Our thanks to the author, Jesse Benn, for this this contribution.
1. Surrounding the idea of improving humanity’s relationships, with itself, and in the interaction of the human environment with the natural world, is the prospect of transcending the illusion of separation and hierarchical control through direct local community appropriation, across the planet, in the management of existing economic and political potentiality.
The actualization of this process would necessarily usher in a new stage of civilization and rewrite the fundamental structure of the nation-state as it currently exists. The decision, in order to carry the spirit of its intention, is that of the population itself to make and implement, at its discretion, with careful deliberation and clear understanding of the issues involved and the underlying reasons for the substantive actions to be undertaken.
Ecological, agricultural, infrastructural, and manufactural stability can be thus accomplished at the municipal level through the direct decision-making of the local citizenry, which having reconstituted and confederated the system of regional and national alliance could formulate policy at the grass-roots level which would then be administered by recallable deputies of the elective assemblies.
2. Economic categorization of industrial and agricultural totality would reveal the potential points of replication of regional production and alternative reliance on renewable resources and non-hazardous production, current levels of waste, and trajectories of transitional, remaining, innovational, and sustainable resource allocation surrounding and resulting from each area and population demographic.
This information, intelligibly presented to society, would enable the working class to confront the corporate, governmental, and financial institutions which currently make decisions on their behalf without the integral sovereignty of popular consent.
Our entire system of law and social and private property distinctions will then, perhaps, be rewritten from a higher ethical standard of egalitarianism, environmental responsibilities, and universal human rights.
3. The municipal assembly need necessarily be among the largest structures in each district and periphery, allowing room for the simultaneous convention of proportional delegations from each of the subsidiary organizations and collectives, if not also or otherwise reconstituted according to and from equivalent areas and neighboring population districts, and it should be non-hierarchical and non-authoritarian from the foundations of its organization and activity, enabling the people to address the public consciousness, origin, and impact of the idea without any institutional prejudice or bias towards any predetermined judgement or opinion of ethical, cultural, or ideological considerations and contingent and affective economic and socio-political effectuality which should necessarily result and derive from our existing freedom of awareness and expression.
4. The municipalization of labor would necessitate a mechanism for the determination of the quantity and dispersement of necessary services and productive requisitioning. Application for entrance into each industry and the quality of labor required could likewise be effectively determined from administrative observation and evaluation of societal reactivity.
To the extent that a community could, given adequate resources, provide, through its labors, the means of its own susbsistence and yet require the additional services of society – this being so far as the land itself could be set aside for the restricted use of any specific group of persons, and with consideration to the provisionment of adolescent, immigrant, unemployed, elderly, and disabled individuals -, there is necessarily a capacity for the contribution to the greater good proportional to the utilization and reliance of the needs thereof acquired.
It is in this regard, and with respect to the cultural potentiality of the diversification of activity, that farm or agricultural labors, while at once intensified in measure and decentralized for purposes of regional autonomy and ecological methodologies, are balanced among the industrial and procedural functions which interconnect civilization throughamongst the established periphery of its environmental habitation and protectorate of conservational domain.
The decision of which crops to grow, which technologies to produce, the form of infrastructure and allocation of services, programmatically define thus the gains which society believes itself capable of acquiring over each period of economic consortation and effectuated distribution.
5. Each neighborhood assembly, having convened over the issues addressed by the community, would appoint individuals to present the report of their ideas at the municipal assembly, which, viewed amongst the general public, would then return to the neighborhood assembly for final approval of general terms from all corresponding perimeters of municipal jurisdiction and authority, a process inclusive of and redundant with the deliberation of confederal and international appointments and corroboration amongst the autonomous centers of inter-municipal, communitarian, and geographical habitation and existence.
6. Municipalities within an established national or intra-regional currency, having stabilized the per capita value amongst themselves separately – in conformance with the principles of direct democracy and to avoid the instantaneous necessity of a national referendum and the mechanism of state control – could average these figures multilaterally in order to avoid any over-balance among each area or unit of the municipal confederation, enabling the economy as a whole to transition to a mutualistic system without the collapse or dismemberment of monetary rationality.
