Addendum: The ID project and Social Ecology - TAKIS FOTOPOULOS The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, Vol. 1, No. 3 (May 2005)

Far from being unwelcome, any critical assessment which initiates a discussion on alternative post-capitalist models is a necessary part of a dialogue, urgently needed today when the multi-dimensional crisis (economic, ecological, political, social) engulfing the entire planet is worsening every day. It is in this spirit that we discussed and compared the ID project with Parecon in these pages[1] to no reply from the Pareconists who, presumably, prefer to deal with easier targets!

However, whereas such a response was to be expected from supporters of Parecon, given the fundamental differences between ID and their model and particularly the reformist strategies adopted by Michael Albert, Noam Chomsky and the World Social Forum (which they have wholeheartedly adopted), it was an unfortunate and sad experience to see supporters of Murray Bookchin’s Communalism/Social Ecology being involved lately in a process of downgrading and misrepresenting the ID project, as a convenient way of promoting their own model.

First, Eirik Eiglad,[2] in a recently published article in Communalism, notes that «several radical theorists have tried to ground the struggle for a democratic politics on “social imaginaries” (Castoriadis) or a “democratic relativism” (Fotopoulos), but their categories tend to dissolve into the subjectivist arbitrariness of postmodernism, and they fail to explain why we should choose certain “imaginaries” or political approaches over others».

Next, Peter Staudenmaier,[3] a social ecologist of the ISE, in a Znet debate with Michael Albert not only stresses that he prefers Parecon «in several significant respects» (which he does not specify) to the ID project but also presents the latter, in the ad to an «Alternatives to Capitalism» seminar he organized recently in New York,[4] as just «an attempted synthesis of Bookchin and Castoriadis»! Of course it is Mr Staudenmaier’s privilege to express his encouragement for an implicitly statist model like Parecon (although the authors of it, presumably for opportunistic reasons, are silent about the state, despite the fact that the vast bureaucracy they envisage could only function within (or lead to) a state organization —as was aptly pointed out by an Anarchy Studies reviewer).[5] However, it was really interesting to see Murray Bookchin not dissociating himself from supporters of social ecology who are so encouraging of implicitly statist projects, which are supposed to be achieved by explicitly reformist strategies. Particularly so, when he himself in the past felt it necessary to resign from the D&N Advisory Board, because of the supposed similarities of the ID transitional strategies to Bernsteinian evolutionary social democracy! [6]

Still, what is clearly not Mr Staudenmaier’s privilege is to distort the ID project in such a blatant way, by presenting its proposal for economic democracy as an attempted synthesis between Bookchin’s proposal for a «moral economy» based on a post-scarcity economy and Castoriadis’ workers’ council model based on a real market, at the very moment when the foundation of the ID project itself consists of a form of economic democracy which explicitly rejects the basis of both these models! This, quite apart from the fact that such a «personalisation» of the Inclusive Democracy project is unacceptable, particularly coming from a supposed libertarian! It is a serious misconception of the ID project to identify the synthesis it has attempted with particular personalities. Irrespective of how important Castoriadis’ and Bookchin’ contributions may have been to the autonomy/democracy traditions and the libertarian socialist traditions respectively, they cannot, surely, be identified with them! Since its very first issue, back in 1992, Society & Nature (as D&N was then called) clearly stated that the liberatory project it supported was seen as «a dialectical synthesis of three tendencies that are expressed in corresponding political traditions and movements: the autonomous-democratic tradition (which includes the feminist movement), the libertarian socialist and the radical green movements». The non-mentioning of any names was not accidental but a deliberate decision not to identify the attempted synthesis with any dogmas or gurus, since such identification would surely not be compatible with the very nature of the new liberatory project.

