because of the arbitrary government of Charles I, who tried to rule without Parliament, and the extraordinary amount of religious freedom and outpouring of spirituality at this time;

The Habeas Corpus Act (1679) restated the ancient principle that indefinite and illegal imprisonment was unlawful;

The Glorious Revolution in which William of Orange was invited to defend the rights and liberties of the people of England from James II, who wanted to rule absolutely and impose Catholicism on the country;

The Toleration Act (1689) allowing freedom of worship to all Protestants;

The Declaration of Right (1689) that declared illegal the pretended power to suspend or dispense the law;

The expansion of the franchise in England in the mid-nineteenth century through the Reform Acts (1832, 1867);

Ballot Act (1872), which introduced secret ballots;

Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act (1883), which set limits on campaign spending;

Representation of the People Act (1918), which gave the vote to all men and women over the age of 30.

Universal suffrage and political equality of men and women (1928).

However, with the expansion of the franchise came the expansion of government, as politicians made promises to the electorate so as to win votes and be elected. These policies could only be delivered through greatly increased public expenditure financed through increases in taxation. This has led to a gradual but significant loss of freedom as governments have used their democratic mandate to engage in social engineering, retrospective legislation, and the confiscation of property in a manner reminiscent of the Greek abuses that Socrates railed against. It is now commonly thought that the will of a democratically elected government should not be constrained, because this would be undemocratic, whereas the whole raison d'etre of democracy was to preserve and not to justify the destruction of liberty.

Democracy in the United States

A significant further development of democracy occurred with the establishment of the United States. The political principles of liberal democracy that were worked out over the centuries in England and articulated by the philosophers Locke, Hume, and Montesquieu were inherited by the United States and embodied in its Constitution. Having a constitution that described functions and limited the political institutions was a novel innovation. The founding fathers who framed the Constitution wanted to establish institutions that could preserve liberty and prevent the excessive growth of government, which was seen as the chief threat to liberty. So the United States Constitution set down the framework for government with checks and balances based on the separation of powers, so that no institution or person would have absolute power. To further limit the reach of government and protect people's liberties, the founding fathers produced a Bill of Rights, a series of amendments to the Constitution. It was adopted in 1788, and provided for an elected government through representatives, and it protected the civil rights and liberties of all except slaves. This exception came to haunt the new republic. Although not described as a "democracy" by its founding fathers, today it is the model many people aspire too.

The system gradually evolved, from Jeffersonian Democracy to Jacksonian Democracy and beyond. Following the American Civil War, in 1868, newly freed slaves, in the case of men, were granted the right to vote under the passage of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Women's suffrage was finally achieved in the 1920s with the passage of the 19th Amendment.

The U.S. Constitution states that the power comes from the people: "We the people...." However, unlike a pure democracy, in a constitutional republic, citizens in the U.S. are only governed by the majority of the people within the limits prescribed by the rule of law. Constitutional republics are a deliberate attempt to diminish the threat of mobocracy, thereby protecting minority groups from the tyranny of the majority by placing checks on the power of the majority of the population. Thomas Jefferson stated that majority rights cannot exist if individual rights do not. The power of the majority of the people is checked by limiting that power to electing representatives, who then govern within limits of overarching constitutional law, rather than the popular vote or government having power to deny any inalienable right. Moreover, the power of elected representatives is also checked by prohibitions against any single individual having legislative, judicial, and executive powers, so that basic constitutional law is extremely difficult to change. John Adams defined a constitutional republic as "a government of laws, and not of men."

The framers carefully created the institutions within the Constitution and the United States Bill of Rights. They kept what they believed were the best elements of previous forms of government. But they were mitigated by a constitution with protections for individual liberty, a separation of powers, and a layered federal structure. Inalienable rights refers to a set of human rights that are not awarded by human power, and, thus, cannot be surrendered.

The values of Anglo-American democracy

The main theme running through this political evolution is that the impetus for greater democracy was the desire to establish the rule of law so as to preserve and expand freedom -the freedom of religion and speech, freedom of association, movement and trade, and secure ownership of property. Hence, the name "liberal" democracy. To guarantee this, the importance of a separation of powers, or functions, came to be recognized with a separate executive, legislative, and judiciary. It was thought that a democratically accountable legislature and independent judiciary was the best way to prevent a king or imperious chief executive from misusing his position and acting arbitrarily.

The underlying values and culture that underpin Anglo-American democracy are, first, the value of the individual. Great Britain, and its offspring America, developed an exaggerated sense of the value of the individual as compared to other countries, which can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon period. This individualism was grounded in the nuclear family structure, which valued liberty above other values such as equality and authority. This was reinforced by English religion, which was a notoriously Pelagian version of Christianity that also emphasized freedom and responsibility. Protestantism, especially its evangelical version with its emphasis on individual salvation and the love that God has for each individual soul, reinforced this respect for the individual, and his or her rights and responsibilities. Subsequent major and minor British political philosophers such as Locke, Hume, J.S. Mill, and Toland, have all supported individual liberty against the state and the majority.

A second value in Anglo-American democracy is respect for tradition and custom as the source of the authority for morality and the law. Medieval English philosophy had a tendency towards nominalism, which made it hard to imagine, and thus believe, in the existence of abstract constructs such as the state. And modern British and American philosophy has been strongly empirical, valuing experience over abstract reason. As David Hume said, "the rules of morality are not conclusions of our reason." Experience reveals that the world people is very complex, full of idiosyncrasies, and that social institutions are the product of human actions but not conscious human design.

Thirdly, Anglo-American individualism traditionally had a strong Christian component, such that people naturally tended to be public minded. Many voluntary societies and charities were formed and freely given public service was common. The French observer Alexis de Tocqueville in his famous work, Democracy in America (1835), is famously to have said that he found the strength of America in her churches and voluntary societies, which gave individuals the organizational strength to exercise their liberties according to their various opinions.

Democracy in France and its totalitarian offshoots

Democracy, when it developed on the continent of Europe, took a very different turn. In the Middle Ages most European countries had modernized by adopting Justinian's legal code, which gave the authority for creating law to the ruler. Throughout the Middle Ages, continental monarchies had been very powerful, with the unchecked authority to lead their countries into ruinous and destructive wars. They had this power because large armies were necessary for defense, as there are few natural barriers on the continent and most countries had several neighbors with whom there would be disputes over territory. So loyalty and service of the whole has always tended to be more important than individual freedom. So in the modern era, the most progressive monarchs were enlightened despots. They were often followed by dictators. The idea that the state should have this authority was not challenged.

The development of democracy in France

In theory, France was an absolute monarchy in which the king was the source of all laws and administrative authority. In practice, the monarch was hedged in by a medieval constitution which he could not change without the risk of undermining the entire structure. The French state in the 1780s, was on the brink of bankruptcy due to an ancient, inequitable, and inadequate tax base, as well as over spending on wars with Britain. There were many other economic and social problems the monarchy was unable to solve. This led to a widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo and a desire for change. To break the deadlock, King Louis XVI called the Estates General, whose status and authority was very unclear, to meet for the first time since 1614. The forces that were unleashed soon resulted in the collapse of royal authority and social order. The Estates General turned itself into a National Assembly in 1789 and abrogated to itself the national sovereignty and gave itself the right to create a new constitution. The Assembly swept aside the past, publishing the Constitution of 1791 which revolutionized the whole social and political structure of France. Feudalism, legal privilege and theocratic absolutism were abolished and society was rationally reorganized on an individualist and secular basis. Many of these changes, such as legal equality and the abolition of feudal dues were welcomed by the general population. However, by claiming the authority to remake society, disregarding all previous laws and institutions, the door was opened for one person or group after another to impose their vision or ideals on the country in an almost permanent revolution.

The Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen was published guaranteeing legal equality; the separation of Church and State and religious toleration came in 1791. Many of these changes were welcomed with few regretting the end of theocratic monarchy. Many of those who did fled the country. In the winter of 1791, the Assembly considered legislation against such émigrés. They debated and voted for the safety of the State against the liberty of individuals to leave. In 1792, another assembly called the Convention drew up a republican constitution, the Constitution of the Year I, and voted to execute the king. People opposed to the revolution were arrested and executed in the Terror that followed. The revolution became increasingly radical and atheistic and there was a campaign of dechristianization in 1794. An altar to the Cult of Reason replaced the Christian one in Notre Dame and many priests were martyred. In 1795, the Convention approved the new Constitution of the Year III which was later ratified in a plebiscite. The new constitution created the Directoire (Directorate) and the first bicameral legislature in French history. This should have been followed by elections, but the members of the Convention wanted to hang on to their positions because they thought they knew better than anyone else what was best for the country and so disregarded the constitution. The impasse was broken in 1799, when Napoleon Bonaparte staged the coup which installed the Consulate. This effectively led to his dictatorship and eventually (in 1804), to his proclamation as Emperor, which brought to a close the First Republic. There followed 150 years of instability-periods of republic, monarchy, and empire-culminating in the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958.

The values of Gallic democracy

The rationalism of the French Enlightenment provided the foundational values of the French Revolution and the type of democracies that developed from it. Idealistic thinkers assumed that a model society could be designed on rational principles and then implemented. Reason, like geometry, has a tendency to assert that there is one right answer. The Enlightenment was also deeply anti-clerical; it was led by Voltaire (1694-1778), who spent much of his time ridiculing religion and things that were old. Eventually it turned atheistic, as the French religious establishment was unable to intellectually refute the more extreme deist ideas that had been imported from England.

The leading political philosopher in France was Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). His conception of the ideal polity was very illiberal. He thought that in an idealized state of nature, people were born pure but had been corrupted and enslaved by civilization and institutions such as private property. To change this, he advocated a new corrective social contract as a blueprint through which a proper society could be built. To begin this, everyone in the society would subscribe to a new social contract. In order to be free, every individual had to surrender his rights to a collective body and obey the general will. The state is vested with total power, which is legitimate because it has the consent of the majority. The general will, by definition, is always right and reflects the real interests of every member of society. So anyone who disagrees with the general will is mistaken and acting contrary to his own best interests. It is the ruler's responsibility to correct him and force him to act for his own benefit. What is supremely important is the whole, of which an individual is merely an expendable a part.

