In our
last publication,
we addressed some of the problems of the TPP. It endangers the planet,
threatens labor, violates human rights, and it globalizes free trade
into another form of neo-imperialism. This is further proof that the 1
percent, both in the United States and around the world, undermine
democratic self-determination in the economic and political realms. We
argue that free markets, as they manifest themselves today, destabilize
the world economy, while fair markets stabilize. Most importantly, the
global economy needs to move away from comparative advantage theory
towards fair competitive advantage. Although it works for the plutocracy
and its corporations, comparative advantage is outdated, and it spells
bad news for the rest of us. We argue for an economy, a global economy,
based on “common pool resource theory,” in which the economy is
understood as a natural resource to be protected just like the
environment. We borrow this idea from Elenor Ostrom. Indeed, it is time
to start thinking about the economy in the same way that we (ought to)
think about preserving the environment and protecting it accordingly.
What follows is the final part of our analysis of oligarchy.
Community of Meaning, Popular Justice
As a justifiable reaction to the problem of oligarchy in
organizations and liberal democratic institutions, some theorists and
activists have identified alternative political arrangements to liberal
democratic organizations and institutions. Such anarchist examples
include Chomsky’s recommendations of the Kibbutzim villages of Israel
and the worker-owned cooperatives of Spain’s Mondragon experiments.
Other anarchist examples are based on the New Social Movements (NSM)
school, which, for the most part, have become an activist alternative
means of self-governance through autonomous grass roots organizations
(see Alan Scott’s
Ideology and New Social Movements). Leading NSM
theorists include Alain Touraine, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Claus
Offe, Immanueal Wallerstein, Michel Foucalut, and Jurgen Habermas.
These proponents base their anarchist tendencies on identity, politics,
culture, and ideology, which for all intents and purposes has emerged in
the women’s movement, ecological and environmental movements, LGBTQ
rights, peace movement, and more.
Currently, anarchist NSM organizations have surfaced in the current
culture through what can be described as the “community of meaning” and
“popular justice.” The goal of these alternative methods of
self-governance is to bypass the rigid oligarchy of the state, and for
that matter, even nonprofit organizations that tend toward oligarchic
structures. As such, the community of meaning concept is based to a
large degree on the anarchist-environmentalist-feminist notion that
human relationships in society are primarily based upon a “conscience
collective,” that is, the fostering of diverse talents and skills within
a local setting (community, neighborhood, school, etc.). The strategy
enables persons to respond to various needs and cultivate unique talents
while striving to maintain sustainable development strategies and
promote “socio-economic justice.” The community of meaning can also be
understood within the context of Marxist anarchist tendencies in which
the state would eventually give way to self-governing communities with
the intention of fostering both individual and collective solidarity
“determined precisely by the connection of individuals, a connection
which consists partly in the economic prerequisites and partly in the
necessary solidarity of the development of all … on the basis of
existing productive forces” (see Marx and Engels,
The German Ideology).
Likewise, individuals within a particular community are united,
according to Durkheim, not so much by what they have in common, but
rather, by their very differences, interdependence, and “organic
solidarity.”
The community of meaning, as Hampson and Reddy assert, becomes an
indispensable condition for cooperation within society and is
subsequently grounded upon ensuring a sustainable planet based on the
fundamental human needs of local communities as the policy priority.
This approach necessarily commits local and global communities, as
Mittleman argues, to sustainable development strategies based upon
mutually interrelated human concerns. Thus, if sustainability is to have
priority in local policy initiatives at both the local and global
community levels, and if public or nonprofit organizations are unable to
meet this criteria, then anarchist communities of meaning must bypass
these institutions and promote local and global strategies favorable to
environmental and socio-economic justice based on sustainable
development goals. The guidelines for a community of meaning, act as a
strategy in which concerned people seek to address the causes of poverty
and simultaneously prevent, and even reverse, environmental
degradation. Moreover, the community of meaning, whether informal or
formal in nature, seeks to implement where possible, policies based on
what is known as “popular justice.” In fact, Engle Merry and Milner
argue that the anarchist combination of the community of meaning and
popular justice strategies “is part of a protest against the state and
its legal system by subordinate, disadvantaged, or marginalized groups.”
The notion of popular justice for Engle Merry, “is a process for
making decisions and compelling compliance to a set of rules that is
relatively informal in ritual and decorum, nonprofessional in language
and personnel, local in scope, and limited in jurisdiction.”
Theoretically, popular justice governs the community of meaning and
simultaneously attempts to apply local standards and rules, that is
commonsense forms of reasoning to human relationships rather than state
laws. Forums of popular justice, in its original conception, are
specifically intended to resolve disputes that involve small sums of
money, aspects of family life, and interpersonal injury short of murder.
Nevertheless, popular justice forums can act, in similar capacity, as a
model by which environmental and socioeconomic justice concerns can be
addressed as a form of binding arbitration. According to Engel Merry and
Milner, these forums thus create a venue for the less powerful members
of society, such as, “the urban poor, rural peasants, the working class,
minorities, women,” to voice their concerns. In contrast, elites
utilize formal legal institutions through the state, since those same
elites have co-opted those very institutions and can thus control those
institutions for their own ends.