This is not to deny, of course, the influence that parts of Castoriadis’ autonomy project and Bookchin’s libertarian municipalism/communalism have had on the ID project, or, similarly, the strong influence of Kropotkin’s or Arendt’s work —among others— on Bookchin and Castoriadis respectively. However, apart from the fundamental philosophical, political and economic differences between the ID project and the autonomy project which I have considered elsewhere,[7] as well as those between the former and social ecology/communalism which I am going to consider here, the analysis of the ID project on modernity, its periodisation, globalisation and the present crisis completely differentiates it from both the Castoriadian and Bookchinist conceptions. No wonder that the proposed way out of the crisis in terms of an Inclusive Democracy in general and an Economic Democracy in particular differs fundamentally from a workers’ councils economy based on a real market (early Castoriadis) or a «moral economy» based on post-scarcity (Bookchin). It is, therefore, clear that the ID project represents not just a synthesis but also a transcendence of the two major historical traditions —the socialist and the democratic ones— as well as of the radical currents in the «new» social movements (the feminist and particularly the ecological —of which social ecology is the most important radical component).

Anyone with even a cursory understanding of the ID project knows that it has nothing to do either with postmodernism or subjectivism and the kind of generalised relativism adopted by postmodernists! The postmodernist conception has been unequivocally rejected in my D&N article «The myth of postmodernism»[8] and there is no reason to repeat my long argument there for the benefit of Eirik Eiglad. Furthermore in my book Towards An Inclusive Democracy[9] I rejected not only objective rationalism —a version of which is «dialectical naturalism» supported by Communalists— but also generalised relativism and subjectivism, as being incompatible with democratic rationalism.

Thus, in a separate section of my book entitled «Beyond “Objectivism”, Irrationalism and Relativism», I stressed that :

In the same book, after distinguishing between political and democratic relativism on the one hand and philosophical relativism on the other, I rejected the latter (i.e., that all traditions have equal truth value, in the sense of their all being accepted as equally true or false) as being in contradiction with democratic relativism itself (i.e., that all traditions, theories, ideas, etc., are debated and decided upon by all citizens).[11] This is why I explicitly pointed out that «the type of general relativism, which is adopted by post-modernism, simply expresses the latter's abandonment of any critique of the institutionalised social reality and a general retreat to conformism».[12] Furthermore, as I stressed in another passage, «once we have made a choice among the main traditions, in other words, once we have defined the content of the liberatory project in terms of the autonomy tradition, certain important implications follow at the ethical[13] level, as well as at the interpretational level» —something that rules out the kind of subjectivist arbitrariness for which Eirik Eiglad uncritically accuses me.

Last, in the final section of the book entitled «Conclusion: toward a democratic rationalism» I stressed once more the philosophical basis of the ID project which is not «democratic relativism», as Eirik Eiglad misrepresents it, but democratic rationalism —a much broader concept than the former. Here is the relevant passage:

It is clear, therefore, that although the choice for the autonomy tradition is indeed axiomatic because it is identified with freedom itself, contrary to what Eirik Eiglad argues, there is nothing arbitrary about this choice. As I stressed in my D&N article on liberatory ethics’,[14] the autonomy project (or what Bookchin calls analogously «the legacy of freedom»)[15] turns up repeatedly in History, despite the fact that the heteronomous tradition has been historically dominant:

As Eiglad rightly stresses, communalism «contains not only a libertarian politics and a non-hierarchical social analysis but also a philosophy that give communalism its developmental and ethical thrust —namely, dialectical naturalism».

However, as I attempted to show elsewhere,[16] the project for a democratic society cannot be grounded on an evolutionary process of social change, either a teleological one (such as Marx’s dialectical materialism) or a non-teleological one (such as Bookchin’s dialectical naturalism).[17] Αlthough dialectical naturalism is explicitly described as a non-teleological view of natural and social evolution, still, it does assume a «directionality» towards a democratic ecological society —a society that may never be actualised because of «fortuitous» events. Τhus, Bookchin, after explicitly acknowledging that social evolution is profoundly different from organic evolution, characterises social change as a process of Progress, defined as «the self-directive activity of History and Civilisation towards increasing rationality, freedom».[18] In the same theoretical framework, society is seen as developing both in continuity with nature and as its antithesis «until the two are sublated into "free nature", or "Nature" rendered self-conscious, in a rational and ecological society».[19]

Yet, although the hypothesis about a rational process of natural evolution may not be groundless, the hypothesis about the existence of a rational process of social evolution, i.e. the view which sees History as a process of Progress, the unfolding of reason —a view which assumes that there is an evolution going on towards autonomous, or democratic, forms of political, economic and social organisation— is, to my mind, both untenable and undesirable.[20]

