Inclusive Democracy

Inclusive Democracy = Political Theory developed by Takis Fotopoulos and associates

Inclusive Democracy is a movement "for direct political democracy, economic democracy (beyond the confines of the market economy and state planning), as well as democracy in the social realm and ecological democracy. In short, Inclusive Democracy is a form of social organisation which re-integrates society with economy, polity and nature.

The concept of Inclusive Democracy is derived from a synthesis of two major historical traditions: the classical democratic and the socialist. It also encompasses radical green, feminist, indigenous and liberation movements in the South.

From the Inclusive Democracy perspective the world is in a multidimensional crisis, caused by the concentration of power in the hands of various elites, as a result of the establishment of the system of market/growth economy, representative democracy and the related forms of hierarchical structures. Inclusive Democracy is therefore not seen as a utopia but as probably the only way out of the present crisis." (http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/index.html)

Michel Bauwens on Inclusive Democracy and P2P

During the last few days, I have been thinking about a neo-libertarian movement called Inclusive Democracy, and its call for a marketless and stateless society, and its rejection of anything that falls short of that elusive goal.

It has been a useful exercise to think about how the "peer to peer approach" is different:

- P2P theory does not seek in perfect state of society, but rejoices in any movement that marks a change for the better. That 'better' being defined as more free, autonomous, free and equal social processes that enhance our changes for survival and a meaningful life

- P2P does not seek a universal abstract utopia (marketless, stateless), but a differentiated social order based on 'complex equality', and a rich mix of 'concrete utopias', i.e. changes proposed in many areas of ameliorating a current process of production or governance. Thus, it acknowledges four types of intersubjectivty not just one communal form. Though, I personally abhor the current economic order, and think it is a major structural cause for the multidimensional crises that we are going through, I am not opposed on social practices that attempt to make the current economic system better (natural capitalism adepts for example), or even the Millenium Goals, even though 'by themselves' they may be insufficient.

- P2P theory does not start from any vision of 'how things should be', but start from currently 'emerging' autonomous processes, i.e. how today's humanity, with its current form of desire for autonomy and cooperation, invents new social processes that are more in harmony with it. There is no blueprint for a better tomorrow, but a spontaneous unfolding of human creativity, and an attempt to create supportive social institutions and processes.

- P2P theory aims to be integrative, i.e. to honour initiatives throughout the social fields, taking place within the four intersubjective typologies. It does not see why free software should be opposed to the basic income, or why the basic income should be opposed to the movement for complementary currencies. All have their place, and P2P aims to uncover the common ground between them, to network the various initiatives into a more coherent global movement.

- That does not mean that P2P theory wants to be wishy washy and has no "enemies", the enemy however, is not a person or a group of persons, it is that part in all of us which opposes free and autonomous cooperation, that is afraid of it, or wants to preserve its own personal power against it (from P2P News 92)

More elaborate explanation by Takis Fotopoulos:

"What is inclusive democracy? I think it is important to stress that the inclusive democracy project is not just an economic model, but it is a broader political project, which aims to remake society at all levels, at the political level, the economic level, the social level, and, of course, in the ecological sphere. The overall aim of the inclusive democracy project is to create a society in which people determine themselves, in which, in other words, the "demos", as it was the classical concept for the people, has overall control over the political sphere, the economic sphere and, the social sphere in general. So the inclusive democracy project, in a sense, is a synthesis of the two major historical traditions, the socialist tradition and the democratic tradition, and also of the currents that developed in the last 30 or 40 years, the new social movements, i.e. the feminist movement, the ecological movement, the identity movements of various sorts, and so on. In other words, the inclusive democracy project is a synthesis of all those historical experiences, of the socialist and also the democratic tradition and all those new social movements. In this sense, we can say that the inclusive democracy project is neither a theoretical construct, as it is the product of all those historical experiences, nor is it a utopia - and it is not a utopia because there are already trends all around us leading to a society which in various aspects resembles the inclusive democracy society. Thus, there are all over experiments going on with alternative institutions and whenever there is an insurrection, like for example the recent Argentinean one, we have seen people organizing themselves in general assemblies and trying to organize political and economic life according to principles which, like the principles that I'm going to explain in a moment, are the principles of the inclusive democracy project.

The four components of the inclusive democracy society are: first, political or direct democracy; second, economic democracy; third, democracy at the social level; and fourth, ecological democracy. So let's see briefly what we mean by each of those components. Political or direct democracy means the authority of "demos", of the people, over the political sphere. In other words, political democracy implies that it is the people collectively that take decisions about all political affairs, and directly, without representatives, because what we call representative democracy today is a fake democracy, since there can be no representation of my will, of anybody's will; that is, you can either express your will directly, or you can simply delegate certain kinds of wishes you have, but you cannot have somebody else decide for you. So political or direct democracy is the type of society where people directly and collectively decide for themselves on all important aspects of political life. That means that in a direct democracy every resident in a particular area takes part in the democratic process. We shall assume that usually this will not be a community of more than thirty to fifty thousand people.

In the same way that we define political democracy as the authority of demos over the political sphere, we can define economic democracy as the authority of demos over the economic sphere. This means that it is the citizen body, that is, all people at mature age - which is decided by the assemblies - all people at a certain age who decide, i.e. take decisions on all major economic problems, particularly those affecting the meeting of basic needs. In an inclusive democracy there should be no private ownership of productive resources, of the means of production, but instead the productive resources should be owned by the demos, i.e. there should be demotic ownership of the means of production.

The third component of inclusive democracy is democracy at the social level; that means at the microlevel, at the level of the workplace, the household, the educational place, and so on. In all those places, there should be democracy in the sense that there should be equal distribution of power. There should be no distinction between workers working in a workplace, there should be, in other words, equal distribution of power between men and women, between teachers and students or pupils, and so on. And, finally, we have the fourth component of inclusive democracy, the ecological democracy component, which means that the inclusive democracy aims to create the subjective and objective conditions so that man is reintegrated into nature, society is reintegrated into nature. This is important because what we have today is a situation where society is separate from nature. We see nature as an instrument to achieve certain objectives - the main objective is economic growth, of course - and, as a result, we suffer the crisis that we have at the moment, a serious ecological crisis."

More on Inclusive Democracy here at http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/fotopoulos/

Encyclopedia entry on ID, http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/fotopoulos/brincl/inclusive_entry.htm