7. Having formulated the level of spending required from local, state, and national levels, including the sum required for the balance of distribution, the remaining sum divided equally among the people would then determine the level of resource utilization and control which each individual would independently possess.
8. The quantity of labor, property, and productive materials and equipment, averaged from the total productive requirements and obligations of society, and with respect to the proportional redistribution of societal resources and the given rates of each imbursement, could represent a standard interval or quota of minimum and maximum remunerable effort and profitable use and application, affected according to periodic and annual calculations and adjustments of reallocations, reimbursements, and expense, towards and unto which the election of activity of the individual is determined and evaluated from, withof, and in accordance with the mechanisms of administrative compensation and compliance.
9. In the issue of territorial representation, inhabitants of the smaller states need coidentify and consolidate themselves with sufficient neighboring vicinities in order to consubstantiate a region equivalent with the largest partitioning and perimeter of equal standing in the hierarchical stratification of proximity.
Conversely and concurrently, the larger areas could divide and repartition into areas approximate with the mean or average of those areas involved – the emphasis is, of course, on there being some sort of balance attained among the physical and political groupings of geographical and populational dimensions and requirements, bearing in mind that, in the interim, coalitions, cultural heritage, and mutual support, including the established and further consideration of areas of common and collective jurisdiction and concern, should be capable of reconciling the vast majority of differences in the equity and endowment of each perimeter.
Power is therefore correlated among state capitol and municipal infrastructures of varying population densities and intervening forms and qualities of terrain directed towards the causes of regional unity and inter-regional approximation and trans-harmonization of national unity and international relations.
10. In a world of equivalent allowances, no one would require more than that which the system has produced, enabling the inventory to circulate freely towards all publically sanctioned destinations and recipients of its use, the fulfillment and determination of each one’s calculated duty necessary for the actualization and determination of each one’s equal status in society, choice determining the array of substitutes made available in equivalent proportion with the social instrumentality of their production and development.
Until society has attained this level of organization and trust withof itself monetary representation and expenditure – co-extensive with the barter, charitable, and gift economies, these being what they may – shall constitute the verification, measurement, and enforcement of societal compliance, reflecting, or as not, the equitable social and personal responsibilities involved in the accumulative occurrence and transferrence of general service and acquisitions.
The value of products and materials exchanged directly or indirectly among domains could, correspondingly, be negotiated for the balance and priorities of each established cycle and methodology of trade and distribution, locating and investing the existence and proportion of production facilities according to sustainable parameters and regional contributions and requirements, in order to thus affirm the vital integrity of the mutualistic practice in the harmonization of human lives, species diversity, and ecological resources.
11. Each community and nation, formulating its respective needs and capabilities, convening together in conference form, will therefore determine the method of implementation for the sharing and transfer of developmental possibilities and requirements, unto the balance and innovation of resources and technologies from every region of planetary creativity and transformative orientation and alignment.
12. The natural and technological productivity and accrual, sovereign control, and resulting capacity for consumption should ultimately be distributed equally among units of equivalent reflective population densities, intersectors, and rates of distance processing transference.
13. The centers of local, municipal, and confederal governance need not necessarily result from any one location or building at all times and on every occasion, and could therefore occur among the provinces in the form of sequential and interlinking summits.
The decisional authority of the people could thereby retain the equilibrium to counter-act and oppose the established forces of government and bureaucratic administration.
……………………………
These points are abstracted from a previous effort to visualize and articulate the practical implementation of the libertarian potential. I make no claims of validity or of being anywhere near to the end of analysis; I merely wish to extend the opportunity to have refuted or further developed the conceptual foundations of which these ideas consist.
Jesse, first of all, thank you very much for this thoughtful, articulate proposal. I enjoyed reading it very much. I hope you will take my initial comments in the spirit of constructive critique, dialogue, and solidarity.