It is untenable because Social Ecology’s view of History is hardly supported by History itself! History does not justify the view of an evolutionary process of Progress towards a free society, in the sense of a form of social organisation which secures the highest degree of individual and social autonomy at the political, the economic and the social levels: what we may define as an inclusive democracy. Although the historical attempts to establish autonomous forms of political, social and economic democracy did not, of course, appear ab novo, they cannot, nevertheless, be fitted into any grand evolutionary process. This is clearly indicated by the fact that such attempts took place in specific times and places and as a break with past development, rather than in several societies at the same stage of development and as a continuation of it. Therefore, although the ideals of freedom may have expanded over time, the last 25 years or so notwithstanding, this expansion has not been matched by a corresponding evolution towards an autonomous society, in the sense of greater participation of citizens in decision taking. In fact, the undermining of communities, which was intensified by the emergence of the market economy 200 years ago and has been accelerated by the development of the present internationalised market economy, as well as the growing privacy and self-interest of individuals encouraged by the consumer society, are clear indications of a trend towards more heteronomous forms of society rather than the other way round.

And it is undesirable, not only because it creates unintentional links with heteronomy (since it implicitly or explicitly rejects the fundamental fact that History is creation) but also because it may easily lead to inadvertent affinities with intrinsically anti-democratic eco-philosophies. Thus, the attempt to establish a directionality in society might easily create undesirable affinities with deep ecology. Although such affinities are utterly repugnant to social ecologists, they are, nevertheless, implicit in the fact that both deep ecologists and social ecologists adopt a process of evolutionary unfolding and self-realisation and ground their ethics in scientific observations about the natural world, in natural «tendencies» or directionalities. This fact, as I pointed out elsewhere[21] could go a long way in explaining the various hybridised approaches of social/deep ecology developed by, among others, John Clark[22] and Peter Marshall.[23]

I will only add here that it is ironic indeed that, although Bookchin justifiably feels the need to attack Clarks’ anti-democratic views,[24] it is the very philosophical grounding of democracy on dialectical naturalism, so cherished by both Bookchin and Clark, which creates a gap between social ecology and the democratic tradition. This is because democracy, as a process of social self-institution, implies a society which is open ideologically — namely, one which is not grounded on any closed system of beliefs, dogmas or ideas. «Democracy,» as Castoriadis puts it, «is the project of breaking the closure at the collective level.»[25] In fact, one may add here that committing oneself to a closed system of ideas, like dialectical materialism (or dialectical naturalism for that matter) is not that different from committing oneself with respect to a closed set of religious or irrational beliefs and dogmas. This fact alone could go a long way in explaining the present convergence of the thought of some Marxists with religion, or of several anarchists (like John Clark) with various forms of irrationalism (Taoism, New Age etc).[26]

It is, therefore, not accidental that Clark is particularly attracted by those elements in social ecology which are alien to the democratic tradition, i.e. the supposedly «objective» grounding of the ecological society on the process of evolutionary unfolding and self-realisation which dialectical naturalism offers. Nor is it accidental that his attack against social ecology is centered on those of its elements which are closest to the democratic tradition, i.e. its democratic politics. In other words, there is a significant degree of consistency between Clark’s philosophical and political views. Unfortunately, the same could not be said with respect to social ecology.

Still, the fact that no grand evolutionary schemes of Progress are supported by History does not mean that we should overemphasise the significance of the «social imaginary» (in the Castoriadian terminology) at the expense of the ‘systemic’ elements. As I tried to show elsewhere,[27] this type of approach could easily lead to serious errors: for instance, blaming the widening gulf between the North and the South on the «imaginary significations» that had developed in the latter rather than on the world-wide spread of the growth economy which had destroyed the traditional self-reliant communities of the South.

On the other hand, the view of History adopted by the ID project, setting aside the grand evolutionary schemes which depend on specific (supposedly «objective») interpretations of natural or social change, sees History as the continuous interaction between creative human action and the existing institutional framework, i.e. as the interaction between the «imaginary» and the «systemic» elements, the outcome of which is always unpredictable. It is in this sense that the democratic society is seen as a rupture, a break in the historical continuity that the heteronomous society has historically established.

