economic democracy as they serve respectively to check unbridled capitalism, preserve individual liberties and democratic political processes, and reserve a role for markets in goods and services while extending democracy
into the workplace and the linked spheres of
finance and investment.
But here, reform minded individuals should be cautious. Actors – whether they be the tyrant, existing members of Congress who do not want
change, or the oligarchs who have benefitted so much from the status quo – will push back
against such systems, using the same tired methodology of their predecessors. They will argue, as they have successfully done in the –
past, such models are nothing more than stepchildren of Communism – as that comes to be expressed through centralized authoritarian
states of the former Soviet Union and China, defined as those were through the theories and actions of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and their acolytes
– stepchildren which will return home if given the chance.
Forget the success realized by such social democratic countries such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland; forget the success realized by democratic socialist countries such as Brazil, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Poland, and Norway, among others; forget that all economic democracy implies is the right to have a say in the decisions surrounding the system of production and its productive capacity so to meet human needs and address ecological crises, which is not unlike what has been already granted to us through political democracy which implies the right to have a say in the decisions surrounding the system of political organization and social capacity so to meet human needs and address social crises.
Presidents and members of Congress have
always chosen the easy way out, which is to simply and fully be anti-communist and by default to become anti-socialist whatever the form: and the way they do that is continually embracing capitalism – and what has been
revealed as unbridled capitalism – through
rhetoric and propaganda. No need to engage in intellectual discovery or debate. Rhetoric is a powerful tool, particularly when it plays to stereotypical claims which are repeated over and over across decades. Reformers need not look further than to recent elections in this country on the local as well as congressional level, where the democratic socialist candidate
was elected not on a social democratic platform
which few voters were even aware but on specific elements of the platform – like affordability or lack of housing – which resonated with the public more generally than those of the more characteristic party rhetoric pitched by traditional party leaders.
Reformers need to be aware of such traps, whether ideological or political. The first such trap claims capitalism – unlike communism, socialism, or democratic socialism – is not an ideology but a practice. To believe this, one needs simply to remove the –ism following the word capital to understand what truly interests all and in which all believe, namely nothing more than capital and its accumulation. Such
The model that thus comes to mind as being a truly revolutionary form which meets the requirements set forth is the eco-cultural community, a community defined both through its naturally occurring biosystem and the economic and cultural identity of the people involved therein. It is an expansive framework that grows with people’s understanding of themselves, of their community, and their environment, thereby healing the alienation and dislocation experienced under an empire that embraced unbridled capitalism and a disregard for the environment.
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