Democratic Confederalism

In this brochure Öcalan's political project, the Democratic Confederalism, is developed systematically. A fundamental criticism of the nation state is followed by a description of its possible alternative, a transnational grass-roots democracy. The texts that form this brochure have been compiled from Öcalan's recent, still untranslated books.

What Hacker News says

hnbadJul 2021

> All governments are aristocracies.

All states are. Not all systems of government are states.

> media manipulations of wide populous

The media is owned by the same "aristocracy" that controls the state.

In the US and other capitalist countries the aristocracy mostly consists of billionaires and a few political "clans" (usually with ties to "old money"). In the USSR the aristocracy was the Bolshevik intelligentsia and former capitalists that formed the bureaucracy. The problem isn't inherent to humanity, it's inherent to centralized systems.

The video you linked actually supports this somewhat: a ruler can't rule alone, they need a staff of advisors and delegates to carry out the ruler's orders. But this is only a problem if you try to have a ruler, or a committee of rulers.

The usual counter-argument is that decentralized systems don't work at scale. You can have small communities decide things with direct democracy but clearly that doesn't scale because it's harder to reach consensus the larger the group becomes. To address this I would invite you to read into Democratic Confederalism or watch Anark's aptly-titled video "after the revolution"[0] that explores a very similar anarchist/mutualist governance structure.

In most of these scenarios the answer to "direct democracy doesn't scale" is a delegate system and it's easy to mistake this for the same representative democracy we're used to but the important difference is that the delegation is not only proportional but voluntary and consent can be withdrawn, either generally or on individual votes. NonCompete's video[1] has some poorly aged off-hand comments about how technology might help with this but he gives a good explanation of how such a delegate system can work. CGP Grey actually also has videos on alternative voting systems[2][3] making such a system feasible.

The main difference with these systems is that they're decentralized in the sense that power is granted explicitly and voluntarily, i.e. it can be withdrawn at a moment's notice, making it impossible to hold on to it over technicalities (like receiving a minority share of the votes but then joining a coalition government that appoints your party leader as chancellor and then passes an Enabling Act to disempower the senate like in 1933). At first glance this may sound like sovereign citizens rejecting arrest by exclaiming "I do not consent" but the important difference is that a delegate's vote is only worth as much as the number of people backing them.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMoTWFZjoYA

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yuok9TQfpo

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

thread

plumaOct 2019

The problem with capitalism isn't money. The problem is a centralisation of power. If your only idea of an "alternative to capitalism" are nation states like the Soviet Union or China, you might have a massive blind spot.

Look up historical anarchist movements like the commune of Paris, or in more modern days the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (unlike what news coverage would have you believe, they're not just "Kurdish rebels"). Or if you want a quick read, check out their founding principles by reading Öçalan's brochure about Democratic Confederalism. Or for something less grandiose, just look into anarcho-syndicalism and workers' cooperatives.

It's not that alternative models haven't been tried yet, it's just that building egalitarian grassroots democratic structures within capitalist nation states is nearly impossible and even when you manage to do so, you now have to figure out how to interact with the rest of the world and prevent them from ending you.

Let's be realistic: the United Nations isn't exactly going to take interest in an autonomous territory that intentionally rejects nationhood. And if foreign powers (even the "socialist" nation states) have any political, economical or military interest in your territory, things are unlikely to end well for you.

thread

eli_gottliebDec 2018

Ongoing reads:

* Principles of Neural Design by Peter Sterling

* What Science Offers the Humanities by Edward Slingerland

* Category Theory for Programmers by Bartosz Milewski

* How Do You Feel? by Bud Craig

Completed reads:

* The Book of Why by Judea Pearl

* Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein Halevi

* The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse

* The Next Revolution by Murray Bookchin