Rousseau didn't agree with the idea of private property. He thought it was the source of social ills, tending to corrupt people and destroy their character. He regarded the man without property (the noble savage, for example) to be the freest. Instead, he thought that nearly all property should be owned by the state. Rousseau also recognized the importance of education and maintained that the state should control it, so as to be able to indoctrinate children into the values of the state. Although Rousseau was not a supporter of democracy-he preferred aristocracy-his ideas affected the course of the French revolution and subsequent democracy.

One impetus behind French democracy was the desire to seize the power of the state and use it to remodel society on a rationalistic basis. The vision was of a country organized and united to achieve a common purpose. As long as the government was based on popular sovereignty it had the power and authority to make any laws. This innovation was very attractive to others who wished to change and modernize society, and became a basic value of democracies throughout Europe. Being rationalistic, the supporters of the French Revolution thought its principles were universal and could, even should, be adopted by others. However, such democracies tended to become totalitarian.

One of the key values of French democracy which is also shared by socialism and communism is equality. Not equality before the law so much as people having equal lifestyles-having the same amount of living space and the same income. But such equality, which has been called the Procrustean equality, is incompatible with freedom. If people are free, they can make choices which have different outcomes, which leads quickly to inequality. For example, even if people earn the same amount of money they may prioritize and spend it differently-one person on food and luxuries, another on travel, another on a larger home, another on children's education, another on drink and drugs; another invests it and engages in commerce, and another saves it and passes it to his or her children. So the only way to achieve equality is to take away people's freedom to make such choices.

The principles of French democracy were eagerly embraced by other idealistic revolutionaries throughout Europe. The historian François Furet in his work, The Passing of an Illusion explores in detail the similarities between the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution of 1917, more than a century later, arguing that the former was taken as a model by Russian revolutionaries. This model was attractive to Marxists, as it justified a small group who thought they knew what was best for the people; a group claiming to be the "vanguard of the proletariat," seizing power in the name of the people, and using that power to compel the people to fit into the new ideal economic and social order. People who resisted or disagreed were to be sent to re-education camps or executed. This was not uncommon in the communist democracies established by the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and elsewhere. These countries are one-party states based on the principles of democratic centralism. They have a centrally planned command economy and a powerful secret police to seek out and punish dissenters.

Global spread of democracy in the twentieth century

The rise of democracies in the twentieth century has come in successive "waves of democracy," variously resulting from wars, revolutions, decolonization, and economic circumstances. Early in the century, several countries that were part of the British Empire gradually gained their independence: Australia, New Zealand, and Canada all became stable, liberal democracies modeled on the British parliamentary system. South Africa became a democracy, but with a franchise limited to white people. After World War I the Allies, under pressure from Woodrow Wilson, decided with the Treaty of Versailles to break up the Austro-Hungarian Empire into new nation states. Some, like Austria, established a democratic system, while in others, such as Hungary, strong men came to power either to establish national unity or to defend the country from predatory larger neighbors. Without either mature national identities or democratic traditions to draw upon, they were all very unstable, mostly degenerating into nationalism. The Ottoman Empire, too, was partitioned and different countries created and administered under League of Nations mandates awarded to France, Britain, and Italy. The countries contained a mixture of ethnic, national, and religious groups without a common identity, which made government very difficult. The British, who administered Iraq, imposed a parliamentary constitution on the country along with a monarch. However, the democratic roots were not very deep and there was a coup in 1958. In Russia, the absolute monarchy of Tsarism was overthrown in the February Revolution of 1917. Although they did not have widespread support, the Bolshevik Party, led by Lenin, seized power in a coup the following October. They claimed to represent the "vanguard of the proleteriat" and the real interests of the people who, because of "false consciousness" hadn't voted "correctly" in elections for the democratically elected All Russian Constituent Assembly.

The Great Depression also brought disenchantment and instability, and in several European countries, dictators and fascist parties came to power. They did so either by coups or by manipulating the democratic system claiming to be able to solve problems which liberalism and democracy could not. Dictatorships were established in Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, the Baltic Republics, the Balkans, Brazil, Cuba, China, and Japan, among others. Even in the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt wielded much more power than previous presidents which coincided with a huge expansion of government.

The aftermath of World War II brought a definite reversal of this trend in Western Europe and Japan. With the support of the U.S. and UK, liberal democracies were established in all the liberated countries of western Europe and the American, British, and French sectors of occupied Germany were democratized too. However in most of Eastern Europe, socialist democracies were imposed by the Soviet Union where only communist and communist associated parties were allowed to participate in elections. Membership of these parties was restricted, which disenfranchised most of the population. The communist party maintained itself in power by claiming to be the "vanguard of the proletariat," using intimidation and force against "counter-revolutionaries." The Soviet sector of Germany became the German Democratic Republic and was forced into the Soviet bloc.

The war was also followed by decolonization, and again most of the new independent states had democratic constitutions often based on the British parliamentary model. However, once elected, many rulers held their power for decades by intimidating and imprisoning opponents. Elections, when they were held, were often rigged so that the ruling party and president were re-elected. Following World War II, most western democratic nations had mixed economies and developed a welfare state, reflecting a general consensus among their electorates and political parties that the wealthy could be taxed to help support the poor.

In the 1950s and 1960s, economic growth was high in both the western and Communist countries as industries were developed to provide goods for citizens. However, it later declined in the state-controlled, command economies, where incentives for hard work and the freedom to innovate were lost. By 1960, the vast majority of nation-states called themselves democracies, although the majority of the world's population lived in nations that experienced sham elections, and other forms of subterfuge.

A subsequent wave of democratization saw new liberal democracies in several nations such as Spain and Portugal. Some of the military dictatorships in South America became democratic in the late 1970s and early 1980s as dictators were unable to pay the national debts accumulated during their rule due to theft and the misuse of loans. This was followed by nations in East Asia and South Asia by the mid-to-late 1980s, that were becoming industrial producers.

In 1989, the Soviet Union, in effect, collapsed economically, ending the Cold War and discrediting government-run economies. The former Eastern bloc countries had some memory of liberal democracy and could reorganize more easily than Russia, which had been communist since 1917. The most successful of the new democracies were those geographically and culturally closest to western Europe, and they quickly became members or candidate members of the European Union. Russia, however, had its reforms impeded by a mafia and oligarchs that crippled new businesses, and the old party leaders took personal ownership of Russia's outdated industries.

The liberal trend spread to some nations in Africa in the 1990s, most prominently in South Africa, where apartheid was dismantled by the efforts of Nelson Mandela and F. W. DeKlerk. More recent examples include the Indonesian Revolution of 1998, the Bulldozer Revolution in Yugoslavia, the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, and the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan.

The Republic of India is currently the largest liberal democracy in the world.

Forms of democracy

There are many variations on the forms of government that put ultimate rule in the citizens of a state:

Representative democracy

Representative democracy involves the selection of the legislature and executive by a popular election. Representatives are to make make decisions on behalf of those they represent. They retain the freedom to exercise their own judgment. Their constituents can communicate with them on important issues and choose a new representative in the next election if they are dissatisfied.

There are a number of systems of varying degrees of complexity for choosing representatives. They may be elected by a particular district (or constituency), or represent the electorate as a whole as in many proportional systems.

Liberal democracy

Classical liberal democracy is normally a representative democracy along with the protection of minorities, the rule of law, a separation of powers, and protection of liberties (thus the name "liberal") of speech, assembly, religion, and property.

Since the 1960s the term "liberal" has been used, often pejoratively, towards those legislatures that are liberal with state money and redistribute it to create a welfare state. However, this would be an illiberal democracy in classical terms, because it does not protect the property its citizens acquire.

Direct democracy

Direct democracy is a political system in which the citizens vote on major policy decisions and laws. Issues are resolved by popular vote, or referenda. Many people think direct democracy is the purest form of democracy. Direct democracies function better in small communities or in areas where people have a high degree of independence and self-sufficiency. Switzerland is a direct democracy where new laws often need a referendum in order to be passed. As it is a very stable and prosperous country, few people see any urgent need for change and so few new laws are passed. The system is also very decentralized, with few policies decided on a national level. This means that the French, Italian, and Romance language speaking minorities can order their affairs the way they choose and the large Swiss-German-speaking majority cannot over rule the local level, even if it wanted to.

Socialist democracy

Socialism, where the state economy is shaped by the government, has some forms that are based on democracy. Social democracy, democratic socialism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat are some examples of names applied to the ideal of a socialist democracy. Many democratic socialists and social democrats believe in a form of welfare state and workplace democracy produced by legislation by a representative democracy.

Marxist-Leninists, Stalinists, Maoists, and other "orthodox Marxists" generally promote democratic centralism, but they have never formed actual societies which were not ruled by elites who had acquired government power. Libertarian socialists generally believe in direct democracy and Libertarian Marxists often believe in a consociational state that combines consensus democracy with representative democracy. Such consensus democracy has existed in local-level community groups in rural communist China.

Anarchist democracy

The only form of democracy considered acceptable to many anarchists is direct democracy, which historically discriminates against minorities. However, some anarchists oppose direct democracy. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon argued that the only acceptable form of direct democracy is one in which it is recognized that majority decisions are not binding on the minority, even when unanimous. However, anarcho-communist Murray Bookchin criticized individualist anarchists for opposing democracy, and says "majority rule" is consistent with anarchism.

Sortition (or allotment) has formed the basis of systems randomly selecting officers from the population. A much noted classical example would be the ancient Athenian democracy. Drawing by lot from a pool of qualified people elected by the citizens would be a democratic variation on sortition. Such a process would reduce the ability of wealthy contributors or election rigging to guarantee an outcome, and the problems associated with incumbent advantages would be eliminated.

Tribal and consensus democracy

Certain ethnic tribes organized themselves using different forms of participatory democracy or consensus democracy. However, these are generally face-to-face communities, and it is difficult to develop consensus in a large impersonal modern bureaucratic state. Consensus democracy and deliberative democracy seek consensus among the people.

Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas

Plato criticized democracy for a number of reasons. He thought the people were often muddle-headed and were not suited to choose the best leaders. Worse, democracy tends to favor bad leaders who gain and maintain power by pandering to the people instead of telling them unpleasant truths or advocating necessary but uncomfortable policies. Furthermore, in a democracy, people are allowed to do what they like, which leads to diversity and later social disintegration. It leads to class conflict between the rich and poor as the latter try to tax the former and redistribute their wealth. Morally, Plato said, democracy leads to permissiveness. The end result, he argued, would be the rise of a tyrant to reimpose order. When one examines the way that many democracies in the modern world have turned out, one has to recognize some merit in his arguments.

