Debbie Bookchin: Confederalism and it's Critics

#Anarchy #Anarchism #Socialist #Socialism #Confederalism #Rojava #History #Politics #Economics #Philosophy

https://youtu.be/0nVd-gIdqfM?si=V9jXlNqS5HdpB5K9

"The great powers, those monsters of nationalism, must be broken up and replaced by small states; for, as perhaps even our diplomats will eventually be able to understand, only small states are wise, modest and, above all, weak enough, to accept an authority higher than their own." - Leopold Kohr, The Breakdown of Nations

#leopoldkohr #decentralization #smallstates #minarchism #confederalism #degrowth #bioregionalism

What is Confederalism?

#Anarchy #Anarchism #Socialist #Socialism #Confederalism #Democracy #Politics #Economics #Philosophy
https://youtu.be/JLry60uUQOI?si=76tPkNyqNT1vV14X

Different Kinds of Social Movement Organizations:

There are multiple kinds of social movement organizations people can form or join to meet needs and contribute to liberatory social transformation. There is community organizing, workplace organizing, student organizing, and beyond (FARJ, 2008). The following section will be a brief overview of some of the most important kinds of social movement organizations. The following kinds of groups can be infused with the above elements of liberatory social movement organizations. It is important to note that the following kinds of groups do not necessarily have liberatory qualities and wise content. Social movement organizations and participants thereof must develop and recreate such elements while adapting to relevant variables.

Community assemblies are organizations people can start or join in regards to specific blocks, neighborhoods, villages, towns, and cities to meet needs through collective action (Bookchin, 2007, Ocalan, 2014). Community assemblies can use self-management to make decisions. Community assemblies can form direct action committees and implement direct actions and direct action campaigns against specific political and economic hierarchies. Community assemblies can potentially oppose any kind of domination, exploitation, and oppression within or even beyond a given region. Community assemblies can also help develop common infrastructure and create a plurality of mutual aid committees and projects according to people’s needs and desires. Communal and intercommunal economics would be self-managed by assemblies of people who need and interface with the economy. Such communal and intercommunal commons would be rooted in meeting needs and desires of people as well as mutual aid and responsibility to upkeep the commons through collective agreements to share the implementation of decisions. Community assemblies and co-federations thereof can be both alternative forms of governance that provide self-managed ways to make decisions and meet needs AND oppositional forces against class relations and hierarchy more broadly.

Labor unions enable workers to meet needs and better their conditions through workplace organizing in opposition to class relations and exploitation. Labor unions can utilize direct action and organize in self-managed ways autonomous from state and business interests. Radical student unions are groups where students can organize against hierarchies on campus, within the education system, and beyond. And while the various functions of tenants unions can be done via community assemblies that also have other functions, tenants unions can be formed when needed and desired. Some tenant struggles can even culminate in the development of common housing connected to community assemblies! There are also prisoners’ unions that can enable prisoners to struggle against the prison system. Various Issue specific direct action groups (and committees of groups) can exist to are focus on something like stopping a gentrification development, or some particularly anti-ecological project, or stopping a war, or stopping a prison from being built, stopping a racist, patriarchal, or xenophobic policy, or confronting fascist and far right mobilizations, or a myriad of struggles against domination, exploitation, and oppression. And there are many issue specific mutual aid groups (and committees of various kinds of groups) that can exist focused around provisioning general and specific needs for participants, social movements, the most impoverished, and people more generally.

The Good Place:

In a good society, self-management would flourish on every scale. In a good society, there would be non-hierarchical, directly democratic, and participatory community assemblies (and co-federations thereof) with embedded councils and rotating delegates, means of existence and production would be held and managed in common, politics and economics would meet needs and desires of people, direct collective decisions would be made through dialogue, people would share in the implementation of policies in agreed upon ways, everyone would be free from domination, exploitation, and oppression, and everyone would be free to make collective and individual decisions about what they do bounded and enriched by the freedoms of others to do the same (Kropotkin, 1906, Bookchin, 2007, Ocalan, 2014, Sixth Commission of the EZLN, 2016, Ostrom, 2021, Dirik, 2022, Usufruct Collective, 2022). Such a goal (and principles in relation to such a goal) shapes the general strategy that should be used which shapes the more variable sub-strategies and tactics that should be used (Correa and Walmsley, 2022).
https://usufructcollective.substack.com/p/elements-of-liberatory-social-movement

#anarchism
#anarchy
#communism
#socialism
#libertariansocialism
#libertariancommunism
#communalism
#strategy
#organizing
#democracy
#directaction
#directdemocracy
#mutualaid
#federalism
#confederalism
#federation
#community
#workplace
#selfmanagement
#autogestion

New essay!

