Simon Fitzgerald 10 December 2002
Democratizing America: Participatory Economics and Direct Democracy
The United States of America is often considered the pinnacle of democracy in the world, which all other nations should strive to copy as much as possible. The liberal democratic and economic theories which are the ideological driving force of American politics, economy and society, have thus been accepted as models of a superior democratic system. However, from slavery and freehold suffrage to oppressive anti-labor practices and money controlled elections, American society has not been a very democratic state. Flaws in the structures, processes, and execution of the American system still prevent the nation from functioning democratically. In short, a more democratic system is definitely possible.
A true democracy would give each member of society input into decisions proportionate to how much he or she is affected by the decision. In order to achieve such a democratic society, political and economic institutions would have to change dramatically. In the economic sphere, decisions of productions have to be made by those who are most affected by those decisions, workers and consumers. Education and cultural values would have to change to empower individuals to fight against oppression and contribute to decision making. Lastly, neighborhoods and other non-economic units would have to be able to make decisions that affect the neighborhood or group and be empowered to act upon these decisions.
Economic Democracy
American society has democratic institutions meant to guide the political administration of society, as limited in reach as they may be. However, the economy is strictly undemocratic. Decisions about production, wages, organization, overtime, and working conditions are made by managers and owners with little input from those most affected by these decisions, the workers and consumers. Any input that is structurally allowed by workers or consumers is usually ineffectual or limited in scope and any effective input is usually coercive, antagonistic and illegal. Workers and consumers can only achieve input by organizing outside the system or lobbying in the political arena against wealthy producers that have more financial influence and own more media to disseminate information. It is largely because a massive crisis threatened the very existence of capitalism during the Great Depression in the 1930s that workers' organizations have been recognized and given collective bargaining rights in the decision making process. This is not democracy.
While a market economy does not imply democratic control, centralizing control in capitalists and administrators, neither does the centrally planned economy of state socialism. Marx believed that by seizing the means of production and centralizing control in a state ruled by workers, society would become more democratic. In practice this alienates the workers even more from decision making in the quotas sent from the capital (Marx). Indeed, the only democratic economy that I am aware of is known as participatory economics which is based on the concepts of "equity, solidarity, diversity and participatory self-management," (?Par Econ).
For the truly democratic workspace that is a main tenet in participatory economics, there must be worker control. Those who toil in the factory must not only be heard by administrators, but all workers must take part in the administration of the factory. Democracy needs no managerial class. Most likely, the factory would be administered by "workers' council" consisting of or elected by all of the workers at said factory. Albert, in "Moving Forward", details how this institution would have the job of allowing workers to control their daily lives at work and foster democratic values. A well-run council would give "each actor ... easy acess to relevant assessments of anticipated consequences,... general knowledge and intellectual confidence to understand the assessments and develop preferences in light of them... {and} the personal confidences... sufficiently empowered {to} feel comfortable arriving at, expressing, arguing on behalf of, and voting for their preferences," (Albert 49-50). Only where all who use a productive workspace contribute to decisions that govern that space is there economic democracy.
Of course, manufacturing is not the only economic sphere that needs democratization. Agricultural workers would likewise have to take control of the fields and administer them democratically. In the Levant area of Spain during the civil war, farming cooperatives formed a collective for all those that worked on adjacent parcels of land. They divided into separate administrative commissions for each crop that organized purchasing, labor, and schedules. Regional groupings of collectives formed federations that helped coordinate purchasing of equipment, process the raw agricultural products, and ship them to their destinations. These groups were organized without middle men and, besides industrial workers who processed the agricultural products they were organized and run almost entirely by the historically oppressed rural peasants (Leval 122-125). This is not be the only way to organize, but it demonstrates how agricultural laborers, free from their masters, can run the agricultural production democratically and effectively.
In both the issues of industrial and agricultural production, there are other people affected, deserving decision making ability, that I have not mentioned, the consumers. Those that consume the product of a factory are also affected by the product design, production run, and price as well as consumers are affected by decisions about how much of what type of crop to plant. Under an entirely democratic system, they too should have some input into such decisions.
