Integrating Libertarian Municipalism and Social Democracy
Social democracy, also known as evolutionary socialism or fabian socialism, is a variety of socialism that holds that representative democracy and universal suffrage will be the surest means of bringing about socialism.
The social democrats observed the natural tendency of monopolies to form under capitalism. They also observed that municipalities tend to take over these monopolies in order to prevent the high cost and lousy services associated with monopolies. They noticed that municipalities tended to take over electric companies, gas companies, and postal services from private sector monopolies. The social democrat encouraged this tendency and hoped to see more of it.
Instead of violent revolution, theorists of social democracy believed that people can take over the government through democratic means. This is a clear departure from orthodox Marxism. Under capitalism, the workers are a decided majority. If everyone is granted the right to vote, then power should automatically shift into the hands of the workers. Once there is full democracy at the level of the municipality, the workers can vote to make municipally-run industries more socialistic. They can pressure their representatives to turn municipally-run companies into co-operatives and have each citizen of the municipality receive a share of the profits as a dividend.
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Annie Besant suggested that land should be communally-owned at the level of the municipality. The use of land is mankind's natural birthright, so the person who wishes to have an exclusive right to land should have to pay something in compensation to the community of individuals that he excludes from this birthright. People should be charged rent for the private use of land, and the revenue from that rent could be used to fund the municipal government and the excess could be given out to the citizens as a dividend. (For more on this idea of communal rent or land value tax, check out Progress and Poverty by Henry George.) The nation could then have a central executive committee to help collect the excess from the municipalities and distribute it out evenly to the citizens of the entire nation as a dividend, thereby avoiding the emergence of regional disparities of wealth.
More and more industries would be run cooperatively with municipal ownership as more monopolies form and get taken over by the government. This was seen as sort of the natural progression of capitalism. And soon it would become apparent that no one in the private sector would be able to compete with the socialized industries. If people will push for it, socialism will come about gradually and peacefully as capitalism fails on every front.
Social democrats also advocated laws and policies to shorten the workweek, guarantee health insurance to all, provide for people in retirement, etc. Today, the term “social democrat” tends to bring to mind the advocacy of social welfare. Social welfare is an important aspect of social democratic theory, but historically social democracy was also a radical socialist philosophy.
It strikes me that social democracy, as advocated by Eduard Bernstein, Annie Besant, and other classical social democrats is more municipal socialism than centralized socialism. This means that much of classical social democratic theory could easily be integrated with Murray Bookchin’s democratic confederalism (aka “libertarian municipalism”). And this is how I created the synthesis that I call libertarian social democracy.
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Bookchin held that general assemblies for direct democracy should be formed in each municipality in order for the people to govern directly. The municipality should be the locus of governance and the governance should be done democratically. The democratic assemblies and municipalities would then form a confederation. Democratic assemblies would appoint delegates to represent them in regional councils, and the regional councils would do likewise for higher councils, up to the national and international level. Delegates would have an “imperative mandate,” meaning that they would not be allowed to make decisions themselves but would be strictly bound by the decisions of those who appointed them. The delegates would be recallable and could be replaced at any time for any reason. Bookchin’s model was more direct democracy than representative democracy.
It seems to me desirable for the locus of governance to be local. The level of the municipality is the level where the people are most likely to be heard, even under our flawed representative democracy. It is easier to participate in local meetings related to governance. All real power should be devolved down to the municipal level as much as possible. And municipalities should be as directly democratic as possible.
As far as I can tell, this basic approach of democratic confederalism does not preclude social democracy as classically defined. Delegative democracy is simply a more direct form of representative democracy; and confederalism is simply a mechanism for guaranteeing that power remains decentralized so that municipalities are not rendered impotent by the centralized State. So I would like to see a libertarian social democracy that replaces the republican representative democracy of the classical social democrats with delegative democracy and integrates stronger directly democratic mechanism into the system.
Abdullah Öcalan advocates a variety of democratic confederalism based on consensus rather than majoritarian direct democracy. I am more sympathetic to this model than to Bookchin’s. The classical anarchist writers used to advocate a “free association” model of democratic confederalism. Under this model, not only would the municipalities be autonomous but so would individuals. This would be a consensus/dissensus model. Ultimately, I would like to have such a system.
Within this libertarian social democracy, we could implement what I call comprehensive counterbalanced democracy. This would entail the use of democratic processes as checks-and-balances on other democratic processes. Digital direct democracy, deliberative democracy, and such could be integrated into the system. A constant online poll to rank the popularity of a delegate could be used to determine when a delegate falls into disfavor and this could be used to automatically recall delegates when necessary. Similar polls could be used for specific policies and legislation, allowing the people to directly veto laws that they dislike.
Unlike Bookchin, I do not advocate “full communism.” I believe that communal land rent (aka “land value tax”) and universal basic income are essential to overcoming the modern crisis of capitalism and achieving a free society. I am also highly critical of social democrats who shy away from such proposals. I also believe that it is time for social democrats to return to their socialist roots!