* Special Issue: Alterdémocratie, alteréconomie. Edited by Alain Caillé and with Immanuel Wallerstein, David Graeber et al . Revue du MAUSS n° 26

URL = https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25700786-revue-du-mauss-n-26---alterd-mocratie-alter-conomie pdf

Abstract

In French:

"Le précédent numéro de La Revue du MAUSS dressait le constat de l’existence d’un malaise, à tout le moins, dans la démocratie. Le doute sur ses potentialités et sur sa réalité s’étend chaque jour un peu plus. Mais jusqu’où convient-il de désespérer ? La seule chose sûre est que, dans leur état actuel, les mécanismes de la démocratie représentative ne peuvent plus se suffire à eux-mêmes et qu’il faut revigorer l’esprit même de la démocratie. Ce sont les modalités, les potentialités et les limites de ces alternatives à la démocratie représentative - démocratie participative, associationniste ou directe, forums plus ou moins hybrides, organisations ou coopérations en réseau, etc. -, bref, de tout ce qui relève de l’alterdémocratie, que le présent numéro se propose d’examiner et d’évaluer, avec une réouverture symétrique du débat sur l’alteréconomie. Face à la menace, qui se précise, d’une crise économique et environnementale de très grande ampleur, les perspectives d’une « décroissance conviviale » et d’une redéfinition de la richesse sont-elles crédibles ? Et quels rapports entretiennent-elles avec l’idéal démocratique ? Tout ici est en chantier, les chantiers de l’espérance. Pour éviter les désillusions, il reste, sans doute, à mieux faire apparaître le dénominateur commun à ce qui se cherche ici et là. Peut-il s’agir d’autre chose, en définitive, que de bâtir une social-démocratie planétaire, radicalisée et universalisée, capable d’intégrer dans son programme la fragilité de la nature, la diversité des cultures et des systèmes politiques, comme les limites à la fois de la démocratie représentative et de la richesse marchande ?"

(http://www.socioeco.org/bdf_fiche-publication-445_en.html)

Estelle Granet, an expert from Porto Alegre working with the participatory budget, says the experience was successful because it was based on the participation of prior social movements. But, institutionalization can lead to fragmentation, and a loss of autonomy. She estimated that about 10% of Latin-American cities were about to follow this example. Co-management has replaced the autonomous popular organizations.

In a second article on France, shows the extremely small social basis of the local experiences, touching at most from 2 to 4% of the population.

Four key questions arise from this:

1) how representative is such a self-selected minority ?

2) how to take into account the diversity of the population, f.e. those excluded from citizenship, and the intermediary associations. Who should sit in the organizational bodies?

3) how can the legitimacy of the representatives deal with the demands for partnership ?

4) What is the effect on the workings of the city administration ?

There are also a number of hybrid forms, where forms of learning are associated with decision-making such as the citizen panels. They are strongly linked to acrisis of complexity and predictability, and hence, there are methods to enrich risk evaluation, by opening the decision-making beyond the experts.

Discussion

Based on the reading notes by Michel Bauwens, 2006:

Presentation by Alain Caillé

The last issue of Revue du Mauss described a crisis of democracy, linked to the development of a 'consumerist' (" I want my rights"), rather than a participative, attitude. Pessimists see it as decline only, while optimists point to the emergence of a new participatory practice, but both sides see the problems with representative machinery. New forms are needed and this is the substance of this new issue dedicated to "alterdemocracy",but which is inevitable linked to a debate on new forms of 'altereconomics'.

- “Au bout du compte, le problème est toujours le même. L’esprit de la démocratie ne peut naître que dans les interstices et par l’enthousiasme. Mais il ne peut l’emporter et perdurer qu’en mettant en place des structures reproductibles. (p. 15)

Caillé insists that there is no horizontality without verticality, that if you limit too much the 'power over', you may end in powerlessness.

Concerning Participatory Democracy, Caillé insists that there are 2 sub-aims:

   - that of integration, i.e. aiming at involving greater numbers
   - that of deliberation, aiming to extend it beyond representatives.

Participative democracy 'transcends and includes' representative democracy.

It confers a new legitimacy:

   - “Toute décision semble devoir aujourd’hui avoir fait l’objet d’une consultation préalable".

An important issue will be if there can be “an excess of democracy”, that can destroy any form of efficacy. The example of the French Green Party is given. The ‘reality’ of some practices, such as the participative budgets, will also be scrutinized.

But what will happen to democracy if its economic basis collapses ? Is 'democratic degrowth' as advocated by Serge Latouche, at all possible ? (He has a seven-point program).

A priority to make such thinking of any realistic use, is to establish a consensus on what goods will be legitimate or not.

Caille concludes with a number of warnings:

- Horizontality alone will not do: we must also institutionalize, if we want the new practices to perdure

- No messianism, but persistent change of what exists.

He distinguishes 3 axes of change:

- 1) extension of democracy towards nature and the environment

- 2) extension towards a global scale, which also includes the de-territorialized

- 3) augment redistributional policies into the policies of recognition

Box: The Seven-Point Democratic Degrowth Program of Serge Latouche

- 1) we need to return to the 1960/70 level of material production, in order to be compatible with the footprint of one planet

- 2) internalizing transport costs

- 3) re-localize activities

- 4) promotion of the production of relational goods

- 5) reduce energy usage by a factor of 4, the so-called Negawatt Scenario

- 6) penalize advertizing

- 7) adapt new agricultural progress on the lines of the proposals of the Confederation Paysanne

Mauss Review 26 on Alternative Democracy and Alternative Economy

Contents

Abstract

Contents

Material from an ATTAC conference on Democracy in 2004

Discussion

Presentation by Alain Caillé

Box: The Seven-Point Democratic Degrowth Program of Serge Latouche

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