Aristotle contrasted rule by the many (democracy/ polity), with rule by the few ( oligarchy/ aristocracy), and with rule by a single person (tyranny/ monarchy or today autocracy). He thought that there was a good and a bad variant of each system (he considered democracy to be the degenerate counterpart to polity). He thought monarchy best for a very large state and democracy only feasible for a small community where people knew each other.

Aquinas too taught that "the kingdom or monarch is the best form of government as long as it is not corrupt." The next best form of government was aristocracy, understood as the government by the best, and finally democracy, the government by the people. However, the best form of all, according to Aquinas, is a blend of the three, taking into consideration the needs and the circumstances of each society. A blend gives one the best of monarchy-a single person as a focal point for the loyalty of the whole people, who can act as a final arbiter in disputes and who links the past, present, and future. But a monarch can do little alone. An aristocracy made up of the finest people in the land, who come from a lineage and tradition of public service, would take many of the responsible positions of governance. Not having to stand for election would mean they wouldn't have to pander to the electorate and instead could make the better decisions. A democratic element means that the wishes and opinions of the ordinary people cannot be overlooked in the direction of government and the formation and implementation of policy.

Montesquieu and the separation of powers

Separation of powers, a term coined by French political Enlightenment thinker Baron de Montesquieu (1685-1755), is a model for the governance of democratic states, which he expounded in De l'Esprit des Lois (The Spirit of the Laws), a work published anonymously in 1748. Under this model, the state is divided into branches, and each branch of the state has separate and independent powers and areas of responsibility. The branches are normally divided into the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial. He based this model on the British constitutional system, in which he perceived a separation of powers among the monarch, Parliament, and the courts of law. Subsequent writers have noted that this was misleading, since Great Britain had a very closely connected legislature and executive, with further links to the judiciary (though combined with judicial independence). No democratic system exists with an absolute separation of powers or an absolute lack of separation of powers. Nonetheless, some systems are clearly founded on the principle of separation of powers, while others are clearly based on a mingling of powers.

Montesquieu was highly regarded in the British colonies in America as a champion of British liberty (though not of American independence). Political scientist Donald Lutz found that Montesquieu was the most frequently quoted authority on government and politics in colonial pre-revolutionary British America. Following the American secession, Montesquieu's work remained a powerful influence on many of the American Founders, most notably James Madison of Virginia, the "Father of the Constitution." Montesquieu's philosophy that "government should be set up so that no man need be afraid of another" reminded Madison and others that a free and stable foundation for their new national government required a clearly defined and balanced separation of powers.

Proponents of separation of powers believe that it protects democracy and forestalls tyranny; opponents of separation of powers, such as Professor Charles M. Hardin, have pointed out that, regardless of whether it accomplishes this end, it also slows down the process of governing, promotes executive dictatorship and unaccountability, and tends to marginalize the legislature.

Elements of liberal democracy

Certain elements are considered to be essential hallmarks of liberal democracy:

Free, regular elections with a secret ballot. People can stand for election either as independent candidates or as members of a political party. Voters can cast their votes freely and secretly without fear of intimidation.

A separation of powers or functions which is set out in a constitution so that there are checks and balances and no one person, group, or institution can attain or exercise unlimited power. The job of the legislature is to codify laws, passing new ones if necessary. Within this framework, the executive implements the policies that have been elected. The judiciary upholds the laws.

An independent judiciary which interprets the law without fear or favor.

A free and independent media able to report, discuss, and comment on events, public persons, and expose corruption and the abuse of power without fear.

The rule of law which protects people's liberties.

Freedom of association, to form political, religious, civic, and charitable groups free from government control.

Freedom of religion, and an ecumenical civic consensus that values all legitimate forms of religion as promoting values supportive of the public welfare.

Freedom of speech-the right to hold and espouse any opinion without violating the laws of libel or inciting a breach of the peace.

Private property is very important, so that a person can be independent of the state.

Education and literacy, which encourages people to think for themselves.

Beyond the public level

This article has discussed democracy as it relates to systems of government. This generally involves nations and subnational levels of government, although the European Parliament, whose members are democratically directly elected on the basis of universal suffrage, may be seen as an example of a supranational democratic institution. On the other hand there are many who criticize the democratic deficit within the European Union. There is no European demos and parties in the Parliament are all national ones. The only body with the right to propose legislation is the European Commission whose members are appointed by governments and not elected.

Aside from the public sphere, similar democratic principles and mechanisms of voting and representation have been used to govern other kinds of communities and organizations.

Many non-governmental organizations decide policy and leadership by voting.

In business, corporations elect their boards by votes weighed by the number of shares held by each owner.

Trade unions sometimes choose their leadership through democratic elections. In the U.S., democratic elections in unions were rare before Congress required them in the 1950s.

Cooperatives are enterprises owned and democratically controlled by their customers or workers.

The future of democracy

The number of liberal democracies currently stands at an all-time high and has been growing without interruption for several decades. As such, it has been speculated that this trend may continue in the future, to the point where liberal democratic nation-states become the universal standard form of human society. This prediction formed the core of Francis Fukuyama's "End of History" theory. However the resurgence of Islam with a vision of a restored caliphate, the rise of China as an economic superpower while remaining a one-party state, and the contraction of nascent democracy in Russia have dented that prediction.

Not everyone regards democracy as the only form of legitimate government. In some societies monarchy, aristocracy, one-party rule, or theocracy are still regarded as having greater legitimacy. Each of them is capable of producing good government. Whether they change into democracies depends on a country's political culture and traditions, which themselves are a product of its family structure, religion, geography, demography, and historical experience. As these change and evolve so too will a country's polity.

Problems with democracy

In the twenty-first century a number of problems with democracy have emerged.

The eclipse of limited government. The aim of constitutional democracy was to limit government. The separation of powers was developed to prevent the arbitrary exercise of power, along with the rule of law, due process, and the distinction between public and private law. However, with the appearance of a universal franchise, it has seemed unnecessary to limit government. It is commonly asserted that if a government is elected by the majority of the people, it should have the right to pass any measure and enact any policy. Limiting the power of a legitimately elected government has come to appear undemocratic, thwarting of the will of the people, which is one of the problems originally identified by Socrates.

The rising influence of special interest groups. Modern elected governments often do not serve the agreed opinion of the majority, but instead serve numerous special interest groups who lobby for special treatment from the government. Such a relatively small group greatly benefits from legislation passed in its favor, whereas the impact on the rest of the population is so small that it may not seem worthwhile to oppose it (or, the general population may simply be unaware of detrimental provisions in bills offered by special interest groups). Thus there is an increasing prevalence of bargaining democracy as opposed to representative democracy. Coalitions are formed of a multitude of special interests, each of which consents to the special benefits granted to other groups only at the price of their own special interests being equally considered. Group selfishness is thus a greater threat to democracy than individual selfishness. In many respects, Western democracy has come to be manipulated by lobbyists, or group interests, while the wishes of the majority are ignored. Worse, policies the majority would actively disapprove of, which further the interests only of elite minorities, are the ones enacted.

Government above the law. Although constitutionalists sought to limit government by the separation of powers, they did not separate the functions sufficiently. Thus, legislatures pass not only laws but are concerned with the business of government. They often pass legislation only suited to achieve the purposes of the moment. In a sense, they change the rules of the game so as to never lose. Thus there is no longer government under the law, since the government makes the law, often excluding itself and its representatives from that law. Placing the power of legislation proper and of governmental measures in the same hands has effectively brought a return to unlimited government. In this sense, the danger is that government exists for the maintenance of the ruling elite, regardless of party and country. Moreover, as with the U.S. Supreme Court, there is the problem of the judiciary evolving into a de facto legislative organ beyond which there is no appeal, by overturning laws approved by the legislative and executive branches.

Excessive partisanship and the politics of envy. In the past, when the political culture was still essentially Christian-based, politicians tended to behave in a relatively responsible way. With the decline of the Christian political culture and the rise of the politics of envy, the system is open to great abuse. Politicians promise to deal with social and economic problems, unaware that government cannot solve them and indeed is often the cause. They are tempted to bribe the electorate, pandering to their baser instincts, and sometimes to misplaced idealism, in order to be elected to solve such problems. The disconnect between campaign promises and actual policies enacted once elected is often wide.

Possible solutions

It can rightly be asked if democracy is the true end goal of human civilization, or if people must settle for Winston Churchill's characterization that, "democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." The dilemma is essentially a spiritual or cultural one that expresses itself in the problems identified above. So often proposed solutions have been confused and superficial and even tended to make matters worse. This is because of the lack of depth of modern political philosophy compared to that of the giants of the past.

It is necessary for the original political culture that gave rise to liberal democracy to be revived, updated, and articulated in a language that addresses people in the twenty-first century in a way that Locke, Montesquieu, and Mill did for their own centuries. This should explain that the purpose and value of freedom under the law is to enable people to pursue beauty, truth, and goodness and, thus, live meaningful and moral lives. It should inspire people to live according to their conscience, living unselfishly to benefit others so that the purpose for the whole can be achieved in a natural and voluntary way. When people live in this way, disagreements can be peacefully solved through the democratic process because people know each other to be good hearted. In this way, people will be able to live in peace with each other.

Also, the rules for the organization of government should be updated to better protect freedom. Many lessons should have been learned from the past two hundred years of democracy. Many problems have arisen that political philosophers of the past cannot be expected to have forseen. There needs to be a clearer delineation of functions of the different organs of government so as to establish and protect the institutions necessary for freedom and peace.

1. ↑ Sanford Levinson, Constitutional Faith (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 60.

2. ↑ Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, eds. Lipscomb and Bergh (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903-04), 7:455.

3. ↑ Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, eds. Lipscomb and Bergh (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903-04), 9:422.

4. ↑ Sanford Levinson, Constitutional Faith (Princeton University Press, 1989), 60.

5. ↑ U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Declaration of U.S. Independence. Retrieved November 27, 2018.

6. ↑ Edward W. Younkins, Rousseau's General Will and Well Ordered Society. Retrieved November 27, 2018.

7. ↑ Gretchen Casper and Claudiu Tufis, "Correlation Versus Interchangeability: the Limited Robustness of Empirical Finding on Democracy Using Highly Correlated Data Sets," Political Analysis 11 (2003): 196-203.

