Power is the way to get wealth. And wealth is the way to get power. So we end up with a cycle between wealth and power. It becomes more and more competitive, and as it becomes more competitive, more people fall short of what's necessary to win the competition. And you end up with power and wealth concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. This is what happened in Roman society, and this is what's happening in our society.

Author Roslyn Fuller examines the large gap between modern governments and democracy - from the cynical election mathematics that turn voters (and nonvoters) into commodities, to the Darwinian systems of wealth, power and access that propel nations from crisis to crisis - and explains how the key to restoring power to the people might lie in the surprising, random, continous democracy of ancient Athens.

Roslyn is author of Beasts and Gods: How democracy changed its meaning and lost its purpose from Zed Books.