Albert suggests "consumer councils" that would work very much like workers councils. Such councils, which could speak for store cooperatives like the Maryland Food Co-op or buyers' clubs run collectively, would inform their members about potential decisions and consequences and honestly transmit that cooperatives concerns and preferences to the workers' council (Albert 51-56). The consumer councils and workers' councils would then come to decisions about production and distribution together by whatever process the two could agree upon. This may seem like the creation of an antagonistic relationship, like that between labor and management, but theorists from Bakunin to Albert to Bookchin argue that such a society would not be based on issues such as profit that could make contention.
Indeed it is the solidarity of these two groups that the success of economic planning is dependent upon. The worker and consumer collectives would have to coordinate decisions of production and consumption by offering proposals, basically wish lists, of how much product is desired or offered respectively. From this position, the two sides would negotiate to bring their proposals together in agreement, with representatives of each cooperative or collective revising proposals in coordination with the other cooperatives and collectives. Though this may be difficult, especially at first, if the basis of this process is solidarity and mutual aid, and the process gives each actor influence proportionate to how the decision will affect him/her, than the groups should be able to come to an amicable conclusion.
Albert offers an "Iteration Facilitation Board" that would help this process along. In this plan, the board would collect information about previous production and consumption and offer "indicative prices" that would act as a guide for the negotiators over how much of each product they can expect to be produced in a final plan and of how much effort and sacrifice each group has invested (89-90). In addition, Albert suggests that "solidarity would be enhanced by participatory planning" because of how everyone's "interests are intertwined" and that "daily economic decisions occur in light of one another's situations," (91).
The larger the region over which trade would take place, the more difficult the planning would be. Nevertheless, if minimum local consumption were decided first, than decisions about the allocation of local goods in farther towns would not impact the health of the local community. Also, if distress messages about the health of a region, city, neighborhood or factory were taken in earnest by the federations and collectives, then perhaps aid would arrive faster than if it had been coordinated by state bureaucracies.
This may sound complicated, but it functioned surprisingly well in the region where such an economy was best tested, anarchist Spain (especially Catalonia) during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. Despite being at war, which meant loss of a significant percentage of the young male workers to the battlefield, the necessity for massive exports of food and equipment to the front, and severe war-time shortages; many industries actually grew under the direction of worker collectives. Souchy describes how workers "rebuil?t the metal industry from scratch." The large automobile factory was converted to make "armored cars, hand grenades, machine gun carriages, ambulances, etc." He also adds that very few new machines were imported (perhaps because of war-related difficulties) so most of the new machinery for the production of arms and munitions were constructed by the workers of the same factory (96).
Likewise, "there was no optical industry in Spain before" the seizure of power by the anarcho-anti-fascists. After this time, workers collectivized small workshops and even built a new factory from voluntary donations of the workers (Collectivisations 98). After the collectivization of the health professions, "six hospitals were opened in Barcelona ?and eight new sanitariums were installed" and health services were readily made available to many rural areas that had previously been without organized professional medicine (Leval 99-100). In addition, rural collectives were some of the best producers in Spain, invested in irrigation and infrastructure, took in refugees, organized new schools, and sent massive emergency food aid to refugees and soldiers on short notice (Leval 122-125) (Peirats 126-128). Although the collectives and federations were prone to some mistakes such as committees or councils with overlapping functions, worker control coordinated with consumer councils can make and have made efficient democratic societies.
These examples illustrate another necessary factor, that democratic institutions be created and shaped by the people directly affected by them in a decentralized fashion from the bottom up. To imagine that a democratic society could be effected by removing the top layer of an undemocratic society and replacing them with workers is perhaps the main ideological flaw of Marxism. But there is no one democratic society or single democratic process. Murray Bookchin argues that the massive rural and urban collectivization grew from two "social classes who lived in conflicting cultures.... Spain required a well-organized libertarian movement...." meaning a decentralized movement based on solidarity and mutual aid. Only in this way, "where a conflict existed, could the two be melded in the same movement without violating the... tenets of decentralization, mutual-aid, and self-administration," (Bookchin xix-xviii).
Furthermore, workers' organizations cannot plan to come into existence one day and seize the means of production on the next day. The process will almost certainly be a slow one of organizing, building solidarity, educating its members, lobbying and agitating for higher wages or better working conditions, fighting for recognition and ensuring its own survival. In some circumstances, it will be desirable, logical, obvious, necessary or possible for workers to take over their factories. Spain in the mid- thirties was one such situation, but there have been more.