8. ↑ Michael Elliott, "India Awakens," Time, June 18, 2006.

9. ↑ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution. Retrieved November 27, 2018.

10. ↑ Murray Bookchin, Anarchism, Marxism and the Future of the Left: Interviews and Essays, 1993-1998 (San Francisco: AK Press, 1999), 155.

11. ↑ The Six Nations: Oldest Living Participatory Democracy on Earth Retrieved November 27, 2018.

12. ↑ Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Why Deliberative Democracy? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).

13. ↑ Plato, The Republic, Translated with an Introduction by Desmond Lee, (London: Penguin, 1974, ISBN 014044914).

14. ↑ "The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought," American Political Science Review 78(1) (March, 1984), 189-197.

15. ↑ "How the executive branch was formed, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Spring, 1991), 391-396

16. ↑ Seymour Martin Lipset, Union Democracy (New York: Free Press, 1977).

17. ↑ F.A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty: A New Statement of the Liberal Principles of Justice and Political Economy (London: RKP, 1982).

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External links

All links retrieved November 27, 2018.

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Democracy is the name given to a number of forms of government and procedures which have legitimacy because they have the consent of the people they govern.

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Welcome to this GCSE Maths Algebra Factorizing quiz! To make revision both educational and enjoyable we've added a unique twist to your maths revision session with a video featuring some "fun figures" about fastest animals in the world.

As you dive into the realm of algebraic factorizing, let these speedy creatures inspire you to race through the problems and unlock your full potential. Get ready to unleash your mathematical prowess in a thrilling and engaging way! Let's factorize and sprint towards success together.

This Maths GCSE Quiz on Foundation Algebra focuses on the technique of FACTORISING. This is the opposite of expanding brackets that you will find in our other Algebra quizzes. Here you need to identify a factor that is present in all of the terms. This gets put outside the bracket, and what is left over goes inside the bracket. The great thing is that you can always check your answer, by multiplying it out again.

Just when you thought things were getting easy, don't forget about the special case of factorising quadratic expressions. You need to be able to recognise these - they will have an x-squared term, usually an x-term, and a number. These factorise into double brackets. The trick here is to look for a pair of numbers that multiply to the number term, and add to the x-term. Remember to use FOIL when multiplying them out again to check your answer.

Keep practising your Algebra skills, as it pops up all over the place!

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GCSE algebra - learning how to factorise algebraic expressions

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Does factorising algebraic expressions sound like a foreign language? Enjoy learning about algebra by playing this quiz from Education Quizzes

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If, when you solve an equation, you get a false statement such as 2 = 3, then the equation has no solution.

If, when you solve an equation, you get a single solution such as x = -3, then the equation has one solution.

If, when you solve an equation, you get something such as 2 = 2, then the equation has an infinite number of solutions and is in fact an identity.

Solve 6(x + 4) = 6x + 20

6(x + 4) = 6x + 20

6x + 24 = 6x + 20

24 = 20

False so no solution to this equation.

Solve 6(x + 4) = 6x + 24

6(x + 4) = 6x + 24

6x + 24 = 6x + 24

24 = 24

True for all values of x, so this is an identity.

We say 6(x + 4) ≡ 6x + 4

Solve 6(x + 4) = 5x + 20

6(x + 4) = 5x + 20

6x + 24 = 5x + 20

x = -4

One solution to this equation.

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If, when you solve an equation, you get a false statement such as 2 = 3, then the equation has no solution. If, when you solve an equation, you get a single solution such as x = -3, then the equation has one solution.

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Traffic has such an effect on our lives that even non-drivers are impacted by it. Traffic costs us time and money, affects our physical and mental well-being, and has consequences for the environment. Here's a list of some traffic facts and figures that show what a powerful impact traffic has on us.

What it Costs

America's families spend more than 19 cents out of every dollar earned on transportation, an expense second only to housing, and greater than food and health care combined. (Source: Center for Transportation Excellence)

The individual cost of congestion exceeded $900 per driver in 1997, resulting in more than $72 billion in lost wages and wasted fuel. (Source: U.S. Dept. of Transportation)

85 percent of all transportation costs in the United States are related to private automobiles. (Source: Center for Transportation Excellence)

Lost Time

Congestion results in 5.7 billion person-hours of delay annually in the United States. (Source: U.S. Dept. of Transportation)

Drivers in one-third of U.S. cities spend more than 40 hours a year (an entire work week) in traffic that is not moving. (Source: Center for Transportation Excellence)

Safety and Health Concerns

In 2003 there were more than 6.3 million motor vehicle crashes reported to police. Of those, 38,252 crashes resulted in fatalities. (Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

In 2003, 15,251 people were killed in alcohol-related car accidents, representing 40 percent of all motor vehicle fatalities for that year. (Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

In 2001, crashes were the leading cause of death for people ages 4-33 in the United States. (Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

Public Transportation

Public transportation saves more than 855 million gallons of gasoline, a level equivalent to the energy used to heat, cool and operate one-fourth of all American homes annually. (Source: Center for Transportation Excellence)

For every passenger-mile traveled, public transportation is twice as fuel-efficient as private automobiles, sport utility vehicles and light trucks. (Source: Center for Transportation Excellence)

If one in 10 Americans regularly used mass transit, U.S. reliance on foreign oil could decline by more than 40 percent, or nearly the amount of oil imported from Saudi Arabia each year. (Source: Center for Transportation Excellence)

The Environment

A regular rush-hour driver wastes an average of 99 gallons of gasoline a year due to traffic. The average cost of the time lost in rush hour traffic is $1,160 per person. (Source: Center for Transportation Excellence)

In 1999, public transportation vehicles used 856 million gallons of fossil fuels and 5.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity -- less than 1 percent of all energy consumed in the United States. (Source: Center for Transportation Excellence)

On-road vehicles are responsible for 44 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, one-third of all nitrogen oxide emissions and one-quarter of all volatile organic compound emissions. (Source: Center for Transportation Excellence)

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Traffic has such an effect on our lives that even non-drivers are impacted by it. Traffic costs us time and money, affects our physical and mental well-being, and has consequences for the environment. Here's a list of some traffic facts and figures that show what a powerful impact traffic has on...

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New research into the effects of air pollution has found it is killing more than forty-thousand people every year in France, Austria and Switzerland alone.

The study is one of the first to examine the impact of the problem across international borders in Europe, where there's already one car for every two people.

It found that up to six per cent of all deaths are pollution related -- about half the air pollution is estimated to be caused by road traffic.

The BBC Science Correspondent says the study adds to the growing evidence that the tiny particles spewed out by cars and trucks cause illness and premature death.

One of the authors of the report Dr Nino Kunzli of Basel's Institute of Social and Preventative Medicine said it showed traffic pollution was a major public health issue that had to be tackled at an international level. He also called for greater acceptance of the principle that polluters must pay for the damage they caused, and said petrol prices were too low.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service

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bbc news world uk international foreign british online service

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BBC News | EUROPE | Rising death toll of traffic pollution

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New research into the effects of air pollution has found it is killing more than forty-thousand people every year in France, Austria and Switzerland alone. The study is one of the first to examine the impact of the problem across international borders in Europe, where there's already one car for every two people.

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Mumbai is attractive as it is a large city with some areas of affluence, attractive for the poorer looking for work options and a higher living standard. Mumbai's soil has been eroded meaning that it is very difficult to farm. Because of this, people have to move to the city to work.
Mumbai Push and Pull factors

Push Factors

High levels of congestion resulting in gridlock and almost impossible travel.

Low Income
In Mumbai the income is very because off the amount of people, meaning there are not many jobs to go around

Hard Jobs
Because Mumbai is the trade capital of India most companies' headquarters are located there. But these companies will only take in certain educated people meaning you need to have a good education first.

Migrants
Because Mumbai is a city of wealth in India, it receives masses of migrants, resulting in crowding of slums and other living spaces.
Slums

Around 50-60% of people in Mumbai live in slums. This is because some people in the city cannot keep their jobs and need to find a spot to build a shack to live in as they can't keep their houses.

Population growth: The Green Resolution:
The government have reduced the amount of physical farm work by providing machines and chemicals for those who can pay enough for them.
Mumbai has lots of good schools and hospitals as well as dentists. They have an ever growing population so they always have people to fill in jobs.
Resourceful homes:
You're more likely in Mumbai to have electricity water and sewage. Which is more unlikely if you live in the country side.
Mumbai is the trade capital of India therefor the government receives a lot of money from trade.

Mumbai is the central hub of the film industry in India. Bollywood is one of Mumbai's main sources of income, and is a huge part of pop culture.

Mumbai's population has grown by a whopping 983 per cent from 11.48 thousand in 1911 to 1.40 million in 2014.

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Mumbai is attractive as it is a large city with some areas of affluence, attractive for the poorer looking for work options and a higher living standard. Mumbai's soil has been eroded meaning that it is very difficult to farm. Because of this, people have to move to the city to work.

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I've been married for 22 years and have three sons, all of whom are studying. My husband works as a tailor.

I used to do some tailoring work, but I developed a swelling in my right arm and had to leave. Now I stay at home and look after my family. I occasionally take on some embroidery work and earn a little extra money.

My husband's salary is not enough. Because of the high cost of living in Mumbai it is very difficult for us to survive.

It's the main reason why I don't want to leave Dharavi, because if I go outside everything will be so expensive that there is no way I would be able to afford anything.

My parents live nearby and help out financially. They give me some money every month and are practically bringing up my two older sons. Only the youngest one stays with us.

My house is a concrete structure with a tiny room of about 60 square feet on the first floor. It is really tiny but at least I have a roof over my head.

We have another room on the ground floor of approximately the same size that we rent out for 500 rupees per month ($11/6). However, during the monsoon months no-one wants to rent it because water enters the room.

I usually get up early in the morning and finish all the household work by 10am. I cook only two meals at home, in the morning when I pack food for my husband to take to work and the evening, when he returns. I eat lunch at my mother's.

We rarely buy new clothes and only spend on daily necessities such as food, books and medicine.

I like it here because people are friendly and look out for me. If my husband is working late and does the night shift I don't feel scared because I think this is the safest place for us.

If I had more money, I would probably build a bigger house.

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I've been married for 22 years and have three sons, all of whom are studying. My husband works as a tailor. I used to do some tailoring work, but I developed a swelling in my right arm and had to leave. Now I stay at home and look after my family.

