Radical democracy

Author: Douglas Kellner
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2002-10-01
Features: This book aims to reconstruct the concept of democracy, making it once again beneficial to the people and the anti-capitalist movement on the left. The author argues that liberalism often equates democracy with the existing political systems of Western developed capitalist countries, whereas the latter are often anti-democratic in many areas. The author summarizes the experiences of new social movements since the 1970s, such as the U.S. anti-Vietnam War movement, the Philippine anti-Marcos movement, and the Zapatista autonomous movement in Mexico. He advocates forming face-to-face small groups for various purposes—political, cultural, and economic—to rally around universal values and strive for direct democracy and autonomy in communities, workplaces, and indigenous movements in the Third World, thereby strengthening civil society, establishing free spaces, and gradually leading to the demise of capitalist states. This approach can replace the institutional arrangements of capitalist representative democracy and the authoritarian organizational methods of traditional left-wing movements. The author believes that such a reconstruction of democracy can help the left realize that capitalism is not the end of history and can rekindle its goals and appeal. In this way, democracy will once again stand with the people, serving their interests—this is what radical democracy entails.