Equality by lot

Dissoi logoi, a Greek book usually dated to the end of the 5th century BC, has the following argument about sortition, whose first part is quite similar in both content and form to the argument attributed to Socrates by Xenophon in Memorabilia. The second part is reminiscent of the argument made by Isocrates in Areopagiticus.

VII. [No Title]
(1) Some of the popular orators say that offices should be assigned by lot, but their opinion is not the best. (2) Suppose someone should question the man who says this as follows: Why don’t you assign your household slaves their tasks by lot, so that if the teamster drew the office of cook, he would do the cooking and the cook would drive the team, and so with the rest ? (3) And why don’t we get together the smiths and cobblers, and the carpenters and goldsmiths, and have them draw lots, and force each one to engage in whatever trade he happens to draw and not the one he understands ? (4) The same thing could also be done in musical contests: have the contestants draw lots and have each one compete in the contest he draws; thus the flute-player will play the lyre if that falls to his lot, and the lyre-player the flute. And in battle it may turn out that archers and hoplites will ride horseback and the cavalry-man will use the bow, with the result that everyone will do what he does not understand and is incapable of doing. (5) And they say that this procedure is also not only good but exceptionally democratic, whereas I think that democratic is the last thing it is. Because there are in cities men hostile to the demos, and if the lot falls to them, they will destroy the demos. (6) But the demos itself ought to keep its eyes open and elect all those who are well-disposed towards it, and ought to choose suitable people to be in command of the army and others to be the law-officers, and so on.

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