In the past year this type of situation has arisen in Argentina. After the economic collapse due largely to policy changes advocated by neo-liberal capitalist institutions, many of the factories were foreign owned and unprofitable. These factories found their domestic markets unappealing with the severely devalued peso, and many opted to shut down and liquidate their assets. Many workers, with jobs scarce and much of their savings gone, found this unacceptable. Instead of capitulating they have seized the factories, refusing to allow the equipment to be taken.
At first many simply demanded back wages, but over time a great number have taken control of the factory, democratized the operations of the factory, resumed production, and sometimes, with the help of the local government or solidarity movements, have attained legal ownership of the factories (Garrigues). Some collectives, by cutting out owners and management, have been able to pay off the factory's debt, increase everyone's wage and improve the working conditions and sense of community (Lindsay). Jose Abelli of the Confederación Latino Americana de Cooperativas y Mutuales de Trabajadores describes a "dizzying increase" in the number of cooperatives being formed in Argentina of about ten new collectivized factories every month. Though those collectives that seize a factory face police violence and eviction (Asamblea Florista), they have been able to maintain control because of tremendous solidarity and direct action by neighborhood activists, because of sympathy of local authorities and because of economic necessity. This scale of massive business seizures would not be possible in the United States in the foreseeable future, but what if a cultural icon like the Hershey candy factory tried to shut down? If the workers rose up to seize the factory and institute a democratic worker collective, where would the nation's sympathies fall? Enough people might come to their aid for them to retain control.
Implications of Participatory Economics
The implantation of a democratic economic system would cause some dramatic changes to the liberal economic system in the United States. One of the most obvious has to do with the Lockian concept of property. Liberal political theory puts great weight on property rights, the right to use productive resources you own in order to profit from them. One of Madison's great concerns when creating the framework for the American political system was that a construction that was too democratic could threaten the ability of property owners to take full advantage of their property. So he crafted a system that would be controlled by wealthy landowners. In Nedelsky's words, "Madison was prepared to risk the rights of persons and restrict the political rights of a future majority in order to protect property," (19).
A truly democratized economy would make no such imposing restrictions on human rights in order to protect property rights. Indeed, just as the Lockian vision of property was the basis of liberal democracy in America, Proudhon's argument that "property is theft" might be a basis of participatory economics (Ch. 1). Indeed, according to Souchy, the Spanish the workers' collectives "organized during the Spanish Civil War were workers' economic associations without private property," (67). Albert never advocates the abolition of private property; however, he states that a democratic economic system would not "reward property with profits," saying that the allocation of property mostly has to do with one's "luck in the parent lottery," (17). Since he is dismissing one of the key rights of owning property in liberal theory, he might as well accept the assertion of Proudhon and rid society of private property.
This difference suggests a largely ideological differentiation between liberal democracy and economic democracy; the definition of freedom. In Milton Friedman's discussion of economic freedom, he argues that the right to sell what you own, use your land how you please and purchase whatever you like with those profits are essential tenets of freedom (7-10). Economic security and workplace democracy are not concepts that Friedman associates with freedom. Albert would call economic freedom the right to participate in economic decisions that will affect your quality of life, or, said in another way, freedom from commands and authoritarian decisions that would impact your life.
Non-Economic Systems of Oppression
Another critical flaw of Marx's analysis of society was the belief that once economic oppression was overcome, than equality would prevail among all peoples. In reality, race, gender, sexual orientation, nation of origin and other factors can create undemocratic cultural atmospheres that undermine and destroy democracy in the most benign structures. Though capitalist exploitation of these differences often exacerbates oppression, the oppression is not based entirely on an exploitative economic system.
In many parts of Spain during the civil war, administration of almost the entire society was controlled by worker syndicates. This meant that these groups got to define what was work, and therefore who got to take part in production decisions. Although the workers' groups spouted rhetoric promising equality of the sexes, women complained that the men still did not respect them at home or share in domestic work, and at workers' meetings men often "laughed at women before they even got a chance to speak." Because of this women active in the CNT, the confederation of workers' councils, and the FJIL, the anarchist youth organization, set up two groups, one in Madrid and one in Barcelona, called Mujeres Libres or Free Women. They started printing a magazine and demanding equal rights in the Spanish social revolution. The patriarchy was not based entirely on economics, but also on culture; so it was in their homes that they had to fight for respect and equality (Hogan).