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I like Dharavi very much because this is home for me.

I spend a lot of my time reading books, watching television or listening to music. I also like to play with children from the neighbouring houses. We usually play board games because we don't have much space or a playground outside.

My college is nearby and I usually travel both ways by bus.

I don't go to eat out too much. I prefer to eat at home because my mother is a very good cook. Even our birthdays are celebrated at home.

I invite my friends over because I am not ashamed of where I stay and it doesn't bother me that Dharavi is considered a slum area. They come home and I go over to their's as well.

I live with my parents, younger brother and grandmother while my uncle, who works in a shipping company, aunt and their two daughters stay in the room on the floor above.

Our rooms are small but we adjust to each other. We even work out a schedule for watching television so that our timings don't clash.

We have a common outdoor toilet but have a wet space in a corner of the room that is used as a bathroom and a kitchen sink. Our clothes are also washed there.

We occasionally travel to my village in southern India and from there we travel out to nearby cities and towns.

My parents have given me a cell phone for use in case of an emergency. It's a prepaid connection and I make sure that I never use my mobile to talk to friends.

I don't demand much from my parents because I know it is difficult for them to make ends meet.

I want to finish my graduation and become a teacher. I plan on getting married and wouldn't mind staying in Dharavi.

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I like Dharavi very much because this is home for me. I spend a lot of my time reading books, watching television or listening to music. I also like to play with children from the neighbouring houses. We usually play board games because we don't have much space or a playground outside.

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Libro de relatos sobre el viaje de Charles Darwin a bordo del Beagle que describe los itinerarios del gran naturalista y su paso por la Argentina. Pertenece a la colección La ciencia, una forma de leer el mundo, y fue publicado por el Ministerio de Educación, en el marco del Plan Nacional de Lectura.

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Diario del viaje de un naturalista alrededor del mundo, de Charles Darwin - Recursos educ.ar

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Se trata del diario del viaje alrededor del mundo que Charles Darwin realizó entre 1831 y 1835 a bordo del Beagle, el barco que comandaba Robert Fitz Roy. Darwin describió las especies animales y vegetales, y las costumbres de los habitantes de los territorios que exploró.

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Thucydides was an Athenian general, "the father of political history," and a gifted analyst of power, chance, and necessity in international affairs. The History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the war between Sparta and Athens (435-411 BCE) and is meant as "a possession for all times."

Very little is known about his life but for what he himself has conveyed through his own work. We learn from The Peloponnesian War that Thucydides was a general who saw combat in the war (4.104.4; 4.105.1), that he contracted the plague that struck Athens between 430 and 427 and would take the life of Pericles (2.48.3; 3.87.3), and that he was eventually exiled by the democracy for his failure to save the city of Amphipolis from the Spartans (5.26.5).

About his background, he informs us:

"The general who had come from Athens to defend the place, sent to the other commander in Thrace, Thucydides son of Olorus, the author of this history, who was at the isle of Thasos, a Parian colony, half a day's sail from Amphipolis" (1.104.4).

His father Olorus is thought to be from the Athenian deme of Halimous. Thucydides' father's name, "Olorus," was connected with Thrace and Thracian royalty. Thucydides was probably connected through family to the Athenian statesman and general Miltiades and his son Cimon, leaders of the old aristocracy, supplanted by the radical democrats. He was dispatched to Amphipolis as general in 424 because "he possessed the right of working the gold mines in that part of Thrace, and thus had great influence with the inhabitants of the mainland" (4.105.1).

The great Spartan general Brasidas, aware that Thucydides was on Thasos and wielded great influence with the people of Amphipolis, and fearing reinforcements by sea, moved at once to offer moderate terms to the Amphipolitans for their surrender, which they accepted. Thus, when Thucydides arrived, Amphipolis had already fallen under Spartan control. Amphipolis was of considerable strategic importance, and with news of its fall, Thucydides fell victim to the full brunt of popular Athenian indignation. Because of his failure to save Amphipolis, he was exiled.

"It was also my fate to be an exile from my country for twenty years after my command at Amphipolis; and being present with both parties, and more especially with the Peloponnesians by reason of my exile, I had leisure to observe affairs more closely" (5.26.5). Thus it was as an exile from Athens that Thucydides traveled freely among the Peloponnesian allies and was able to view the war from the perspective of both sides. Thucydides says nothing more about himself, so we must depend on much later sources to learn more about his life. According to Pausanias, Oenobius was able to have a law passed that allowed Thucydides to return to Athens, presumably sometime after the city's surrender in 404. Pausanias reports that Thucydides was murdered while traveling back home to Athens. Many doubt this, however, seeing evidence to suggest he lived as late as 397. Plutarch claims that his remains were returned to Athens and placed in Cimon's family vault. Still others explain the abrupt end of the work in Book VIII in 411 as evidence that he may have died while composing his masterpiece.

For more biographical reading, see:

Perez Zagorin, Thucydides, An Introduction for the Common Reader, Princeton: 2005.

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Thucydides was an Athenian general, "the father of political history," and a gifted analyst of power, chance, and necessity in international affairs. The History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the war between Sparta and Athens (435-411 BCE) and is meant as "a possession for all times."

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1 En un reciente manual sobre historiografía argentina llamado Historia de la historiografía argentina editado en 2009, los historiadores Fernando Devoto y Nora Pagano, realizan un pormenorizado análisis de las corrientes de pensamiento que se afianzaron entre los historiadores y otros hombres y mujeres de las ciencias sociales de nuestro país. El libro se divide en seis capítulos, y en ellos se encargaran de analizar diferentes corrientes historiográficas en su desenvolvimiento temporal. El capitulo uno, "Surgimiento y consolidación de la Historiografía erudita" describe a la primera de estas corrientes historiográficas ubicándolas desde fines del siglo XIX hasta principios del XX. Entre los textos producidos durante el período debemos incluir textos centrales para nuestro análisis entendiendo que el límite entre bibliografía y fuente se vuelve difuso. Así ocurre con los textos escritos por Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888) y Juan B. Alberdi (1810-1884). Estos son solo algunos ejemplos entre muchos otros que participaron con sus trabajos y su intervención política e intelectual en la construcción del Estado nacional. No desconocemos el hecho de que todo análisis del pasado es una consideración de las particularidades políticas presentes. No obstante tendemos a considerar los escritos realizados por los actores del período estudiado como fuentes dispuestas al análisis.

2 Los principales textos escritos en las últimas décadas del siglo XIX -nuevamente señalo la dualidad entre bibliografía y fuentes- se vinculan a autores ligados al poder del Estado, a la problemática de su construcción y, como un instrumento más en esa construcción, al tema educativo. El debate entablado por largos años entre Sarmiento y Alberdi ocupa un lugar central en nuestro planteo introduciendo la problemática sobre la orientación productiva nacional. Es clarificador encontrar ya en ellos postulados que vinculan la temática escolar al debate sobre el aparato productivo. Recuperamos esta visión ya que muestra a la educación no como un hecho aislado, sino estrechamente relacionada al tipo particular de construcción nacional.

3 Inspeccionar la obra completa de Sarmiento nos lleva a comprender como, en la mentalidad de un personaje central en la dirección política que impulsó la construcción del Estado, la educación jugaba un rol definitivo. Un buen resumen de este pensamiento figura en una serie de documentos compilados por Ricardo J. de Titto en 2010 para editorial El Ateneo en el libro El pensamiento de Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. El estudio de los escritos de Sarmiento resulta clave para entender una línea de pensamiento tantas veces considerada contradictoria como tantas veces fue a histórico su análisis. El libro más famoso y base de su ideología, desarrollada posteriormente en otros escritos e incluso en su accionar político, es sin duda Facundo, o civilización y barbarie en las pampas argentinas. Escrito en 1845 desenvuelve, con una prosa inigualable y en forma de anécdotas muchas veces inventadas, las características violentas y atrasadas que limitaban el adelanto nacional. Argirópolis publicado en 1850, es un programa político, pero también un proyecto imaginario. La propuesta allí consta en tomar el ejemplo de la América del Norte y "...trasplantar ese proyecto íntegro al Plata para garantizar nuestra articulación al mundo moderno..." (Padín, 2007: 10). La obra más propiamente "educativa" de Sarmiento sobresale con sus ya celebres textos Educación popular de 1849 y Educación común de 1853, escritos durante el tiempo en el que inició los más duros debates con Juan Bautista Alberdi. Posteriormente Sarmiento alentó la posibilidad de una producción dirigida desde el Estado a la totalidad del cuerpo educativo, docentes, directivos, inspectores, incluso a aquellos familiares que en cada poblado se comprometieran con la tarea educativa. Un ensayo de esta tarea fueron los Anales de la Educación Común. Fue dirigida en un primer momento por su estrecha colaboradora Juana Manso y publicada con interrupciones desde sus inicios el 1 de noviembre de 1858. La producción educacionista de Sarmiento fue sumamente prolífica. De todos modos la publicación que logró consolidarse, marcó la línea oficial sobre la temática, expresó los debates y las problemáticas de la educación, llegó recién en 1881 con la publicación de El Monitor de la Educación Común, revista de la cual sería director por un breve espacio de tiempo producto de sus discrepancias con los integrantes de la elite vinculados a la dirección del Consejo Nacional de Educación.

1 Así lo calificó Félix Weinberg en su obra "El Salón Literario de 1837" publicado en 1977.

4 Juan Bautista Alberdi, hijo del Salón Literario y de la generación del '37 1, construyó su línea en claro enfrentamiento al rosismo. Sin duda su obra principal en la historia nacional fue su libro Bases y puntos de partida para la organización política de la República Argentina de 1852. Principio de jurisprudencia a partir del cual se elaborará al año siguiente la Constitución de la Confederación Argentina. Respondió a la crítica sarmientina con sus Cartas Quillotanas de principios de la década de 1850, aunque su diatriba más cínica se vislumbró en textos como El crimen de la guerra de 1870 -en alusión a la guerra del Paraguay-, Peregrinación de Luz de Día de 1871, o en La barbarie histórica de Sarmiento, reeditado bajo ese título por ediciones Pampa y Cielo en 1964.