1. With respect, your writing style is not as accessible as it could be. You seem to recognize the importance of accessibility in points #1 and #2 calling for “…clear understanding of the issues involved and the underlying reasons for the substantive actions to be undertaken” and “… information, intelligibly presented to society, would enable the working class to confront the corporate, governmental, and financial institutions which currently make decisions on their behalf without the integral sovereignty of popular consent.”
If proposals such as yours are not accessible to, using your own example, the “working class” then there is a contradiction.
2. Your piece contains several apparent contradictions such as your apparent endorsement of “universal human rights” (#2) alongside your call for assemblies which are “non-hierarchical and non-authoritarian from the foundations of its organization and activity, enabling the people to address the public consciousness, origin, and impact of the idea without any institutional prejudice or bias towards any predetermined judgement or opinion of ethical, cultural, or ideological considerations and contingent and affective economic and socio-political effectuality which should necessarily result and derive from our existing freedom of awareness and expression.”
The notion of “rights,” especially “human rights” and “universal human rights” itself represents a “prejudice or bias towards a predetermined judgement or opinion of ethical, cultural, or ideological considerations.” “Human rights” and attempts to universalize any political-ethical regime necessarily involve a bias counter to non-hierarchical orientations and respect for, for example, cultural considerations.
You also reproduce the language of “nation” “national” “international” etc. alongside a call for a re-consideration of the nation-state in ways that, for me, demand further explanation.
3. “…new stage of civilization…”
Please define what you mean by “civilization.”
4. …it is in this regard, and with respect to the cultural potentiality of the diversification of activity, that farm or agricultural labors, while at once intensified in measure and decentralized for purposes of regional autonomy and ecological methodologies, are balanced among the industrial and procedural functions which interconnect civilization throughamongst the established periphery of its environmental habitation and protectorate of conservational domain.
The decision of which crops to grow, which technologies to produce, the form of infrastructure and allocation of services, programmatically define thus the gains which society believes itself capable of acquiring over each period of economic consortation and effectuated distribution.
So, if decisions on “which grops to grow, which technologies to produce…” is necessarily mediated through a global confederation of assemblies, how will the tension between resources scarcities (soil, etc.), local control, transportation costs, et. be resolved?
5. re: #6, please explain what you mean by “collapse or dismemberment of monetary rationality.”
6. re: your (apparent) calls for “coidentification” and “consolidation”, etc. in order to create/maintain appropriate population densities, appears to me as fraught with the potentiality for the marginalization of minorities. How do counter-balance this?
I’m wondering if you are familiar with Peter Staudenmaier’s debate with Michael Albert (http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/zdebatealbertvsstaud.htm)?
Finally, I’m generally very suspicious of any attempts to establish a universalistic global blueprint for social/political/economic organization. For me, the specificities of time/place/culture, etc. demand a more nuanced, emergent, and otherwise “mixed” envisioning that addresses questions of disagreement, diversity, solidarity, affinity, etc.
Karl,
With regard to my writing style, I believe I have adapted a style which enables me to make the numerous logical modifications necessary to depict complex phenomena and relationships in the form of condensed visible paragraphs, or logical sign-posts, which can easily be referenced and compared. I do not think anyone should have any particular difficulty in understanding the forms of information to which I refer, and it is the IDEA of these forms which I have intended to make accessible, to my mind, and to that of any potential readership or audience.
The notion of universal rights excludes prejudiciality in that they apply to everyone equally. These are not being imposed on anyone, and their enforcement would most certainly be universally welcomed among those who are being denied these rights in their daily living or according to the formal structure of their society.
The organization around the municipality is intended to create a sphere in which equality can be actualized and extended to and among the broader reaches of society. The implications of this process are that which the items included in this article were intended to specifically address. We cannot force the choice of freedom on ourselves or any other society, although there must be specific forms of freedom for us to inhabit if there is to be any alternative to or improvement over that which the status quo presents.
Hi Jesse,
I enjoy your contributions and I think it’s OK to write in a complex way when circumstances demand it. However, sometimes excessive complexity can conceal important but unadressed theoretical questions. In complicated prose, it is often unclear who is doing what. I noticed this as a minor issue in your writing.
