Towards An Inclusive Democracy

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URL = http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/fotopoulos/english/brbooks/brtid/brtid.htm


Discussion

by Gavin Mendel-Gleason [1] :

"Inclusive democracy is a proposal which is essentially anarchist in character. The original premise is that neither the state, nor the economy is democratic, and that the major issue at stake is the democratisation of politics, which Fotopoulos views as anti (or at least non) statist. He includes a critique of state socialism as similar in ways to capitalism as being based on a growth paradigm. This anti-growth angle is very popular with certain sections of the ecological movement which views volume of production as a fundamentally negative feature of our economic system.

The proposal involves a rather extensive reconstruction of society, making the polity more democratic, and fusing the economic with the political.

There are a number of rather odd features in the proposal, including the designation of basic versus non-basic employment and consumption. This divide carries over into remuneration as well, giving the two areas an odd duality that includes different currencies and which seems fairly artificial. The question is immediately posed, how many of the blue tokens for the red?

I’m not particularly happy myself with the anti-growth angle. I think we need massive development in the global south, big increases in power consumption and mechanisation of agriculture to further the spread of the green revolution. Those who are more keen on this approach are likely to find the proposal more appealing."