Basis for democracy

The only positive indications that we have concerning Protagoras' view about nature of human societies are to be found in the myth put into his mouth in the Protagoras 320c onwards, of which I have already made considerable use in earlier chapters...
The first men to be born lived a life that was disorderly and beastlike... Gradually, with need as a teacher, the arts were discovered as well as the things that were useful. This was possible, because man was well endowed by nature, and was further assisted by his hands, his power of speech and his shrewdness of intelligence...
According to the myth of Protagoras, when men did 'come together' the result was continued acts of injustice between them, all because they lacked the techne of living together in a city, the art of politics, which meant that they soon scattered again. So Zeus sent Hermes to give men aidos and dike to be ordering principles of cities and bonds drawing people together in friendship... Earlier in the myth, skills in the various arts and crafts had been distributed among them by the activity of Prometheus in their defence, not the same crafts to all men, but different crafts to different people. The present distribution arranged by Zeus is on a different basis in that aidos and dike are to be given to all men, and all men are to share in them...
First does Protagoras mean, as has often been asserted, that all men possess aidos and dike by nature? It seems clear that the powers of animals are regarded as possessed by nature. It is possible that the skill in crafts is also possessed by human beings. It is given to mankind before they began their life on this earth, and it is to men what the powers are to animals. But aidos and dike are in a different position - they are something acquired after man has been living in the world.
Secondly it is important to realise that it is not the view of Protagoras that all men are to be regarded as sharing equally in aidos and dike... So it is perfectly possible for a man to act unjustly in any particular case. But social expectations differ in the cases of justice and of the special skills. In the case of the latter no one individual is expected necessarily to possess any share of his own, and when he lacks the skill he is expected to admit is. But in the first case he necessarily does possess a share, and so has the capacity of acting justly in the particular case in question, whatever it may be. So when he fails, there is a social expectation that he will endeavour to conceal his failure by claiming that in fact he has been acting justly...
The importance of this doctrine of Protagoras in the history of political thought can hardly be exaggerated. For Protagoras has produced for the first time in human history a theoretical basis for participatory democracy. All men through the educational process of living in families and in societies acquire some degree of political and moral insight. This insight can be improved by various formal programmes in schools and under particular teachers and also by the operation of laws deliberately devised by the polis in order to supplement the earlier education of its citizens...
But in moral and political questions it is not the case that all opinions and all pieces of advice are of equal value... Thus an ideal Protagorean society is not ultimately egalitarian - it is to be guided by those with the most wisdom on each and any occasion. Will such people be somehow separatedly identifiable and so constitute a ruling elite of wise advisers who can provide what is known as 'a led democracy'? This has sometimes been said.

George B. Kerferd. The theory of society. In: G.B. Kerferd. The Sophistic Movement. Cambridge UP, 1981-1999.