For example, in your first sentence, you write: “Surrounding the idea of improving humanity’s relationships, with itself, and in the interaction of the human environment with the natural world, is the prospect of transcending the illusion of separation and hierarchical control through direct local community appropriation, across the planet, in the management of existing economic and political potentiality.”
You use the passive voice and thus it is unclear who the subject is here. Who, exactly, makes these connections (other than you)? Certainly not everyone. Who are you referring to here?
Likewise, in your comment, you write: “The organization around the municipality is intended to create a sphere in which equality can be actualized and extended to and among the broader reaches of society.”
You use the passive voice again and, as a result, the subject is ambiguous. Who intends the municipality “to create a sphere in which equality can be actualized and extended to and among the broader reaches of society”? Who specifically (other than you)?
I really do enjoy your contributions and I hope you don’t think that I’m nitpicking. I just think that getting a little clearer about who is doing what exactly will give your writing a helpful dose of concreteness.
Chuck,
In both cases to which you refer, the subject is the conceptual operation within the mind and the object the theoretical correlations which are attendent to this process. Anyone theoretically coinvolved in this action, by entering into the frame of thought, is therefore coextensive with the mind involved in the analysis and observation of the causality and relation of accessory events.
I do not think that it is necessary, or perhaps even possible, to be “more clear” in the wording of these particular type of statements. The difficulty, I feel, is not the form of the idea, but rather the complexity of the issues themselves, which need be presented in a way which enables their simultaneous and progressive consideration and analysis.
Hi Jesse,
The problem is that other minds see things differently–I know this for a fact–and that undermines your claim to speak for “the mind” as such. Of course, you can speak for *your* mind, or maybe some other very specific minds, but I think “the mind” as such is too broad.
Chuck,
I made no claim to be speaking as “the mind”, exclusively, per se – I was merely explaining that the subject was a concept and the action the modification and extension of this concept.
Different people see things differently – yes; and I may only presume that different audiences or individuals will choose to understand this article differently and hopefully preceive the actual nature of the liberatory struggle which is the nuanced problem of societal reorganization with which I am attempting deliberately to contend.
@ Jesse
I have spent some time ‘unpacking’ your article. What do you think?
I this what you meant? It is what I understand.
Municipal Economy
Across the nation, there will be a network of assemblies [neighborhood, municipal, state] deciding how to share resources and technologies, and distributing the benefits of production and consumption equally amongst the people. The municipal assembly must be directly accessible to the citizens, and not limited by hierarchy nor autocrats. In the municipality, there would be neighborhood assemblies which would send delegates to the municipal assemblies to report, and report back to their neighborhoods. And the municipal assemblies would send delegates to the Capitol Assembly. Each Municipal assembly, rural and urban, should include the same number of citizens. The city must not dominate the country! The State Capitol will reflect the variations in each of the municipal assemblies. The State Capitol Assembly could meet in different locations across the State so as to bring to bear the local differences and demands on the legislation.
Direct community action by the citizens of the municipality is the best way to improve the relations between man and nature.
At the municipal level, information about renewable and sustainable resources would allow locals to confront government and demand a more ecological approach.
The citizens of the municipality with equal needs and equal services should be of equal status and equal wages. Materials and products should conserve the biosphere not destroy it. Municipal assemblies would decide the budgets, and allocate resources to each citizen according to their needs and obligations. In the municipality, necessary services, such as provision for the elderly, the disabled, the unemployed, the young, the migrants, would be funded by the community and supervised by the administration. Agriculture and industry would be subsistent, protecting the environment.
If so, then here are some questions:
How would the assemblies be organized?
How often would they meet?
The citizens in the cities would not have to travel so far, while in the rural areas there would be longer journeys to assemblies. How could you make sure that citizens attended the assemblies rather than opting out?
What criteria would be used to select the delegates ? How could you avoid ‘elitism’? in the face of opting out?
How would one stop corruption?
How would you control the individuals and groups with the ‘will to power’?
What decisions would be made at the different levels?
How would one stop shootings in the assemblies?