"Social movement organizations are groups where people can come together to meet the needs of participants and others through reconstructing new practices, ways of relating, and decision making while also opposing domination, exploitation, and oppression. Social movement organizations can help meet people’s short-term needs while also taking actions to transform society. Social movements organizations vary in many ways. They can be in relationship to community issues, workplace issues, student issues, and beyond. At their best, social movement organizations wisely use free and egalitarian processes to meet short-term, mid-term, and long-term needs of people. However, not all social movements organizations have the kinds of organizational relations, qualities, and contents that make them ethical and effective. Free and egalitarian relations and practices require the means thereof; they will not emerge out of nowhere. The freedom of each and all has objective, universal, and necessary features as well as subjective, particular, and contingent features. The freedom of each and all needs to be continuously recreated, co-authored, and given life by people responding to unfolding conditions.

While social movements are needed to transform society outside of the official channels of business as usual, social movements can go terribly wrong. For example, some attempts at social movements replicate unfree and unequal structures and contents of the social order that they oppose! Some social movements do not meaningfully oppose unfreedom while others fail to meaningfully reconstruct new ways to meet people’s needs. Given the goal of using free and egalitarian processes to develop free and egalitarian social relations, the following are some foundational elements for social movement organizations. Participants in social movement organizations can agree to shared practices, processes, and goals without participants agreeing on a specific ideological line. With something like the following as a compass, social movements and participants in them will be better able to navigate from here to a better society. "

https://usufructcollective.wordpress.com/2024/01/31/elements-of-liberatory-social-movement-organizations/

#anarchism #anarchy #communism #socialism #libertariansocialism #libertariancommunism #communalism #strategy #organizing #democracy #directaction #directdemocracy #mutualaid #federalism #confederalism #federation #community #workplace #selfmanagement #autogestion

New Zapatista Communal and Inter communal governance structure!!! May millions of communes bloom

#democracy #commune #communalism #socialism #anarchism #federalism #confederalism #zapatistas #marez #chiapas #directdemocracy #libertariansocialism #libertariancommunism #commons

Points of Unity template for shared processes and practices (for social movement groups and popular organizations of various kinds): ***Although descriptively accurate, the above is not formulated to be the best name for practical use in movement context as it is too jargon heavy and wordy. Alternative names: Points of Unity, Group agreements, Shared Agreements, Group Practices, Shared Practices, Group Processes, Shared Processes, etc

Direct-Democracy: Direct democracy refers to direct collective decision making. Direct democracy enables collective dialogue, decisions, and actions to achieve various goals and solve various problems. Deliberation is foundational to a practical direct democracy as it enables questions, amendments, conversations, problems, solution criteria, multiple perspectives, critiques, concerns, alternative possibilities, dissent, and evaluation of pros and cons to round out proposals and decisions made. After deliberation, there is an aim for full agreement. If there is not full agreement, there is further discussion and then a decision is made by majority vote. ***The specifics of direct democracy can be tweaked and even left out of this section and simply included in the bylaws.

Horizontality: Horizontality refers to the presence of self-organization and the absence of hierarchy. Hierarchy refers to institutionalized top-down command obedience relations. Horizontality includes freedom from hierarchy, freedom from oppression, freedom from domination, freedom from exploitation, and freedom to participate in self-managed groups and relations. This group strives to be internally horizontal and contribute to horizontal relations. etc. ***can alternatively be called or framed as: non-hierarchy, or egalitarian relations, or opposition to hierarchy. With different groups, different framings and wordings will make more sense. Depending on group and context, it may or may not make sense for a group to give a list of various hierarchies in such a points of unity document. For sake of brevity, it can make sense to include the substance of horizontality within other points.

Free Association and Participatory activity: Free association refers to freedom of and from associations as well as participatory activity within associations. For there to be free association and participatory activity, persons and groups must have the guaranteed freedoms to choose their activities and associations while respecting and enabling freedoms of others to do the same. All labor, work, and action within this group is to be voluntary and non-coerced. If someone does not like a policy that is made, they can continue to argue for and advocate an alternative proposal, continue to argue one’s point formally and informally, choose to not participate in the implementation of the policy they disagree with while remaining in the group, or choose to leave the association. *** This point can potentially be included in other points of unity without being its own point. Also, it is often implied that a group is such a voluntary association so including this for a group as an explicit point may or may not make sense.

Direct Action: Direct action refers to opposing exploitation, domination and oppression through self-managed action to meet needs of people. Direct action can be contrasted to indirect action of top-down organizing and relying on rulers to solve social problems. Direct action includes a wide array of potential activities and campaigns against specific hierarchical institutions for short term, mid-term, and long-term goals. *** A description giving examples of direct action tactics such as occupations, expropriations, blockades, strikes, boycotts, etc. is optional. An alternative to the wording to “domination, exploitation, and oppression” can be “unfreedom and injustice” or something sufficiently similar.

