The concept of democracy first appeared in Ancient Greek political and philosophical thought. The great philosopher Plato first contrasted democracy, which is the system of "rule by the governed", with the alternative systems of monarchy, oligarchy and timarch which are rule by one individual, rule by a small advanced class and finally rule by one race or nationality over another. All the male Athenian citizens were eligible to speak and vote in the Assembly, which set the laws of the city-state, but neither political rights, nor citizenship, were granted to women, slaves, or metics (immigrant).

One of the earliest instances of a civilization with a democracy was that founded in the republics of ancient India, which were established roughly somethime before the 6th century BC. These republics were known as Maha Janapadas, and among these states was Vaishali (in what is now Bihar) would be the world's first ever republic. It is interesting to note that The Republic of India is currently the largest democracy in the world, and so argueably also the oldest.

Although it was not described as a democracy by the founding fathers, the United States has been described many a time as the first 'liberal' democracy on the basis that its founders shared a will to the principle of natural freedom and equality. The United States Constitution, created and enforced in 1788, provided for an elected government and protected civil rights and liberties. In the colonial period before 1776, only adult white male property owners could vote. Enslaved Africans, free black people and women were not extended the freedom of voting. On the American frontier, democracy became the way of life, with widespread social, economic and political equality although many now believe that today that is not the case and the people of United States have been highjacked by a corrupt, unjust and war hungry totalitarian goverment.

Today there stands over 120 countries that enforce a democratic goverment which is an all time high and is a trend that is increasing rapidly, so much infact that they will become the universal standard of society.

It was in Ancient Greece once again when the word 'economy' arose, the majority of the people were slaves by contract of the freeholders in Greece. Economic discussion was driven by scarcity of possesion and service. Aristotle was the first to differentiate between a use of a value and an exchange value of goods. The exchange ratio that he defined was not only the expression of the value of goods deemed by scarcity but of the relations between the people involved in trading. Throughout most of history the economy therefore stood in opposition to the institutions with fixedexchange ratios as reign, state, religion and tradition.

The first economist in the modern meaning of the word was the Scotsman Adam Smith 1723-1790. He defined the elements of a national economy as products being offered at a natural price generated by the use of competition - supply and demand - and the division of labour. He maintained that the basic motive for the free trade is human self interest. The 'self interest' hypothesis became the known basis for economics and noticably the basis has not not differed greatly from Ancient Greece to Adam Smith to now with supply and demand being the basic and most fundamental aspect of what the economy is. So wy is the economy the economy? well because we all made it so with our human inhabition for material possesions all that the Ancient Greeks did was give it a name.

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