The renewal and realization of democracy, or indeed its democratization, has many names. In 2026, we would like to organize the BG’s annual text series under the title #DeepDemocracy https://berlinergazette.de/deep-democracy-bg-annual-text-series-2026-call-for-papers/

#truedemocracy #directdemocracy #radicaldemocracy #councildemocracy #economicdemocracy #grassrootsdemocracy #democracy #Demokratie #polycrisis

Words shape reality. In the US/UK, 'Fiduciary Duty' almost exclusively forces directors to serve the shareholder. In the European Social Economy, the legal concept of 'Intérêt Collectif' frees them to serve the community. ⚖️

The Social Economy Glossary maps these 'untranslatables' so we can stop importing extractive logic into democratic economic spaces. 📖

https://rootandbranch.online/library/social-economy-glossary/

#SocialEconomy #EconomicDemocracy #TheCommons #Law

“The real task before us is not to defend socialism as a slogan, but to insist on democracy as a principle—economic as well as political.

A society where people control the institutions that shape their lives is neither a dream nor a danger. It is the minimal requirement for freedom.”

#Politics #USPolitics #Democracy #EconomicDemocracy #DemocracticSocialism #PeoplePower #FilmsForAction

https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/the-86-house-democrats-who-condemned-socialism-werent-defending-democracy-they-were-defending-concentrated-private-power/

💯 👉"Critics of socialism argue that it is a cop-out to say that the USSR was not socialist. But it seems clear that in practical terms, those running the system were trying to beat capitalism at its own game. They were not only imprisoned in a competitive logic but also bound by its limited horizons.

Of course, this does not tell us what the Soviet economic system was. To pose that question, as some did in the USSR, was to step outside the ruling order and to invite retribution. The job of the economists that Feygin discusses was to help the system work better.

Yet even some of those who were at the center of these “insider” debates could not help wondering exactly what the USSR was. Feygin in particular instances Yakov Kronrod, who spent four decades or more trying to think not only about reform but also about value relations and the question of alienation and exploitation in the Soviet system (David Mandel’s book on Konrod, Democracy, Plan, and Market, is not cited, however).

In the event, the USSR and the wider Soviet-led bloc collapsed, becoming the “ruin” of Feygin’s title. It failed to catch up with (let alone overtake) the West, and it failed to satisfy the aspirations of its own population. The idea of socialism from above, directed by a plan, has not really recovered. When we think, therefore, of going beyond capitalism, we must think about different ends as well as different means.

A bottom-up, participative system might well be messy in different ways, but it would have to engage people. In the USSR, Soviet workers were never the knowing agents of their own fate. They figured only as a constraint..." 👈💯

https://jacobin.com/2025/11/soviet-economic-reform-workers-feygin/

#SovietUnion #USSR #Socialism #Capitalism #StateCapitalism #EconomicDemocracy #Gorbatchev #Perestroika