The differences between the project of inclusive democracy and that of social ecology concerning the philosophical grounding of democracy, have important repercussions on the respective conceptions of democracy itself. Thus, Bookchin is right when he states that Clark is going «beyond» the political realm when he attempts to make cooperative institutions (seen by Bookchin as parts of the social realm, not the political) into central parts of his approach to social change. As Bookchin puts it, Clark includes in the public sphere producer and consumer co-ops, land trusts etc, «even the workplace —replete with “bosses, co-workers and technologies”— thereby scattering the concept of a public sphere as a politics like chaff in a wind».[28] However, Clark is right in attempting to expand the narrow political realm, although he is absolutely wrong in the way he attempts to do so, i.e. by personalising the political realm and discarding the Bookchinist notion of the citizen as the nuclear unit of a new politics.

Clearly, the narrow conception of the public realm envisaged by Bookchin could and should be expanded, if our aim is to transcend the limited conception of democracy which first flourished in classical Athens. Thus, to develop a new conception of inclusive democracy we may start by distinguishing between the two main societal realms, the public and the private, to which we may add an «ecological realm», defined as the sphere of the relations between the natural and the social worlds. The public realm, contrary to the practice of many supporters of the republican or democratic project (Arendt, Castoriadis, Bookchin et al) includes in this conception not just the political realm, but also the economic realm, as well as a «social» realm, in other words, any area of human activity where decisions can be taken collectively and democratically.

The political realm is defined as the sphere of political decision-taking, the area where political power is exercised.

The economic realm is defined as the sphere of economic decision-taking, the area where economic power is exercised with respect to the broad economic choices that any scarcity society has to make.

Finally, the social realm is defined as the sphere of decision-taking in the workplace, the education place and any other economic or cultural institution which is a constituent element of a democratic society.

I think that the extension of the traditional public realm to include the economic, ecological and «social» realms is an indispensable element of the inclusive democracy conception and offers significant assistance in defining its constituent elements: political, economic, ecological and ‘democracy in the social realm’. Thus, political, economic and democracy in the social realm may be defined, briefly, as the institutional framework that aims at the equal distribution of political, economic and social power respectively, in other words, as the system which aims at the effective elimination of the domination of human being over human being. Correspondingly, we may define ecological democracy as the institutional framework that aims at the elimination of any human attempt to dominate the natural world, in other words, as the system which aims to reintegrate humans and nature.[29]

In an Inclusive Democracy, therefore, any type of decision (political, economic, social, relating to the environment) which can be taken collectively, should be part of the democratic decision-taking process. This is not obvious in the case of social ecology, which centres its conception of democracy on the political realm, at the exclusion of the other realms. No wonder that economic democracy is not part of the socio-ecological conception of democracy. Instead, social ecology adopts the communistic fiction of a post-scarcity society in which no economic-decision taking about the allocation of resources is, in effect, required. All that is required in this vision is, basically, a set of moral principles guiding sharing.[30] This is why the Social Ecology project, in contrast to the autonomy project, Parecon, and the Inclusive Democracy project,[31] does not propose any mechanism for the allocation of resources and Bookchin himself insists instead that in a communistic post-scarcity society «the very idea of an economy has been replaced by ethical (instead of productive) relationships; labour units, Proudhonian contracts, Rawlsian justice, and the like would not even be relevant».[32]

However, there is a crucial negative implication to be drawn from Social Ecology’s conception of a democratic society: it presupposes the existence of material preconditions for freedom. The entrance to the realm of freedom depends on «objective» factors, like the arrival of the mythical state of affairs of material abundance. But, the level of development of productive forces that is required so that material abundance for the entire population on Earth can be achieved, makes it at least doubtful that such a stage could ever be achieved without serious repercussions on the environment —unless, of course, «material abundance» is defined democratically (and not «objectively») in a way which is consistent with ecological balance.

