Micol Lucchi — This is how Switzerland’s direct democracy works

Swiss democracy by referendum is quite different from so-called liberal democracies that are democratic republics. Here is a short summary of how it works.

World Economic Forum
This is how Switzerland’s direct democracy works

Micol Lucchi | Swiss Public Affairs Specialist, World Economic Forum

Scott Adams Blog — What is Better Than a Republic?

Digital voting scheme.

Scott Adams Blog
What is Better Than a Republic?
Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert

Robin Hahnel and Erik Olin Wright — Alternatives To Capitalism: Proposals For A Democratic Economy

New Left Project’s new e-book, Alternatives to Capitalism: Proposals for a Democratic Economy, is now available for download. 

In it the leading radical thinkers Robin Hahnel and Erik Olin Wright take on the crucial but all-too neglected question: what kind of society should we be fighting for instead of capitalism?

Hahnel favours ‘participatory economics’. Wright advocates ‘real utopian socialism’. 

Alternatives to Capitalism puts these practical proposals through their paces in an in-depth, frank and extremely instructive debate about the central question of our time.

• Download the book for kindle, free.

• Buy the book on Amazon.

More at the link.

"Poverty, exploitation, instability, hierarchy, subordination, environmental exhaustion, radical inequalities of wealth and power — it is not difficult to list capitalism's myriad injustices. But is there a preferable and workable alternative? What would a viable free and democratic free society look like? Alternatives to Capitalism: Proposals for a Democratic Economy presents a debate between two such possibilities: Robin Hahnel's "participatory economics" and Erik Olin Wright's "real utopian " socialism. It is a detailed and at times technical discussion that rewards careful engagement. Those who put the effort in will, we hope, find that it illuminates a range of issues and dilemmas of crucial importance to any serious effort to build a better world...." — Ed Lewis, Introduction

New Left Project

Alternatives To Capitalism: Proposals For A Democratic Economy

Robin Hahnel, Professor of Economics (Emeritus), American University, and Erik Olin Wright, Vilas Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin

Hendrik Wagenaar — Is democracy in crisis? No, there’s just a new type of emerging democracy

The question if there is a crisis of democracy is one of the most important and vexing issues of our days. So, let’s not rush into facile answers and first ask ourselves some basic questions about democracy. For example, what does this ideal that most people still believe in entail? The democratic theorist Mark Warren once said that democracy consists of two ideals whose realisation are both necessary for a healthy, flourishing political system: the distribution of powers of decision-making to those potentially affected by collective decisions, and equal participation in collective judgement. The first ideal is the one that figures most prominently in debates about democracy in the media and learned journals. This is, what you might call, the canonical image of democracy. The political contrivances that the media get excited about. This first ideal consists of the procedures, beliefs and practices that most Western nations have institutionalised over the course of the last two centuries, for the purpose of protecting against an arbitrary state and to develop structures of accountability. The result is the well-known ‘liberal electoral democracy’ that is characterised by a regime of competitive parties, limited opportunities for political participation through voting and organised interest groups, representative oversight and accountability, constitutional constraints on government activity, due process rights against the state, the right to speak and associate, and an administration of experts governed by an administrative ethos. It is one of the most important achievements of collective human ingenuity. When we talk of crisis, this is the kind if democracy that occupies our collective imagination. Let’s call it Democracy1. 

I want to focus on the second democratic ideal; that of collective judgement and individual development. I call it Democracy2. According to this ideal democracy is an arrangement for collective learning and problem solving. It is value-driven, but only in the way that values manifest themselves in concrete issues. It requires processes of communication through which individuals come to know each other and develop their preferences, articulate their values and beliefs, and develop skills of collective judgement; usually by forming civic associations based on voluntary attachments. When we see democracy in this light, two things immediately strike us: while it receives much less attention in the media, and is often actively discouraged by political elites, there is no talk of crisis. In fact, this developmental and participatory form of democracy is thriving in our post-crash world.… 

Some good news. I would call what he calls Democracy 1, representational democracy, as in the reputed slogan of the pre-revolutionary Boston Tea Party, "No taxation without representation." I would call what he calls Democracy 2, participatory democracy, as in the phrase Abraham Lincoln made famous, "government of the people, by the people and for the people." If participatory democracy is growing, that is a very good thing.

Open Democracy
Is democracy in crisis? No, there’s just a new type of emerging democracy
Hendrik Wagenaar

Noam Chomsky — The System We Have Now Is Radically Anti-Democratic

Well, I think we can draw many very good lessons from the early period of the Industrial Revolution. It was, of course, earlier in England, but let's take here in the United States. The Industrial Revolution took off right around here, eastern Massachusetts, mid 19th century. This was a period when independent farmers were being driven into the industrial system--men and women, incidentally, women from the farms, so-called factory girls--and they bitterly resented it. It was a period of a very free press, the most in the history of the country. There was a wide variety of journals, ethnic, labor, or others. And when you read them, they're pretty fascinating.

The people driven into the industrial system regarded it as an attack on their personal dignity, on their rights as human beings. They were free human beings who were being forced into what they called wage slavery, which they regarded as not very different from chattel slavery. In fact, this was such a popular view that it was actually a slogan of the Republican Party, that the only difference between working for a wage and being a slave is that working for a wage is supposedly temporary--pretty soon you'll be free. Other than that, they're not different.