In the past, popular justice has manifested itself in numerous
venues. One form of popular justice can be identified as “reformist.” In
the reformist tradition popular justice intends to develop adequate
procedures for the varied complexities the legal system facilitates; its
goal is to make the system work more efficiently, not to change its
fundamental principles. This is intended to increase popular
participation in the functions of a centralized judicial system.
Reformist approaches to popular justice usually appear in countries
based on the principles of liberal democracy and capitalist economies.
Failures in the judicial system are generally attributed to the burdens
on the legal system rather than to the underlying structures of
capitalism and its relationship to law and the state. On the other hand,
the socialist tradition of popular justice is derived from
Marxist-Leninist theories about the role of popular justice “tribunals”
to empower the masses to address violations of laws and rules. The role
of the tribunals is to also educate the masses in the creation of the
Marxist “new man” of the revolutionary socialist order. According to
Engle Merry, the masses are included when “socialist popular justice
promises to transform relations of power from the domination of the
bourgeoisie to that of the proletariat.” Yet popular justice in this
tradition tends to reinforce existing structures of power in the same
manner as that of the reformist. Both socialist and reformist approaches
promote a form of institutional justice closely connected to, and
controlled by, the state.
Another model of popular justice, based on violent uprisings in the
anarchic tradition, is one that is associated with mass revolt against
the state and the existing social order. While anarchic uprisings
certainly can be nonviolent, they nevertheless tend to be violent and
are derived from popular unrest due to perceived social injustices. As a
result of anarchic uprisings, the masses generally intend to terminate
their oppression and punish or reeducate their enemies. In this case the
masses do not rely on an abstract idea of justice, but on their own
experience and extent of the injuries they have suffered. However, this
type of popular justice in its violent form is usually “quelled by the
state or brought under control of local communities.”
The anarchic-environmentalist-feminist notion of popular justice
associated with the community of meaning, tends to be more closely
connected to, and controlled by, indigenous people and grassroots
movements. While this version of popular justice does not necessarily
rule out its use by elites, it nevertheless attempts to function outside
the state and institutional mechanisms. A withdrawal from society,
which is arguably too rigid, hierarchical and bureaucratic to serve the
needs of a popular majority, is one of the goals of popular justice. The
central understanding of this form of justice, according to Rifkin, is
“decentralization … replacing centralized bureaucracy with small, local
forums on a more humane scale.” In this sense community norms govern
people in a more humanistic and democratic manner while simultaneously
maintaining local autonomy.
Conclusion
As Weber observes, “How are freedom and democracy in the long run at
all possible under the domination of highly developed capitalism?” Some
would argue that the vast disparity of economic power and wealth that is
increasing in the United States, translates into greater inequality for
the poor and marginalized. The question remains pertinent today. As
this crisis deepens (the contradiction between the egalitarian
expectations of democracy and the rational utility of capital), the
state and its citizenry have the historical choice to address this
conflict. Here, Marcuse urges the human community to initiate “the
radical reconstruction of society … to find there the images and tones
which may break through the established universe of discourse and
preserve the future.” If organizations and their policy outcomes are to
have greater meaning and democratic accountability for the twenty-first
century, and if, in fact, it is worthwhile to understand how
organizations tend to serve elites within these very organizations, and
not the rank and file members that comprise it, then the primary goal of
a democratic society would be to strengthen their democratic
institutions and restructure the allocation of power away from elite
control. As such, anarchist principles of social justice point the way
for this restructuring and renewal of democratic institutions. The
strengthening of democratic institutions must therefore come from
outside these very institutions as a form of ongoing anarchist critique,
agitation, and even civil disobedience if needed. The continued
challenge for committed democrats is to be mindful that democratic
institutions act on behalf of an elite interest and,
ipso facto,
subvert democratic egalitarian self-determining groups. Hence,
providing resistance to the oligarchic nature of democratic institutions
in the United States and other democracies through anarchic justice is
vital to democracy and greater democratic participation. Anarchic
resistance to democratic institutions is, in essence, the lifeblood of
democracy.
Here is what we prescribe. We argue for anarchy as a form of
democratic governance. One way to engender this in the United States is
to move to a parliamentary system. Secondly, we argue for a Marxist form
of economics that prevents exploitation. Additionally, Ostrom’s “common
pool resource theory” is part of the solution. Finally, we argue, along
with C. Wright Mills’ thesis in his great work
The Power Elite,
that the state has been coopted by the rich, or the 1 percent, and that
the capitalist class uses the state at the expense of everyone else. In
our next series, we want to take a look at liberalism and address some
of the hidden aspects of social justice hidden therein, specifically
through John Locke and Adam Smith.
• Read Part One
here: Read Part Two
here; Read Part Three
here.
Edward Martin is Professor of Public Policy and
Administration, Graduate Center for Public Policy and Administration at
California State University, Long Beach, and co-author of Savage State:
Welfare Capitalism and Inequality;
Mateo Pimentel lives on the Mexican-US border, writing for many
alternative political newsletters and Web sites. He can be reached at:
mateo.pimentel@gmail.com.
Read other articles by Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel.
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