Therefore, the communist stage of post-scarcity is, in fact, a mythical state of affairs, as it presupposes an «objective» definition of needs and scarcity, and reference to it could simply be used (and has been used) to justify the indefinite maintenance of state power and power relations and structures. Even if it was possible to define basic needs objectively, it is certainly impossible to define objectively satisfiers, i.e. the means to satisfy them, let alone non-basic needs, which have become increasingly important in today’s advanced societies. So, the fulfilment of a post-scarcity society is not just a matter of redistribution of wealth, as it is naively assumed by many libertarians and social ecologists who argue that «the promise of post-scarcity… has not been fulfilled, not because the technology is base but because the social arrangements that use it are base».[33]

Clearly, within the problematique of the inclusive democracy project, the link between post-scarcity and freedom should be broken. The abolition of scarcity, and consequently of the division of labour, is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for democracy. Therefore, the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom should be de-linked from the economic process. Still, from Aristotle, through Locke and Marx, to Arendt and Bookchin, the distinction between the «realm of necessity» (where nature belongs) and the «realm of freedom» always has been considered to be fundamental. However, although this distinction may be useful as a conceptual tool in classifying human activities, there is no reason why the two realms must be seen as mutually exclusive in social reality. Historically, anyway, there have been several occasions when various degrees of freedom survived under conditions that could be characterised as belonging to the «realm of necessity». Furthermore, once we cease treating the two realms as mutually exclusive, there is no justification for any attempt to dominate Nature —an important element of Marxist growth ideology— in order to enter the realm of freedom.

On the other hand, in the ID conception, there are no material preconditions for freedom nor the entrance to the realm of freedom depends on a massive change of consciousness through the adoption of some form of spiritualistic dogma, as some deep ecologists and other spiritualistic movements propose. Therefore, neither capitalism and socialism, on the ‘objective’ side, nor the adoption of some kind of spiritualistic dogma, on the «subjective» side, constitute historical preconditions to enter the realm of freedom. In other words, the democratic principle is not grounded on any divine, natural or social «laws» or tendencies, but on our own conscious and self-reflective choice between the two main historical traditions: the tradition of heteronomy which has been historically dominant, and the tradition of autonomy.

Inclusive Democracy is therefore a much broader conception than the usual libertarian conception of a future society (proposed by Bookchin and other writers) expressed in terms of direct democracy plus a municipalised «moral economy» based on a post-scarcity society. This is so, not only because Inclusive democracy incorporates political and economic decisions taken by confederated community assemblies, as well as decisions taken by assemblies at the place of work, education etc. But, even more crucial, because the economic decisions taken in an inclusive democracy involve crucial decisions about the allocation of scarce resources and not just, basically, administrative decisions in a society where machines do most of the work, as social ecologists maintain, assuming that technologically we have already reached a post-scarcity potential.[34]

All this implies that for any liberatory project to look realistic and not just a utopia it has to include a visualisation of the institutions, which would allow a democratic decision-taking in the context of a scarcity society. It is therefore utterly inadequate for a realistic liberatory project just to be involved in wishful thinking about how a moral economy will solve, more or less automatically, all economic problems (if the term is appropriate) of a mythical post-scarcity society.[35] It is now obvious that if an alternative to the presently universalised market economy form of social organisation is to inspire today’s demoralised peoples, the feasibility of such an alternative society has to be clearly shown. This means that the crucial issues related to the allocation of scarce resources in a new society which will meet the basic and non-basic needs of all citizens have to be dealt with, first in theory, and then in everyday practice, in the economic democracy which has to start being built here and now by a new massive antisystemic movement.[36]

As regards theory, an economic democracy based on a scarcity society is perfectly feasible and, as I have attempted to show elsewhere,[37] it is indeed possible to develop a model of economic democracy which shows the feasibility of democratic decision taking, not in the framework of a mythical post scarcity economy but in that of a real scarcity society. As regards practice, the need for building such a new massive antisystemic movement is now imperative if we wish to stop the present catastrophic descent of humanity into a new barbarity.

[1] Takis Fotopoulos, "PARECON: Has the hour arrived for a WSF model?" ID Newsletter # 1 (15 September 2004) and "Participatory Economics (Parecon) and Inclusive Democracy", The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, Vol.1, no. 2 (January 2005).

