What we need is a form of political leadership that frees democracy from liberalism through supporting citizens in asserting their popular sovereignty over the conditions of material daily life by getting organised as workers, as hospital users, as teachers, as students, as parents – and as citizens capable of mutual self-government.
Participatory mechanisms, argue the authors, are not powerful only because of what they may or may not achieve, but because of what happens in the very interactions that cause them to fail.
Canoas, Brazil Mayor Jairo Jorge recently published a book exhorting the left, in particular, but all progressives, to Radicalizar a Democracia: “We must engage citizens increasingly in . . . governments, giving them decision-making power over investments, public policies and strategic development projects at the city, state and national levels.”
People now fighting economic injustice have no right to decide how future people should live. But we do have a responsibility to provide an institutional setting that facilitates future people deciding for themselves their own conditions of life and work. To this end, participatory economics, or parecon, describes the core institutions required to generate solidarity, equity, self-management, and an ecologically sound and classless economy.
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