To ensure a real democracy oppression based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or nationality would have to be culturally rooted out. There are several ways to do this. One way is for organizations to make anti-oppression work one of their man goals, confronting sexism within their own process and taking on issues of racism or heterosexism even if they otherwise fall outside of the traditional domain of the group. Secondly, education should be based on empowering students to confront oppression and violence in society by confronting it in their own classes and homes. Without anti-oppression values and reinforcing structures there can be no real democracy anywhere (L.A. Direct Action Collective 4)(Klonsky and Larimore-Hall 21-24).
Politics Without Politicians
Productive collectives based on worker control become in themselves political units. By allowing political and theoretical concerns to influence production and allocation decisions, collectives and federations of such collectives can execute many functions that are conventionally left to political administrations. In addition non-producers can influence decisions in consumer councils, and regions could be represented by federations of consumer and workers' councils. Nevertheless, there is a need for non-production related political groups.
Though such groups could potentially be set up with a formal political-administrative structures, if it is to arise organically and maintain democratic form it would probably, at least at first, take the form of informal action collectives. The majority of these organizations would probably be neighborhood organizations, however, other groups especially worried about racial, environmental, or international issues would probably also end up forming their own groups.
Contemporary Argentina offers the best example of such groups. After the economic collapse, there was a massive popular uprising. People took the streets, stormed important government buildings yelling "Qué se vayan todos!" (Get rid of them all!). In about two weeks the people had deposed two successive presidents. With this overwhelming cynicism in the national government, people "have rejected traditional party divisions and opted for direct democracy and a 'politics without politicians.' They are sending delegates to an inter-neighborhood assembly, publishing newsletters, requesting donations from local merchants for streetcorner community kitchens and organizing demonstrations (Garrigues). Such assemblies have been crucial in the fight to seize abandoned factories and rally in support of worker-occupied factories (Asamblea).
Such assemblies could potentially legislate rules for the neighborhood, coordinate garbage pickup and other services, organize a police like force to ensure safety of its residents, demand decision input in local factories that are polluting or harming the neighborhood. In addition they might open food cooperatives, make their own consumer council and educate and empower the residents of the assembly to act in their best interests. Non-neighborhood assemblies could establish environmental monitoring, send human rights observers to international hotspots, organize investigative research, mobilize demonstrators or gather food and clothing to distribute to the needy. In any case, the power of these assemblies would not lie in legislating or enforcing laws (for the most part). They would have to take but in creatively taking advantage of whatever resources were available to educate and mobilize people so they could take part in decision making, stand up against oppression, and address previously neglected societal needs.
This is drastically different from American liberal democracy. American politics is very centered around formal institutions, paid representatives and protection of private property. A direct democracy with the organization described above would have few formal institutions other than federations of collectives. Decision making processes would not be uniform in all group, as individual groups would develop and perfect their own processes. Furthermore, these assemblies would be based on direct action and creative responses to problems, not on legislation, force or coercion as modern governmental institutions are largely based. For these assemblies to act democratically externally as well as internally, they would minimize coercion and never act violently. Violence is not compatible with democracy except in extreme cases of self-defense, and the United States has historically used violence to further its economic interests.
A global democratic society would not be easily created out of the present economic and political atmosphere. Workers have little control over industry, governments enforce property rights over human rights, and start up costs for mosts businesses are prohibitively high. Racism, patriarchy and violence are common parts of education, global politics and pop-culture. Lastly, people who don't believe in hierarchical, institutionalized political representation are alienated and cynical. It seems that the success of democratic economics have been relegated to historical anomalies or contemporary novelties.
On the other hand, one of the most powerful things about a truly democratic society is that it does not need to be implemented in the whole world at once. Indeed, by its very democratic nature such societies must start from grass-roots activism and the solidarity of a real community. Though such a society seems far off, it is indeed possible to create, but only if individuals strive to make every endeavor democratic and anti-oppression in nature. True democracy will come once people start to form collectives, democratize their work spaces, stand up in solidarity with the oppressed, work for the purpose of mutual aid with their neighbors, and educate others about current events and possible alternatives. Such a society is possible, but only if we rise up and take our liberation.
Works Cited
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http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/65829.php
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---. "The Peasant Federation of Levant." Dolgoff 122-125.
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---. "The First Congress." Dolgoff 126-128.
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---. "Collectivization of the Metal and Munitions Industry." Dolgoff 96-98.