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sparta was NOT a democracy, never was, never intended to be. it actually was........a giant labor camp, much like the USSR and china essentially were<and is for china in some respects> for most of the population.
wealth was forbidden, seriously. the currency they had was large iron coins that when cast are too brittle to be recycled into anything else. people couldnt own materials of value, period. there wasnt much sense of private property.
brutal slavery. the big irony about sparta is that they owned so many slaves that the military couldnt really project force for extended periods of time due to the very real possibility of a slave revolt.
children were raised by institutions rather than families, they were doing what nazis wanted to do for germans, create supermen. total militarization of the populous, even females. eugenics was also practiced.
little to no trade. since wealth was forbidden,, since military training took most a persons life, since most of the population lived in communes or barracks, since slaves did most of the work, sparta lacked skilled tradesmen. there was no incentive anyway......they didnt make real money and there was nowhere to actually enjoy a disposible income.
they did have excellent woodworkers and carpenters tho......since they couldnt really work with anything else beyond stone/masonry and bronze casting/forging.
as far as im concerned, sparta was the first totaltarian state...........and the most continious and successful one at that.
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