5 Tanto en el caso de Sarmiento como el caso de Alberdi, el focus de sus preocupaciones se centraba en el desarrollo nacional, y para el tal planteaban sus propuestas respecto al tipo de gobierno y de producción convenientes para el país. En cuanto al problema educativo, ambos coincidían en la necesidad de educar a la población con una orientación técnica. Planteaba Alberdi en sus Bases, la necesidad de desarrollar hábitos laboriosos y productivos como camino para moralizar a los pobladores del territorio. El debate, de tinte político sobre el problema que aquejaba a aquella elite, recayó en el problema de la dirección social que debía tomar el desarrollo nacional. Como bien sintetizaría Milciades Peña la disyuntiva entre ambos "'Con propiedad puede decirse que la República Argentina es apenas el plano o planta de una nación' (Alberdi, Obras Completas, vol. IV, Pág. 149) Sobre este plano, Sarmiento y Alberdi querían inscribir una nación; la oligarquía apenas pudo dibujar una semicolonia." (Peña, 2012: 417).

6 La producción escrita de Sarmiento continuará ya entrando en la década de 1880 en forma casi obsesiva en torno a una preocupación, el devenir educativo de la Nación. Sin embargo la educación comenzaba a reorientarse, del mismo modo que se acomodaba la dirección política del país. Devoto y Pagano dirán respecto al período abierto en 1880 y caracterizado por la "Historiografía erudita" que

Eran los tiempos en que la educación demandaba dosis considerables de educación patriótica y por ello el pasado adquiría una funcionalidad distinta de la que fuera atribuida a lo largo de las tres décadas posteriores a Caseros. Es en este nuevo contexto en el que se populariza la versión mitrista del pasado argentino, pasado que se convertía ahora en un formidable dispositivo nacionalizador. (Devoto y Pagano, 2009: 69)

2 La cita es de Tulio Halperín Donghi en su libro de 1982 "Una nación para el desierto argentino".

8 Hijos de la Revolución de Mayo y nacidos en el interior del país, ambos encontrarán en la educación el canal de desarrollo individual que los catapultaría luego a una fecunda y activa vida política. Alberdi, el tucumano, obtiene una beca que le permite estudiar en el actual Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires y codearse con una generación de jóvenes románticos con quienes conformará luego un círculo político que enfrentará las directivas del gobernador de Buenos Aires. Alberdi será "el más inquieto de los inquietos" (Weinberg, 1977: 49) de los integrantes del Salón Literario. Producto de su prédica incisiva y sus demandas sociales conocerá el exilió en 1843, primero por Europa para poco después asentarse en Chile.

9 Sarmiento, el sanjuanino, pierde en dos ocasiones la beca de estudios que le hubiera permitido viajar a Buenos Aires y debe continuar su educación en la provincia de la que es oriundo. La invasión de José Aldao a la provincia cierra la 'Escuela de la Patria' donde estudiaba Sarmiento, quien debió exiliarse a la provincia de San Luis junto a José de Oro y Albarracín. Al poco tiempo regresó a su provincia, pero los enfrentamientos políticos con las montoneras federales lo llevaron a un nuevo exilio, esta vez en Chile. A partir de allí comenzará un largo proceso de exilios, participaciones militares y viajes de estudio por Europa y los Estados Unidos.

El vocabulario empleado por Botana en su interpretación del pensamiento político de estos dos autores describe, claro está, tendencias, inflexiones, y no posiciones "absolutas": en el caso de Sarmiento se desprende de sus discusiones fundamentales con Alberdi que valoraba la institución estatal y la noción política de ciudadanía mucho más que su contrincante tucumano. Una república verdadera no podía ser, para Sarmiento, como si pareció serlo por momentos en la escritura de Alberdi, una república de productores enteramente ajenos a los universos de la política activa. (Myers, 2010: 26).

11 La amistad inicial y sus intereses comunes no los libraran de un largo enfrentamiento político luego de la caída de Rosas. La relación entre Sarmiento y Alberdi será, a partir de entonces, mucho más conflictiva. "Alberdi es nombrado encargado de negocios por la Confederación en Chile. Sarmiento, sin embargo, está resentido con Urquiza, a quien considera un mero continuador de Rosas, y con Alberdi, a quien Urquiza parece obstinarse en favorecer." (Lojo, 2009: 11).

12 La conformación nacional los encontrará en posiciones enfrentadas que se dirimirán en infinidad de cartas y publicaciones, así como en la práctica política concreta. Alberdi encontrará en el gobierno de la Confederación su canal de acción más fructífero. Desde las Bases asentará la normativa para la futura Constitución Nacional. Sarmiento llegará él mismo al máximo del poder político, enfrentado a los caudillos y estableciendo un contubernio con las oligarquías provinciales vinculadas al poder porteño. Ninguno de los dos encontrará entre los elementos locales a la clase social progresiva que abriera camino al desarrollo tan esperado.

13 Luego de la presidencia de Sarmiento -atravesada por la guerra del Paraguay y los inicios del crack económico de 1873-, quedará finalmente demarcada la orientación política y económica determinada para el Estado argentino. Durante las presidencias de Nicolás Avellaneda y Julio A. Roca arribará al poder definitivamente una burguesía intermediaría -con fuerte raigambre latifundista- que moldeará a la joven república en pos de sus intereses de clase. No existía entonces, ni siquiera cerca del final del siglo XIX, una clase social revolucionaria que pudiera arrancar la iniciativa de manos de la oligarquía.

15 Por otra parte, Alberdi siempre fue vinculado a los aspectos jurídicos que constituyeron las bases legales de nuestra conformación republicana. Su preocupación por la formación de la población no arraigó en la memoria escolar. Podemos encontrar dos motivos principales: Alberdi supo vincularse políticamente a los triunfadores de Caseros, pero mantuvo distancia respecto a los sectores políticos -oligarquías provinciales y dirigentes porteños- que controlaron en última instancia el poder político del Estado. Como segundo motivo entendemos que Alberdi no confiaba per se en el sistema escolar, entendía la necesidad de impulsar una sociedad farmer y trabajadora a partir de la cual se conformara el sujeto social de la nación. Afirmaba que para moralizar al ciudadano, "Se llega a la moral más presto por el camino de los hábitos laboriosos y productivos de esas nociones honestas que no por la instrucción abstracta." (Alberdi, 1974: 77). Despreciaba la ociosidad de las elites intelectuales de las cuales -vale decirlo- el también formaba parte.

17 Recuperamos en este punto lo planteado por Adriana Puiggrós cuando afirma que las diferencias entre Alberdi y Sarmiento residen en sus opiniones acerca de los factores determinantes de la evolución social. "La educación jugaba un papel accesorio para Alberdi, porque el comprendía que se requerían sujetos sociales y políticas demandantes de educación, antes que una educación que generara tales sujetos." (Puiggrós, 2006: 81). En Europa y los Estados Unidos el desarrollo técnico y el desarrollo del mercado interno habían potenciado la demanda social por educación, se imponía con ello un nuevo habitus -retomando el término utilizado por Puiggros- producto de la sociedad capitalista. Por otro lado la implantación violenta de esos habitus de manera forzada no podían desarrollar los mismos resultados.

7 Este modelo fue implantado en los Estados Unidos en los casos que se intentó educar a los aborígene (...)

18 Sarmiento creyó posible que la implantación pedagógica generaría la constitución de nuevos sujetos sociales y de nuevas políticas 6. Maestros y alumnos vinculados en la educación básica por una relación de instrucción, construirían un sujeto pedagógico capaz de transformar las costumbres y el estilo de vida de los argentinos 7 (Puiggrós, 2006: 82).

19 Una multiplicidad de autores, de diferentes tradiciones académicas o corrientes políticas, han indagado sobre el pensamiento de Alberdi y Sarmiento. Milcíades Peña, desde una perspectiva materialista ligada al trotskismo, vincula el fracaso de la propuesta de ambos con el definitivo vínculo pro imperialista alcanzado por la dirigencia política argentina a inicios de la década de 1890. El aporte central de su obra fue la de mostrar que la relación entre una burguesía intermediaria, afincada en las riquezas de la producción primaria, y las metrópolis consumidoras de esos bienes no podía permitir un desarrollo independiente a escala nacional.

20 Peña describe los enfrentamientos entre Sarmiento y Alberdi durante la segunda mitad del siglo XIX. Desde diferentes perspectivas ambos buscaron un mismo objetivo. Alberdi ocupó un lugar relevante luego de la Batalla de Caseros afirmando la base legal de la Confederación. Sarmiento interpretó en Urquiza un nuevo caudillo y prefirió distanciarse; poco a poco se vinculará a cierto sector del autonomismo porteño y de las elites del interior creyendo encontrar en ellos a la clase social progresiva para el desarrollo nacional. Ambos serán traicionados en sus intenciones. 8

21 En campos opuestos, Alberdi terminó desvinculado de la oligarquía y sentenciado a la soledad estéril mientras que Sarmiento, vinculado a ella, apoyó crímenes brutales como la guerra del Paraguay. La tradición escolar tuvo por costumbre presentarlos como aliados y realizadores del proyecto nacional. No fue así. Enfrentados a partir de Caseros, ninguno vio realizado su programa; ni la libertad comercial con respecto a Europa propuesta por Alberdi, ni la revolución que convertiría a Argentina en un país autónomo y moderno soñado por Sarmiento.

22 El reparto de la tierra, el libre acceso al crédito, la educación pública, la democracia, eran tareas esenciales para el desarrollo de una burguesía independiente. A ellas apela Sarmiento, quien buscó imitar el camino tomado por los Estados Unidos. En este contexto pensó una educación que profundizara un proceso industrializador para liberar finalmente a la Argentina de su base colonial-hispana y permitirle seguir el ejemplar camino del país del Norte. Análogamente, repudiaba la organización económica nacional a partir de la ganadería al punto de vincular el espacio rural a la barbarie frente a la civilización de la urbanidad. Así, la educación daba lugar a una nueva sociabilidad sacando al niño de la naturaleza -el barbarismo- para brindarle una segunda naturaleza -la civilización- por medio de los hábitos logrados con la rutina escolar. "La educación debía dar lugar a una nueva sociabilidad creando en el niño una segunda naturaleza." (Carli, 2012: 50).