And they bitterly resented the fact that the industrial system was even taking away their rich cultural life. And the cultural life was rich. You know, there are by now studies of the British working class and the American working class, and they were part of high culture of the day. Actually, I remembered this as late as the 1930s with my own family, you know, sort of unemployed working-class, and they said, this is being taken away from us, we're being forced to be something like slaves. They argued that if you're, say, a journeyman, a craftsman, and you sell your product, you're selling what you produced. If you're a wage earner, you're selling yourself, which is deeply offensive. They condemned what they called the new spirit of the age: gain wealth, forgetting all but self. Sounds familiar.

And it was extremely radical. It was combined with the most radical democratic movement in American history, the early populist movement--radical farmers. It began in Texas, spread into the Midwest--enormous movement of farmers who wanted to free themselves from the domination by the Northeastern bankers and capitalists, guys that ran the markets, you know, sort of forced them to sell what they produced on credit and squeeze them with credit and so on. They went on to develop their own banks, their own cooperatives. They started to link up with the Knights of Labor--major labor movement which held that, as they put it, those who work in the mills ought to own them, that it should be a free, democratic society.

These were very powerful movements. By the 1890s, you know, workers were taking over towns and running them in Western Pennsylvania. Homestead was a famous case. Well, they were crushed by force. It took some time. Sort of the final blow was Woodrow Wilson's red scare right after the First World War, which virtually crushed the labor movement.

At the same time, in the early 19th century, the business world recognized, both in England and the United States, that sufficient freedom had been won so that they could no longer control people just by violence. They had to turn to new means of control. The obvious ones were control of opinions and attitudes. That's the origins of the massive public relations industry, which is explicitly dedicated to controlling minds and attitudes.

AlterNet
Chomsky: The System We Have Now Is Radically Anti-Democratic

Chris Hedges interviews Noam Chomsky

Christian Science Monitor — Election 2012: Ballot initiatives reflect nation’s mood

Proponents call it "direct democracy," opponents call it "vigilante democracy" – and political scientists call it a vibrant part of American democracy.

On Nov. 6, voters in 37 states will decide 174 ballot propositions – the most since 2006, but well below the highs of the late 1990s and early 2000s, when voters were routinely considering more than 200 initiatives on Election Day.

The slate of 2012 initiatives points to several trends across American politics.

The Raw Story
Election 2012: Ballot initiatives reflect nation’s mood
The Christian Science Monitor

Jessica Reeder — 7 Ways To Reinvent Your City, Burning Man Style

Every August for one week, the Burning Man festival takes place in a temporary city of its own creation, called Black Rock City after Nevada’s Black Rock Desert where it is located. This year, Black Rock City’s population will be 60,000 — bigger than Carson City, the state capital of Nevada.

Our real-world cities, meanwhile, are struggling to provide the services citizens need, limited by declining tax income, record debt, and increasingly complex social issues. Cities have no choice but find ways to do more with less. Many seek to harness the creative energies of citizens to fill the gaps, asking them to take a more active role in governance, service provision, and even in creating new services.

It’s easy to write off Burning Man as a hippie love fest in the desert. It has its own problems like any city, but that's selling it short, especially in one regard - its remarkable ability to foster participation. The event -- which for 26 years has expected participants to practice sharing, gifting, and radical self-reliance -- is an effective proving ground for experiments in community self-organization. In fact, participants build most of the city without any direct oversight from organizers.

Given that cities need its citizens more than ever, can the lessons of Burning Man’s Black Rock City, which pushes citizen participation to the limit, be applied to modern cities? Of course they can. Here are a few ways you can support participation, sharing and community in your own town.

Shareable
7 Ways To Reinvent Your City, Burning Man Style
Jessica Reeder

Deena Stryker — Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not

Refusing to bow to foreign interests, that small country stated loud and clear that the people are sovereign.

That’s why it is not in the news anymore.

Read it at Truthout

Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not
Saturday, 26 November 2011 06:08
By Deena Stryker, The South Africa Civil Society Information Service | News Analysis

(h/t Gillian Swanson via Ralph Musgrave)

One story of the crisis that has a happy ending — and carries an encouraging lesson about standing up to power.

Anarchism explained

Anarchism conjures up all sort of stereotypes. Nathan Schneider sets the record straight.

At its core, anarchism isn’t simply a negative political philosophy, or an excuse for window-breaking, as most people tend to assume it is. Even while calling for an end to the rule of coercive states backed by military bases, prison industries and subjugation, anarchists and other autonomists try to build a culture in which people can take care of themselves and each other through healthy, sustainable communities. Many are resolutely nonviolent. Drawing on modes of organizing as radical as they are ancient, they insist on using forms of participatory direct democracy that naturally resist corruption by money, status and privilege. Everyone’s basic needs should take precedence over anyone’s greed. 

Through the Occupy movement, these assemblies have helped open tremendous space in American political discourse. They’ve started new conversations about what people really want for their communities, conversations that amazingly still haven’t been hijacked, as they might otherwise might be, by charismatic celebrities or special interests.

Read it at The Nation

Thank You Anarchists
by Nathan Schneider

Participatory democracy in NYC?

What if you could weigh in on how your city’s money is spent? In some districts of New York City, you can.

For the first time in history, some New York City residents have been given the opportunity to be directly involved in allocating the city’s budget—more than $6 million of it. Council members in four districts are trying out participatory budgeting, a grassroots democratic system that allows anyone to present proposals for improvements in their communities. The process fosters transparency, equality, and inclusion, words not always associated with municipal governments. 

Read the rest at Yes! Magazine
NYC Gives Citizens a Say in the Budget
by Kate Malongowski
(h/t AlterNet)