Inclusive Democracy
Economic democracy is described as an integral component of an inclusive democracy, in Takis Fotopoulos' Towards An Inclusive Democracy as a stateless, moneyless and marketless economy that precludes private accumulation of wealth and the institutionalization of privileges for some sections of society, without relying on a mythical post-scarcity state of abundance, or sacrificing freedom of choice.Fotopoulos 1997
The proposed system aims to meet the basic needs of all citizens (macroeconomic decisions), and secure freedom of choice (microeconomic decisions). Therefore, the system consists of two basic elements: (1) democratic planning, which involves a feedback process between workplace assemblies, demotic assemblies and a confederal assembly, and (2) an artificial market using personal vouchers, which ensures freedom of choice but avoids the adverse effects of real markets. Although David Pepper called this system "a form of money based on the labour theory of value", it is not a money model since vouchers cannot be used as a general medium of exchange and store of wealth.
Another distinguishing feature of inclusive democracy is its distinction between basic and non-basic needs. Remuneration is determined separately according to the cost of basic needs, and according to degree of effort for non-basic needs. Inclusive democracy is based on the principle that meeting basic needs is a fundamental human right which is guaranteed to all who are in a physical condition to offer a minimal amount of work. By contrast, participatory economics guarantees that basic needs are satisfied only for public goods or are covered by compassion and by a guaranteed basic income for the unemployed and those who cannot work. Many advocates of participatory economics and Participism have contested this.
As part of inclusive democracy, economic democracy is the authority of demos (community) in the economic sphere—which requires equal distribution of economic power. Therefore, all macroeconomic decisions (overall level of production, consumption and investment, amounts of work and leisure implied, technologies to be used, etc.) are made by the collectively and without representation. However, microeconomic decisions are made by the individual production or consumption unit through a proposed system of vouchers.
As with the case of direct democracy, economic democracy is only feasible at the level of the confederated demoi. It involves the ownership and control of the means of production by the people. This is radically different from capitalism and socialism and from various types of collectivist capitalism, such as workers' control and milder versions suggested by post-Keynesian social democrats. The people collectively become the authentic unit of economic life.
Proponents of inclusive democracy list three preconditions: Demotic self-reliance, demotic ownership of the means of production, and confederal allocation of resources.
- Demotic self-reliance involves radical decentralization and self-reliance, rather than of self-sufficiency.
- Demotic ownership of productive resources leads to the politicization of the economy, the real synthesis of economy and polity. This happens because economic decision making is carried out by the entire community, through assemblies, where people make the fundamental macroeconomic decisions which affect the whole community, as citizens, rather than as vocationally oriented groups (e.g. workers, as e.g. in participatory economics). Workers would also participate (in vocationally oriented groups) in their respective workplace assemblies, in a process of modifying/implementing the Democratic Plan and in running their own workplace.
- Confederal allocation of resources is required because much remains to be decided at the regional/national/supra-national level. However, delegates (rather than representatives) with specific mandates from the assemblies are involved in a confederal demotic planning process which, in combination with vouchers, effects the allocation of resources in a confederal inclusive democracy.
Read more about this topic: Economic Democracy, Alternative Models, The Market
Other articles related to "inclusive democracy, inclusive, democracy":
... Globalised Capitalism, The Eclipse of the Left and Inclusive Democracy, ed ... And as Special Issue of "The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy", Winter 2009, in English Online/PDF (with two contributions by Takis Fotopoulos, "Recent Theoretical Developments on the Inclusive ... is published in The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy, Vol ...
... Inclusive Democracy is a political theory and political project that aim for direct democracy, economic democracy in a stateless, moneyless and marketless economy, self-management (democracy in the social realm ... The theoretical project of Inclusive Democracy (ID as distinguished from the political project which is part of the democratic and autonomy traditions ... According to Arran Gare, Towards an Inclusive Democracy "offers a powerful new interpretation of the history and destructive dynamics of the market ...
... Four Pillars Ecological wisdom Grassroots democracy Nonviolence Social justice Schools Bright green environmentalism Deep ecology Ecocapitalism Ecofeminism · Eco-social ... Combining anti-capitalist, radical democracy, and ecological concerns in the concept of "ecological democracy," Fotopoulos defines this notion as "the institutional ... of endless concentration of power." Some critics of inclusive democracy ask what guarantees an inclusive democracy may offer in ensuring a better relationship of society to nature than the alternative systems of the ...
... Takis Fotopoulos developed the political project of Inclusive Democracy in 1997 (an exposition can be found in Towards An Inclusive Democracy) ... as a result of the market economy, representative democracy and related forms of hierarchical structure ... An inclusive democracy, which involves the equal distribution of power at all levels, is seen not as a utopia (in the negative sense of the word) or a "vision" but as perhaps the ...
... Some notable contemporary movements working for direct democracy via direct democratic praxis include Abahlali baseMjondolo – South African shack dwellers' movement ... Registered party proposing a liquid democracy system ... Occupy Movement and Occupy Wall Street Land Party, ruralist direct democracy party in Galicia, Spain ...
Famous quotes containing the words democracy and/or inclusive:
“You can’t talk about a kind of democracy unless those who are affected by decisions make those decisions whether the institutions in question be the welfare department, the university, the factory, the farm, the neighborhood, the country.”
—Casey Hayden (b. c. 1940)
“We are rarely able to interact only with folks like ourselves, who think as we do. No matter how much some of us deny this reality and long for the safety and familiarity of sameness, inclusive ways of knowing and living offer us the only true way to emancipate ourselves from the divisions that limit our minds and imaginations.”
—bell hooks (b. 1955)