23 Alberdi también fue crítico del parasitismo de la oligarquía Argentina. Pensó en la necesidad de una independencia comercial con respecto a Europa. Afirmaba que la civilización era primordial para un país que buscaba ser independiente. Para poder llegar a contar con libertad política debía tener primero libertad industrial. El programa de Alberdi era, en ese punto, similar al de Sarmiento. El desarrollo nacional debía permitir la independencia industrial y comercial de la Nación. Según Alberdi la instrucción general y gratuita solo podía producir el efecto deseado si venía acompañada del ejercicio práctico de los medios de producción. Así, el conocimiento de tareas tan importantes como comercio, labranza de la tierra y la mejora del ganado, las artes mecánicas y los oficios debían ser el objeto de la enseñanza popular (Alberdi, 1886).

24 La educación poseía en el pensamiento de Sarmiento un poder transformador que, de no verse acompañado por una estructura acorde, no podría aplicarse a la realidad. Sin embargo el criterio que le asignó a la educación era superador a cualquier propuesta hecha hasta ese momento, y se anteponía a la estructura social. Su fascinación por el sistema escolar Norteamericano lo impulsó a importar tal proyecto pedagógico, pero esta no cuadró con la estructura social que la oligarquía predeterminaba para la Argentina, lo que en varias ocasiones lo llevó a realizar la pregunta "¿Una nación moderna o una nación con olor a bosta de vaca?" tal como lo recuperará Peña, la respuesta la encontró en los hechos demarcados por el sector gobernante.

25 El optimismo pedagógico de Sarmiento radicaba en el hecho de considerar a la educación en sí misma como un motor transformador. Tal como plantea Renata Giovine "En este proyecto sociocultural, coloca a la educación popular como el principio promotor del cambio social, político y económico." (2008: 54). Para Alberdi la educación sería su resultado final, por eso comprendió la problemática; tanto en Estados Unidos como Europa la educación fue un factor accesorio al desarrollo capitalista. Sarmiento por su parte encontraba en las hordas bárbaras a sujetos necesitados de educación como condición necesaria para el desarrollo nacional. Sarmiento fue partidario de impulsar una política de "arraigo costumbrista", es decir, a la suposición de considerar que por medio de la imitación de características particulares de los países desarrollados se llegaría a un desarrollo similar. Así fue que intentó imitar el paisajismo parisino con la importación de gorriones y de ciertos trazados para parques y calles; intentó imitar el "mapa" estadounidense con su Argirópolis; y finalmente, en otro nivel, planteó la necesidad de "importar" maestras norteamericanas para implantar en el país las escuelas norteamericanas que tanto admiraba.

Sin embargo, la pedagogía norteamericana tuvo éxito en el país de los " farmers " y el acelerado desarrollo industrial, y gran capacidad de asimilar a una cultura política democrática a los inmigrantes. En una sociedad como la Argentina, donde el camino elegido por la clase dirigente había sido el establecimiento del Orden sobre un camino del Progreso que no alterara las reglas del latifundio y la dependencia de Inglaterra y pronto de los Estados Unidos, los elementos progresistas y democráticos del pragmatismo transmitidos por las educadoras norteamericanas, serían aplastados por una pedagogía normalizadora. (Puiggrós, 2006: 84).

26 Peña defiende la figura de Sarmiento y Alberdi exaltándolas al punto de convertirlas en "...los más lucidos y consecuentes teóricos de la necesidad de transformar el país respecto a lo que era en 1853." (Peña, 2012: 380). La animadversión con la que se trataron luego de Caseros está vinculada a la fracción de clase con la que cada uno decidió aliarse para llevar adelante sus postulados. El rechazo de Sarmiento a Urquiza -a quien veía como uno más de los caudillos federales- lo llevó a un duro cruce con Alberdi. "Después de Caseros, militan en campos opuestos: Sarmiento en un frente único con la oligarquía porteña, Alberdi en el bando de la Confederación." (Peña, 2012: 380). Luego Alberdi denunció la Guerra del Paraguay, Sarmiento la apoyó, ese posicionamiento distanció al primero de los sectores de poder y, nuevamente en el sentido contrario, lo encumbró a Sarmiento hasta la dirección del poder mismo.

Podéis creerme si os digo que este es el peor pedazo de vida que he atravesado en tan largos tiempos y lugares tan varios, más triste con la degeneración de las ideas de libertad y patria en que nos criamos entonces. (El Censor, 1886).

28 Poco antes de morir Sarmiento pasaba sus peores momentos, y, contrariamente a lo esperable, dos años después de emitida la Ley 1420, la degeneración de las ideas de libertad era más profunda.

29 Desde un posicionamiento metodológico que basa su análisis en el estudio de las ideas políticas Natalio Botana plasma la trayectoria de Sarmiento y Alberdi estudiando el origen de su implantación ideológica. Así encuentra en Alberdi un afincamiento en el pensamiento ilustrado; "Mientras Sarmiento arrancó de Rousseau y Franklin el paradigma de la ciudad virtuosa y lo trasplantó a la ciudad de la independencia, Alberdi se apropió de la lógica del discurso político que contenían esos textos." (Botana, 2005: 284) Busca el camino que realizaron ambos para alcanzar su concepción republicana a través de la virtud de los individuos, la pureza de los modelos y la imitación -o no- del orden europeo, en la búsqueda del proyecto nacional.

30 Pero los posicionamientos tomados por cada uno no se deben simplemente a una cuestión de "lecturas", sino a una concepción distinta respecto al modelo de Estado-Nación a partir del desarrollo de experiencias propias, sumado a una mirada homogeneizante respecto del sistema educativo de los Estados Unidos. La concepción de la educación como rasero civilizatorio es propia de las políticas educativas implantadas para "domesticar" a los pueblos originarios mientras que la educación práctica está estrechamente ligada a la ética protestante. 10

31 La principal preocupación alberdiana es la pregunta por la constitución del poder, cuya centralización se lograría mediante la construcción de una "republica de habitantes", que según Botana, cobraría el perfil de un régimen sin mediadores políticos. Sarmiento vio en ese desvió -la desvinculación de las masas respecto a la participación política-, la repetición de los síntomas del atraso. Por lo que buscó reemplazar la "Utopía" de la república democrática por una república aristocrática; la ciudadanía debía ampliarse mediante la educación. Al no conseguirse los objetivos buscados mediante la educación -debido a la continuidad del régimen de notables afirmados al control de la republica y a que el cuerpo inmigrante no se nacionalizaba- profundizó el camino. "Como educador, en el crepúsculo, Sarmiento quiso la centralización educativa (...) La centralización educativa se vació entonces en el molde de la centralización estatal cuyo poder crecía a medida que disminuía el de las autonomías provinciales." (Botana, 2005: 468).

32 Detrás de estos objetivos, el proyecto educativo que finalmente se impone en la década de 1880 opta por una educación humanístico-enciclopédica, frente a la orientación técnica propuesta. Alberdi plantea que no es necesario este tipo de formación para moralizar al ciudadano. Sarmiento, por su parte, concibió a la educación como el factor prioritario en el proceso de cambio y modernización. Juan Carlos Tedesco (su libro clásico Educación y sociedad fue reeditado en 2009) muestra como la educación en Sarmiento tiene un doble propósito. Por un lado, promover el aumento de la producción a través de la preparación de personal capacitado y de la promoción de la estabilidad política necesaria para que las funciones de producción se realicen normalmente. Por otro, promover el respeto de la vida y la propiedad privada.

33 También Gregorio Weinberg mostró la significativa importancia de la educación para Sarmiento, tanto como una educación política, económica y social, como herramienta formativa para acercarse al "conocimiento de las 'cartillas' a través de las cuales se difundirían las conquistas, asombrosas para la época, de la Revolución Agrícola e Industrial que conmovía a Estados Unidos y Europa Occidental." (Weinberg, 1995: 176).

34 En su libro Una nación para el desierto argentino, Tulio Halperín Donghi analiza la formación de Sarmiento y de Alberdi, pero sobre todo nos muestra la imagen formada por ellos del período posrosista. Desarrolla la preocupación que cada uno tiene sobre el nuevo Estado que debía ocupar el lugar dejado por el vacío tras la caída del ex gobernador de Buenos Aires, y cuál sería la finalidad de la educación en ese Estado aun naciente. Por un lado, la preocupación de Domingo F. Sarmiento fue la de encontrar un orden "Republicano", un proyecto educativo que consolidara la paz social frente a cualquier prédica disolvente. Critica aquí la posibilidad revolucionaria socialista que ve en los procesos europeos de 1848, pero también se compromete con el laicismo al enfrentar el proyecto reaccionario de Félix Frías quien, para 1837, proponía un orden con el dominio de "los mejores", donde las masas se comprometieran con un código moral y de creencias ligados al catolicismo. Por otra parte Halperín Donghi tilda de "autoritarismo progresista" el proyecto de Juan Bautista Alberdi. Éste, frente al ejemplo de las revoluciones europeas, planteará que la forma en que la elite debía mantener la disciplina era a través del rigor político y del activismo económico que considera posible dentro del capitalismo.

35 Como explicábamos antes, el debate entablado dará como resultado las bases del proyecto educativo para el país naciente. Pero dicho proyecto no será establecido en forma tan directa, sino mediado por los intereses de la clase dominante. La dialéctica del proceso podemos encontrarla en una frase que sintetiza el análisis.

En suma, mientras la Argentina parece haber encontrado finalmente el camino que le había señalado Alberdi, y haberse constituido en una república posible, hay un aspecto de la previsión alberdiana que se cumple mal: el Estado no ha resultado ser el instrumento pasivo de una elite económica cuyos objetivos de largo plazo sin duda comparte, pero con la cual no ha alcanzado ninguna coincidencia puntual de intereses e inspiraciones. (Halperín Donghi, 1982: 146).

11 El concepto es trabajado y analizado por el sociólogo alemán Max Weber el su clásico La ética prote (...)

37 Tal como fueron planteadas por ellos, las propuestas educativas de Alberdi y la de Sarmiento fueron alternativas respecto a la que finalmente se aplicó desde el Estado. Éste se valió de los lineamientos generales de laicidad y gratuidad pero no desarrolló en forma estructurada la educación de oficios, sino que dio un giro humanístico-enciclopédico con el fin de convertir a la educación en un elemento de moralidad frente a un proyecto de Estado ya planeado y -para 1884 fecha en que se emite la Ley 1420- ya puesto en marcha.

