What is the “Real Democracy’ of early 21st century humanity’s common aspiration?
This site’s Vital Conversations are aimed at building a ‘movement of movements’ based upon the broad platform of ‘Global Solidarity for Local Self Determination’ – a ‘movement of movement’ by which humanity might realize the sustainable and genuinely democratic world of common aspiration.
Here our task is to clarify – to establish clear agreement – upon our goal, where we want to head – that is, the basic type of global socio-politico-economic system that we wish to establish.
The Earth Holocracy Proposal’s six-volumes compile the voices of social movements worldwide in order to make explicit the overwhelming consensus view that calls for the creation of a new form of democracy – one that is decentralized and participatory.
Here we present some of these voices:
World Protests
“There have been periods in history when large numbers of people rebelled about the way things were, demanding change, such as in 1848, 1917 or 1968; today we are experiencing another period of rising outrage and discontent, and some of the largest protests in world history. … The overwhelming demand is not for economic justice per se, but for what prevents economic issues from being addressed: a lack of real democracy – [now generally] understood as the call for a society and a world in which people are able to participate in decisions affecting their daily lives, and in which both the benefits and principles of democracy – eg. freedom, equality/justice and solidarity – are experienced in daily life…”
Isabel Ortiz, Sara Burke, Mohamed Berrada and Hernán Cortés, 2013, World Protests 2006-2013,
Executive Summary
The Spanish Real Democracy Movement’s Charter for Democracy
“This Charter advocates a form of democracy capable of returning decision-making power concerning the fundamental aspects of life back to the population. A democracy based on participation in social and political life, one which enables joint decisions on how we want to live. It is, therefore, a wager on a new political agreement built in an open way and with the active participation of citizens. A new agreement based on the recognition of society’s capacity to organize, create institutions, and self-govern.”
Movimiento por la Democracia [Spanish Movement for Democracy] 5 February 2014, English edition 26 June 2014, A Charter for Democracy
The International Trade Union Confederation
“We’ve got to build workers’ power that becomes then the basis of democratic authority… … organizing industrially and politically in terms of community values and community ambitions to redress the imbalance of power of unelected folk.”
Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, quoted in ‘Time to challenge the gospel of austerity’, by Mark Phillip, reporting for Working Life
“Society has to own and democratically control the financial system – develop[ing] a participative and active democracy at community, national, regional and global level.
Social Movements for an Alternative Asia
“The rule of the market and capital has to be replaced by the rule of the people’s voice.
“There is no possibility to fix the capitalist system to serve humanity and nature… The real challenge is not only to eliminate poverty but, more importantly, to eliminate the concentration of wealth and power and achieve economic and social justice based on rights.
“Local democracy needs to be complemented with global democracy.”
Social Movements for an Alternative Asia (SMAA), 13 April, 2014, Economy for Life in our Earth Community
Establishing a Common Vision
The objective of this Vital Conversation is for participants – advocates of real democracy and representatives of authentic grassroots movements and organizations – to agree upon a common vision, to collaboratively articulate and collectively endorse a singular expression of the type of politico-economic system we seek to establish. As with all this site’s Vital Conversations, we do not begin here ‘from scratch’, but by drawing upon that which is already meaningfully compiled within the various volumes of the Earth Holocracy Proposal.
Discussion Papers with which to initiate this Vital Conversation:
Volume Three: People’s Assemblies and the era of Direct Democracy
The Time for Real Global Democracy is Now
Please see also the ‘case study’ of the Catalan People’s Independence Movement – a study which corroborates the view that it is virtually impossible to achieve the genuinely democratic system of popular aspiration by working within the current system of neoliberal globalization:
Independence Movements, all Peoples Right of Self Determination and the Case of Catalonia
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