[2] Eirik Eiglad, "Bases for Communalist Programs", COMMUNALISM, issue 6 (March 2005).

[3] Peter Staudenmaier, "Rejoining Albert 2" (December 27, 1999).

[4] Alternatives to Capitalism, Seminar, New York City (April 23-24, 2005).

[5] John Crump aptly characterises the highly bureaucratic structure of Parecon as "participatory bureaucracy" which, together with the multiplicity of proposed controls to limit people’s entitlement to consume, “would lay the ground for the perpetuation or reappearance of the state"; John Crump “Markets, Money and Social Change”, Anarchist Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring 1995), pp. 72-73.

[6] see J. Biehl & M. Bookchin Advisory Board Resignation Letter and the Editorial Board’s response in Democracy & Nature, Vol. 3 No. 3 (1997).

[7] see Takis Fotopoulos, "Towards a democratic liberatory ethics", Democracy & Nature, Volume 8 Number 3, (November 2002) and "On a Distorted View of the Inclusive Democracy Project", Democracy & Nature Vol. 5, No. 1 (March 1999).

[8] See T. Fotopoulos, "The myth of postmodernity", Democracy & Nature, Vol. 7, No. 1 (March 2001).

[9] Takis Fotopoulos, Towards An Inclusive Democracy (London/New York: Cassell/Continuum, 1997), ch. 8.

[10] ibid. p.345.

[11] ibid. pp 347-8.

[12] Ibid. p. 348.

[13] ibid. see also, Takis Fotopoulos, "Towards a democratic liberatory ethics", Democracy & Nature, Vol. 8, No. 3 (November 2002).

[14] ibid.

[15] See M. Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom, (Montreal: Black Rose, 1991), ch. 7.

[16] T. Fotopoulos, Towards An Inclusive Democracy, ch. 8.

[17] See, M. Bookchin, The Philosophy of Social Ecology, (Montreal, Black Rose, 1995).

[18] Ibid. p. xii.

[19] Ibid. p. xi.

[20] See T. Fotopoulos, Towards An Inclusive Democracy, pp. 328-340.

[21] T. Fotopoulos, Towards An Inclusive Democracy, p. 330.

[22] See e.g. John Clark, "The Politics of Social Ecology: Beyond the Limits of the City", Democracy & Nature, Vol. 5, No. 3 (November 1999).

[23] Peter Marshall, Nature's Web (London: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 426.

[24] Murray Bookchin, "Comments on the International Social Ecology Network Gathering and the “Deep Social Ecology” of John Clark", Democracy & Nature, Vol. 3, No 3, pp. 154-197.

[25] Cornelius Castoriadis, Philosophy, Politics, Autonomy, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) p. 21.

[26] See T. Fotopoulos, "The Rise of New Irrationalism and its Incompatibility with Inclusive Democracy", Democracy & Nature, Vol. 4, No. 2/3 (1999).

[27] Takis Fotopoulos, "Castoriadis and the democratic tradition", Democracy & Nature, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 157-163; see, also, "Towards a democratic liberatory ethics".

[28] Murray Bookchin, "Comments," p. 159.

[29] See T. Fotopoulos, Towards An Inclusive Democracy, ch. 5.

[30] Janet Biehl, The Politics of Social Ecology: Libertarian Municipalism, (Montreal: Black Rose Press, 1998), chs 10 & 12.

[31] See for a proposed mechanism of allocating resources in an economic democracy, Takis Fotopoulos, Towards An Inclusive Democracy, ch. 6.

[32] Murray Bookchin, "Comments", p. 185.

[33] Janet Biehl, The Politics of Social Ecology: Libertarian Municipalism, p. 98.

[34] Janet Biehl, The Politics of Social Ecology: Libertarian Municipalism, p. 132-37.

[35] Ibid. See, also, pp. 111-120.

[36] See Takis Fotopoulos, "Transitional strategies and the Inclusive Democracy project", Democracy & Nature, Vol. 8, No. 1 (March 2002).

[37] See T. Fotopoulos, Towards An Inclusive Democracy, ch. 6.