38 Para Alberdi la educación actuaba en forma secundaria frente a la necesidad de un desarrollo transformador en el aparato productivo nacional. Su propuesta planteaba que, una vez entrando al capitalismo en forma independiente, "la instrucción, para ser fecunda, ha de contraerse a ciencias y artes de aplicación, a cosas prácticas, a lenguas vivas, a conocimientos de utilidad material e inmediata." (Alberdi, 1964: 77). Sarmiento partía de lo contrario, asignando a la educación un poder transformador por delante del desarrollo material y en paralelo a la constitución de la República. Ese poder transformador "libra de la barbarie" tal como lo plantea Sarmiento en su Facundo, y puede influir en el carácter de toda una población: "de todas las circunstancias ya naturales, ya artificiales, que influyen en el carácter de las poblaciones, debe concederse la mayor parte a la educación, y la segunda al gobierno o a la religión." (Sarmiento, 1987: 50). Sarmiento, no obstante su laicismo, consideraba a la religión un elemento clave y necesario para el control social. Su oposición era determinada por su liberalismo y la inmediata asociación de la Iglesia Católica con los restos de españolismo. Su vinculo con la Iglesia Católica, por otro lado, fue por momentos de sumisión y de admiración, como ocurrió con respecto al Papa Pio IX tal como puede verse en la carta que Sarmiento envía desde Roma el 6 de abril de 1847 al obispo de Cuyo o bien en el discurso dado en el banquete ofrecido por la sociedad masónica con ocasión de su elección presidencial el 29 de Septiembre de 1868. 12

Sarmiento nunca asumió una posición de oposición a la Iglesia y fue menos laico que los liberales mexicanos. Era creyente y consideraba que la religión tenía un papel que cumplir en la cohesión de la sociedad. Además su enfrentamiento con el viejo bloque histórico no era profundo. Considerando el eterno peligro de resurrección de la "barbarie", que tan bien expresa Sarmiento en las primeras páginas de Facundo, la Iglesia era un aliado potencialmente necesario." (Puiggrós, 2006: 91).

39 Ambos tuvieron una posición ambigua frente a la religión, pero en esa ambigüedad Alberdi demostró más distancia ya que para él, una sociedad fuerte que se sustentara en el desenvolvimiento republicano necesitaba de una distancia con la iglesia.

En nuestros planes de instrucción debemos huir de los sofistas, que hacen demagogos, y del monarquismo, que hace esclavos y caracteres disimulados. Que el clero se eduque a sí mismo, pero no se encargue de formar nuestros abogados y estadistas, nuestros negociantes, marinos y guerreros. ¿Podrá el clero dar a nuestra juventud los instintos mercantiles e industriales que deben distinguir al hombre de Sudamérica? ¿Sacará de sus manos esa fiebre de actividad y de empresa que lo haga ser el yankee hispanoamericano? (Alberdi 1964, 77).

40 Bien en lo educativo, bien en lo religioso, el enfrentamiento en las posiciones de ambos se vinculaba a los límites que encontraban por intentar imponer sus ideas en un marco social distinto de aquel donde estas pudieran prosperar. El resultado fue un enfrentamiento político y personal, con acusaciones cruzadas frente a sus alianzas políticas. Sarmiento demostró su celo cuando Urquiza optó por la guía política de Alberdi. Luego de un intercambio relativamente cordial Alberdi atacó a Sarmiento con sus Cartas Quillotanas, Sarmiento respondió con las Ciento y Una. En clara diatriba contra Sarmiento, Alberdi afirmaba respecto de quien considerar bárbaro;

El obrero productor de esa riqueza, el obrero de los campos, es el gaucho, y ese gaucho a que Sarmiento llama bárbaro, comparable al árabe y al tártaro del Asia arruinada y desierta, representa la civilización europea mejor que Sarmiento, trabajador improductivo, estéril, a título de empleado vitalicio, que vive como un doméstico de los salarios del Estado, su patrón. (Alberdi 1964, 26).

41 Sarmiento respondió personalmente en una carta de 1853.

13 Juan María Gutiérrez también fue miembro del Salón Literario y desde allí mantuvo una notable cerca (...)

En la olla podrida que ha hecho usted de Argirópolis, Facundo, la Campaña, etc., etc., condimentados sus trozos con la vistosa salsa de su dialéctica saturada de arsénico, necesito poner orden para responder y restablecer cada cosa en su lugar. Por ahora me basta fijar las cuestiones primordiales. ¿De qué se trata en sus cartas quillotanas? De demoler mi reputación. ¿Quién lo intenta? Alberdi. ¿Qué causa lo estimula? Ser empleado para ello. ¿Cómo le vino ese empleo? Negociándolo por medio de Gutiérrez 13, a trueque de escribir en Chile. ¿Cuál es el resultado de su libro? Dejar probado que no soy nada y que usted lo es todo. (Alberdi-Sarmiento, 2011: 263).

42 Alberdi rectificó diciendo

¿Por qué escribo? ¿Para qué he escrito las Cartas, preguntáis? Os lo diré. No para demoler la reputación de Sarmiento, como pretende él con más jactancia qué razón; sino para desarmar a un agitador; para inutilizarle sus armas de desorden, dejándole la gloria que adquirió antes con sus armas de libertad. He escrito mis Cartas por el mismo estímulo que me hizo escribir mis Bases. Ambos escritos son conservadores; el mismo espíritu de orden y disciplina prevalece en los dos. (Alberdi-Sarmiento, 2011: 179).

43 No solucionaran ese enfrentamiento ni aun cuando el fracaso de sus propuestas los llevó a recluirse poco antes del fin de sus días.

44 Alberdi interpretó que la República Argentina se constituía apenas como el plan de una Nación. Peña hará un análisis profundo de ese concepto "Sobre este plano Sarmiento y Alberdi querían inscribir una nación: la oligarquía apenas pudo dibujar una semicolonia." (Peña, 2012: 417). Hacia fines del siglo XIX no existía en Argentina una clase social progresiva que desarrollara los mecanismos nacionales en forma revolucionaria. La burguesía intermediaría que se constituyó como clase dirigente no podía llevar hasta el final esas tareas debido a sus vínculos diplomáticos y económicos con el imperialismo. Por otro lado tampoco existía aun en la Argentina una clase obrera que pudiera tomar esas tareas en sus manos.

45 En este artículo hemos puesto de relieve los diferentes posicionamientos de quienes fueron considerados por múltiples autores como los más lucidos exponentes de la política argentina del siglo XIX, mostrando además los limites que debieron enfrentar ambos al no encontrar en la clase política un sector que pudiera impulsar sus propuestas para el área educativa así como productiva.

46 Asimismo reseñamos en forma breve a una serie de autores muy relevantes para contraponer sus posturas a partir de los cuales intentamos describir los debates planteados previos a la presidencia de Sarmiento.

47 En los análisis hechos por Sarmiento y Alberdi podemos observar además un punto determinante para la progresión de su devenir político. Ambos pusieron su confianza en diferentes fracciones de las elites latifundistas provinciales distanciándose de la posibilidad de la acción política de las masas. En el fulgor de sus vidas aun no existía en el país un movimiento obrero conformado como si ocurría en Europa y, como ya vimos, lo que podemos llamar "las masas" eran vistas por Sarmiento como sujetos "necesitados" de educación. De todos modos ambos también objetaron los movimientos revolucionarios europeos desde los levantamientos de 1848 hasta la Comuna de Paris de 1871. Es un indicio sobre como entendían la política. Sarmiento describió los sucesos europeos como hechos barbáricos que solo la buena educación -la que educa en la propiedad privada- podía evitar. En su utopía por la construcción de un orden burgués norteamericano Sarmiento quería; "reducir las diferencias sociales sin anularlas." (Carli, 2012: 49). He ahí uno de los límites más importantes en la encrucijada alberdiana y sarmientina, su confianza en una burguesía oligárquica y su desconfianza en una masa social con un destino errante.

14 En los Estados Unidos, país que era visto como modelo por ambos, ya se había conformado una importa (...)

48 Así, mientras la clase obrera se encontraba aun en ciernes, la burguesía ya había encontrado sus límites en los intereses que los aunaban al Imperio Británico. 14

49 El proyecto de Sarmiento, al igual que el de Alberdi, apelaba a una transformación general que superara el problema educativo. Un proyecto de nación independiente al que la oligarquía terrateniente ni siquiera aspiraba, y a la que solo asomó una fracción de ella frente al impacto de las diferentes crisis económicas. He ahí la soledad de Alberdi y los errores de Sarmiento al no encontrar ninguno de los dos una clase social revolucionaria que para esa fecha pudiera concretar sus proyectos, el primero quedó aislado, el segundo vinculado a la clase social que tantas veces había criticado.

50 Las esperanzas de Sarmiento y de Alberdi estaban puestas en una clase social que no era revolucionaria ni podía serlo. La burguesía argentina no pudo hacer lo mismo que su homóloga norteamericana o europea. No pudo dar salida a los intereses nacionales y la educación pública, como una de sus tareas, encontró pronto los mismos límites que la clase social que la impulsó.

51 La educación solo podía comportarse como una tarea democrático-burguesa en el marco de un Estado que haya permitido el desarrollo independiente de la Nación. En el ideario de Sarmiento y Alberdi esto era claro. Como hemos señalado a lo largo de este trabajo, ambos ven la necesidad de un proyecto nacional independiente, donde la educación juegue un papel primordial. Pero la nueva etapa abierta con el imperialismo (y el impacto de la crisis de 1873) hará evidente que cualquier desarrollo independiente requerirá de una lucha que la oligarquía terrateniente argentina no estaba dispuesta a dar. Un nuevo período donde la tarea de educación pública solo podía vincularse a los intereses populares y apoyarse en ellos para que se realice como un elemento verdaderamente transformador. La educación pública en abstracto no significa nada, solo vinculada a un proyecto de clase puede convertirse en un verdadero proyecto renovador. La oligarquía terrateniente vio esto con mayor claridad y defendió la educación pública, pero vinculada a su proyecto semicolonial.

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The debate took place between Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Juan Bautista Alberdi elapsed since the mid-nineteenth century until after the end of the War of Paraguay. However it remains in force and a need to carry out the bourgeois democratic tasks necessary for nation building.

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Cartolari, Manuela y Colombo, Laura (2013). ENSENAR Y APRENDER LOS MODOS CARACTERISTICOS DE LEER, ESCRIBIR Y PENSAR EN HISTORIA UNA REVIS (..)

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Secuencia didáctica -  La democracia Ateniense

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El abordaje de distintos tipos textuales en la enseñanza de las disciplinas en la lengua adicional - Historia