The International Journal
of INCLUSIVE
DEMOCRACY, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Fall 2010)
Editorial
First, our
apologies again for the delay in publishing this issue. In
fact, to avoid similar delays in the future ―due to the fact
that, in our effort to cover crucial topical events which
have lately become very frequent, the regular edition
inevitably suffers— we decided to come back to the
periodisation scheme which we abandoned when we moved from
Democracy & Nature
to the present
International Journal of Inclusive
Democracy. So, as from the
next volume 7, the Journal will be published in April,
August and December. Of course, pre-publications will be
used as in the past to cover important topical events
emerging in the period between issues.
The present issue is divided into four
main sections. The first section contrasts the rising social
unrest in Europe with an emerging kind of populist right
wing libertarianism in the USA. Thus, in Europe, as a result
of the brutal austerity measures implemented by the EU and
the IMF on the peripheral countries which have already
fallen prey to the ruling elites in Europe and their local
counterparts, social unrest in countries like Greece, Spain,
Italy and now Britain is rising fast and threatens the kind
of
“stability” imposed in Europe ―a stability which “by
coincidence” benefits the privileged social groups against
the lower strata in the effort to make the latter pay for
the
“mistakes” of the former. One important side effect of
this unrest is the emergence, in the context of the Spanish
general strike, of democratic forms of struggle like the
Barcelona assembly, described insightfully by the
significant contribution of the
Editorial Team of the Catalan I(nclusive) D(emocracy) Group.
At the same time, as
John Sargis
shows,
the discourse in the USA is dominated in contrast,
by right wing groups, conservative think tanks, tea party
organizations, corporate media, etc. who want to fashion
government by a privileged elite that will cut social
programs, continue financial deregulation
and the pursuit of military superiority
with the aim “to protect national interests,” namely, market
interests. As the author thoughtfully concludes, the real
dilemma for the American people is whether they will
continue supporting what passes as
“democracy” there, which
may well end up in a kind of US fascism, or, whether
instead, they will fight for
genuine firms of democracy, like those emerging in Europe at
the moment.
The second section hosts
Doug Lain’s
podcast
long interview with Takis Fotopoulos,
first posted a year ago, which covers a lot of ground on
many issues of particular interest to libertarian readers
(although not only!). Apologies to our readers that this
interview, for technical reasons, will not be published
immediately but will be published anyway within the next ten
days or so.
The third
section revisits the de-growth issue, which seems to attract
more and more activists of the reformist Left, particularly
in Europe, with a debate between
Ted Trainer,
the well known radical ecologist, and
Takis Fotopoulos.
The section starts with the latter’s examination of the
compatibility between the de-growth project and forms of
direct democracy like Inclusive Democracy and concludes that
not only de-growth is incompatible with a globalised market
economy, but it also gives the impression that it sees
democracy
as just a procedure, a good way of sorting out problems with
as much participation as possible, and not as a
politeia,
i.e., “a regime aspiring to social and
personal autonomy (to set your own rules)”. Then, Ted
Trainer painstakingly shows
why de-growth cannot be achieved unless
its goals are
greatly extended to include
nothing less than scrapping and replacement of the basic
elements in consumer-capitalist society, i.e. both the
market and the growth economy. Finally, Takis Fotopoulos, in
a general assessment of Ted’s The Simpler Way and de-growth
in contrast to Inclusive Democracy,
argues that it is historically, theoretically and
politically wrong to conclude, as Ted claims, that “the case
for radical political transition derives primarily from an
understanding of our ecological/sustainability problem”.
The final section consists of a very useful Q&A on economic
democracy, as part of an ID. This was based on a
questionnaire that was submitted in writing by the ATTAC
Academie Workshop (Madeburg, Germany, July, 2010). We hope
that it will provide significant food for thought,
particularly to all those raising questions on the
feasibility of an economic democracy.
Lastly, we would like to wish to all our subscribers and
readers a very creative New Year with the promise on our
behalf to continue and expand further our analytical work on
today’s reality.
The Editorial Committee
December 2010