this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2026
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A Boring Dystopia
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What country implemented democracy before 1776?
Greece. Republic of Rome, to name just two.
Neither of those were modern democrocies. Hell, one could argue that the word democracy doesn't actually apply to modern democracies since we are not using the Greek definition of the word.
We are technically using the Six Nations definition of the word.
Switzerland, Iceland, the Iroquois Confederacy, polish-lithiuanian Commonwealth, san marino
Iceland has one of the oldest parliaments. It didn't become a democracy until 1944. San Marino vested sovereignty in the people (the definition of democracy) in 1974.
In 1776 Switzerland was not even called Switzerland, it was The Old Swiss Confederacy, and not even a single unified country. They didn't abandon the sovereignty of the individual cantons until 1848 when they adopted their constitution. I wouldn't call the canton situation a modern democracy.
I'll give you The Six Nations.
I don't know enough about the others to say specifically, but I suspect that much like Switzerland, they didn't reform their governments from a fuedal state to a modern state until the mid to late 1800s much like the rest of Europe.