DEMOCRACY & NATURE: The International Journal of INCLUSIVE
DEMOCRACY
vol.8, no.1,
(March 2002)
Editorial
One critical component of any project aiming at an
alternative society is the transition strategy, which is the main theme of this
issue. Furthermore, a topic which is also directly related to this theme is the
form that radical movements should take in consistency with this strategy,
something that constitutes the second theme of the present issue. Thus,
following the discussion that was initiated in the previous issue about the form
radical movements take in the era of neoliberal modernity, which
had as its main reference the movements in the North, we continue in this
issue with an examination of radical movements in the South and particularly
those in Latin America.
The aim
of my contribution (Takis Fotopoulos)
is twofold. First, to critically assess the various transitional strategies for
radical social change which have been proposed in the past, as well as some
recently developed strategies, like the civil societarian approach, the
Libertarian Municipalism strategy and the ‘lifestyle’ strategies. Second, to
propose a new transitional strategy which aims at the transition to a confederal
Inclusive Democracy. In this context, the emancipatory subject in present
society is discussed, a new type of
politics and political organisation is suggested, and a series of steps for the
transition to a political, economic, ecological democracy, as well as a
‘democracy in the social realm’ is proposed.
Iain Watson
offers
an examination of the Zapatista experiment, an experiment which seems to still
attract some in the Left, particularly the reformist part of it. However, the
author, although obviously sympathetic to this movement,
has no illusions about its nature and he explicitly states that it is
basically ‘representing a
politics of resistance to globalisation that cultivates a project of radical
democracy’ which, as such, has little in common with the inclusive democracy
project. In D&N’s problematique, as expressed in the programmatic text OUR
AIMS, the ‘radical democracy’ conception not only has little to do with the
classical conception of democracy but it is also
both ahistorical and utopian in the negative sense of the word. This is
because the ‘radical democracy’ conception , far from aiming at creating new
institutions to replace the present bankrupt institutional framework, simply
proposes ‘deepening’ representative ‘democracy’ (or, as Marcos put it in
proposing a similar conception, creating a ‘more balanced’ representative
democracy) and a ‘different’ globalisation through the introduction of
social controls on the market economy. However, the fact that the
antiglobalisation movement, as far as it is dominated by the reformist currents
within it (ATTAC etc), as well as the Zapatista movement itself, presently show
clear signs of being marginalized, or worse,
being
integrated
within the existing institutional framework, provides a clear illustration of
how effective a politics of resistance to globalisation based on radical
democracy conceptions is in drastically altering the course of neoliberal
globalisation, let alone in functioning as a transition strategy to an
alternative society.
Alexandros Gezerlis’s
article on
the
present Latin American movements offers an excellent analysis of the
institutional framework within which these movements emerged, paying (rightly)
particular attention to the causes of the failure of the market economy in the
periphery. His critical assessment of popular movements
is especially important in assessing movements like that of the
Zapatistas which, as the author argues, far from being an antisystemic movement is
in fact what may be called ‘the
first ever postmodern guerrilla army’. Gezerlis’s analysis is also useful in
clearly linking the issue of the radical movements in today’s era with the
discussion over the transition strategy and, in this sense, continuing the
debate on antisystemic movements which D&N started in the last issue. In
this context, the author stresses that the present decline of antisystemic
movements, in an area in which such movements were flourishing just a few
decades ago, represents in fact the decline of the old type of antisystemic
movement and the urgent need to build a new type of antisystemic movement that
would lead the Latin American peoples (who suffer the consequences of neoliberal
globalisation even more than those in the North, as the recent riots in
Argentina showed), out of the present multidimensional crisis.
Guido Galafassi’s
paper
in a sense complements Gezerlis’s analysis as it clearly shows
that the ecological implications of Latin American ‘development’ are equally
dire as the well known social and economic implications. As one could expect,
Latin American ‘development’ is not only a bad copy of economic development
at the centre but, also, an even worse copy of ecological development,
as the author shows in his well researched article. Similarly, neoliberal
globalisation brought about not only a general deterioration in socio-economic
conditions but also in environmental conditions. But, given the importance of
socio-economic conditions for survival
itself, it is not surprising that radical social movements in Latin America are
much more concerned with the abysmal socio-economic conditions which affect most
of the population rather than with the ecological conditions, which though
important, mainly concern the middle classes at the moment. However, the fact
that the author does not make it clear whether or not ‘a social and ecological
integrated and democratic development’ is feasible
within the existing framework of the market economy and representative
‘democracy’ leaves one unclear on the crucial issue whether what is wrong
with Latin American development is the ‘wrong’ kind of policies and models
adopted by the elites, as the reformist Left suggests, or whether instead it is
the dynamics of the market economy itself which has inevitably led to the
present situation .
A dominant element of the
transition debate is the importance of values versus structures, i.e. whether
institutions have to change first, for values and ideologies to follow, or
whether instead values have to change first to be followed ultimately by a
change in structures. The former is
adopted by Marxists whereas the latter is supported explicitly by
eco-libertarians like Ted Trainer and, implicitly, by theoreticians strongly
influenced by the Hegelian tradition and systems theory like Arran Gare,
who offers a powerful illustration of this view. For Gare, economics is
so fundamentally flawed and so completely dominates the culture of late modern
capitalism (or post modernity) that a new master human science is required to
displace it, both as a means to interpret reality and as an alternative basis
for formulating public policy. The alternative science he proposes is human
ecology, ‘a social science that would totally reorient public policy from a
domain for power elites to a domain for genuinely democratic societies to define
and control their destinies’. However, the implication of Gare’s analysis is that economics
with its mechanistic world-view of human society came first and the market
economy followed -- something that does not correspond to historical reality. In
fact, it was the development of modern society, which was characterised by the
emergence of the market economy and its political complement
- representative ‘democracy’ -
that gave rise to liberal (neoclassical) economics, as an ideology to
justify the new economic system and not vice versa. It is well known, for
instance, that when Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, the market
economy was already a living reality. Similarly today it was the globalisation
of the market economy and the corresponding business requirements to open and
liberalise markets that led to the emergence of neoliberal economics (Chicago
school etc) as an ideological justification of neoliberal globalisation and not
the other way round. This means that the dominant social paradigm would
inevitably reflect the prevailing socio-economic system, although not in the
strict Marxist sense of economic base/superstructure but in a much more
roundabout and complicated way. One, may therefore argue that human ecology
could become the hegemonic social paradigm only in parallel with a change in
structures and then, following a change in the institutional framework, it could
become the dominant social paradigm.
The second part of this issue hosts a rich dialogue
section which involves also some further discussion on the topics that were
raised in the first part. Thus, Ted Trainer defends his view that ‘only
the Simpler Way centred on
more materially simple, co-operative and self-sufficient ways within a
zero-growth economy can solve the major global problems’ and that
the implicit strategy of the Global Alternative Society ‘Movement’
constitutes the best way available to us now to start building a mass movement
for the transition to an alternative society. On the other hand, Thomas
Martin returns to his defence of the irrational trends within the anarchist
movement in general and myth in particular. Finally, Carlo Corsi takes up
some of the editorial criticisms raised against systems theory.
Takis Fotopoulos,
Editor