How would you reconcile differences in votes and decisions between Capitol and municipal assemblies?
How could one guarantee protection of the environment?
Hey Jesse,
Well, honestly, I’m not sure if you’re any more entitled to speak for “the concept” than “the mind.”
For example, you write: “Surrounding the idea of improving humanity’s relationships, with itself, and in the interaction of the human environment with the natural world, is the prospect of transcending the illusion of separation and hierarchical control through direct local community appropriation, across the planet, in the management of existing economic and political potentiality.”
. . . according to whom? You mention “humanity’s relationship with the itself” and “interaction with the natural world” and that basically encompasses everything.
And the problem is that not everyone believes that everything leads to the “prospect of transcending the illusion of separation and hierarchical control through direct local community.”
Of course, you can assert that it does, but an assertion is not an argument and doesn’t prove anything. It’s just a claim.
For example, someone could also assert that “humanity’s relationship with itself” and “interaction with the natural world” leads to racial hierarchies and monarchies. That assertion would be just as valid as yours insofar as it is also just an allegation.
Do you see what I’m getting at?
Chuck,
Your general skepticism towards my phraseology and content of these ideas is noted. These are differences of perspective which may never have occurred to me from within my own fixed conceptions. There are certainly other ideas, other opinions, of which, for most, there can be no ultimate proof, no matter how persuasive or prolonged one’s argumentation may be towards the matter.
At this point, I am more interested in what your ideas may be towards the resolution of the innate problems of human and environmental action, however they may align or disjunct with the theoretical possibilities which I have suggested and outlined in this greatly abridged abstraction of my collected personal observations.
J.Kelvyn,
First, thank you for taking the time to summarize your understanding of the basic structure of my contention. If you are familiar with the archives of the ISE (Murray Bookchin, et al) in their existing form, you will have recognized to what extent I may have replicated their efforts and approach, and to what extent and in which direction I have attempted to further substantiate the concrete possibilities of this pathway of social evolution and development.
There are numerous other questions and considerations, which this, or any other program of action, might evoke, some of which I, myself, have considered elsewhere, many of which I have not, with the majority of which requiring the collective decision-making of the groups involved, to which I am not at liberty and far lack the capacity to formulate from my much limited individual perspective.
I hope we shall each have the opportunity, here and elsewhere in these discussions, to grapple with and develop that course of action which would reconcile the furthest extent of our individual ideological requirements and proclivities, so that all may contribute towards and experience a world of ever-increasing harmony and endurance.
Jesse, it’s hard for me know whether I agree or disagree with your essay because its so abstract and schematic. At a certain level of generality, anything is true. Or not true.
It would make it a lot easier for me to engage your ideas if you offered some definitions.
For example, take the “municipality.” How do you define it? Is Plainfield a municipality, even though it’s teeny. Or Mexico City, even though it’s home to something like twenty-five million people? Or how about the cities that are being tossed up in China, even though many are still vacant? How about Vatican City, even though it’s also a state? There are so many possibilities.
How do you define a municipality?
Chuck,
Either we should control the economy, and the balance of resources, through direct municipal democracies, which should strive for equality within and among themselves, or permit corporate control, inequity of wealth, and authoritarian forms of state control to continue – this is a fairly specific contention, about which there may be difficulty in formulating one’s opinion, but not in regards to discerning the basic premise about which to evaluate the basic structure of one’s judgement or response.
The municipality itself is an arbitrary unit, of varying size, of pre-existing and determined jurisdiction and authority, which, collectively, under various terminologies, were formed from and encorporated into mutual territories, states, and nations according to the migration and settlement of peoples and political evolution of civilizations, continents, and cultures. This itself is a fairly generic and easily recognizable defintion.
In terms of reconciling the area, population, and level of political authority possessed by and accorded to each unit so existing or otherwise reconstrued, I have offered the beginning of what I consider to be the logical solution in points 9 and 12 of this article, within which we are entering areas of admittedly abstruse ontological totality, about which our ability to compromise and form and negotiate principles of ethical consideration will continue to influence the course and trajectory of which the organization of society thus consists.