Mutual Aid: Mutual aid refers to voluntary multidirectional help to meet needs. Mutual aid can exist within a group, between groups, between groups and persons, between persons etc. Mutual aid enables groups and people to pool abilities, needs, ideas, proposals, actions, infrastructure, resources, tools, etc. together. Mutual aid can include a wide array of potential activities from mutual assistance towards common goals (including direct action goals), creating or participating in development of the commons (including communal fields, factories and workshops, social centers, libraries, eco-technology projects, etc), free food distribution, communal childcare, etc. ***Such a list or variation thereof is optional to include.

For groups that collaborate with other groups in various formal and informal ways:

Co-Federalism: Co-federalism refers to ways organizations can freely collaborate for inter-collective coordination, decisions, and actions in a way that enables decision making power to be in the hands of people directly. Delegated persons and councils of collectives can meet up for deliberation and administration. Such delegates and co-federal councils are mandated and recallable to their respective popular assemblies, are merely communicative, administrative, and have no policy making power. All policies are made and ratified by general assemblies directly. ***Alternatively the words federalism, confederalism, intercommunalism, inter-collectivity, egalitarian federation, etc. can be used in place of co-federalism. Co-federalism is a neologism, and confederalism and federalism both have connotative issues despite them referring to an essential practice for horizontal and free inter-organizational relations.

Addendum point for Community assembly groups in particular:

Communal Self Management: Communal self-management refers to horizontal, democratic, participatory community politics and economics. Such communal and intercommunal self-management can exist on every scale from the block, to the neighborhood, to the city, and beyond. Means of existence and production needed by communities are to be held and managed in common. Policies and protocols for communal economics are managed by communal assemblies and co-federations thereof. Such communal assemblies and co-federations thereof have embedded participatory councils that self-manage implementation within the bounds of their respective mandates and protocols. Such a communal economy aims towards providing each and all with free access to needs.

***The above point is specifically for community assembly groups. It generally makes the most sense for groups that are at relatively a mature level development to the point where they have sufficient power, means of production, and popular support.

Alternative framing that synthesizes the first three points of unity into a single point:

Participatory Democracy: Participatory democracy refers to a combination of direct collective decision making, without rulers, where people freely participate in decision making and implementation of decisions. ***By condensing the substance of the first three points into a single point, a lot of clutter disappears. From here, people can fill out this point through their own descriptions or through copying, pasting, and blending some of the more essential sentences from the first three points of unity listed as needed. An alternative framing for this point could be “self-management” in such a way that includes the substance of direct democracy, horizontality, and free association. As coherent as the first three points are as separate points rounding each other out, they are rather cumbersome and can be difficult to wrap one’s mind around. Creating a single point that combines the essential features of those points can help clear up confusion. Something like a practical unity of Participatory Democracy as defined above (or alternatively Self-Management), Direct Action, and Mutual aid can lead to a lot of coherence and functional use for groups starting from scratch or otherwise developing such points of unity overtime. Having three points makes a point of unity for processes and practices easier to agree with, comprehend, and communicate to new people.

https://usufructcollective.wordpress.com/2023/01/14/liberatory-points-of-unity-template-2023-remix/

#Anarchism #anarchy #socialism #communism #libertariansocialism #libertariancommunism #mutualaid #directdemocracy #democracy #federation #federalism #confederalism #directaction #horizontality #horizontalism #freedom #equality #organization

"Elinor Ostrom’s rules for governing the commons provide criteria for how a common sector can function well (Ostrom 2021). Even though her politics differ in crucial ways from libertarian communism, many of the overall principles and practices for managing the commons that she outlines can strengthen libertarian communist praxis (Libertarian 2013). And although not stated until now, the above approach of libertarian communism satisfies Elinor Ostrom’s 8 rules for governing the commons: It has clear and non-hierarchical processes/practices/nomos/decision making, planning, and rules, it matches rules governing commons to local conditions (while also retaining specific universalist features), it ensures that those affected by decisions can modify them, it aims towards the commons being respected by others (through a focus on global revolution as well as defending the commons against hierarchical forces), it develops ways for people to hold each other accountable to rules of the commons without resorting to hierarchical strata and without hierarchical security forces, it has ways of dealing with rule violations as well as accessible dispute resolution (via free association/disassociation, self defense and defense of others, breaking up fights, diffuse social disapproval, and dispute resolution via mediation), and has responsibility for governing common resources in nested tiers from lowest level up to the entire interconnected system. "

https://usufructcollective.wordpress.com/2022/02/01/the-conquest-of-sandwiches/

#anarchism #anarchy #libertariansocialism #libertariancommunism #socialism #communism #communalism #utopia #federalism #confederalism #federation #confederation #postscarcity #abundance #mutualaid #intercommunalism #commons