page_title: Libertarian socialism
section_title: Participism
hierarchical_section_title: Libertarian socialism / Notable tendencies / Other / Participism
caption_attribution_description: English: Publisher and author Michael Albert speaking at New York's annual Left Forum, 2007.
context_page_description: Libertarian socialism, also referred to as anarcho-socialism, anarchist socialism, free socialism, stateless socialism, socialist anarchism and socialist libertarianism, is an anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarian political philosophy within the socialist movement which rejects the state socialist conception of socialism as a statist form where the state retains centralized control of the economy. Overlapping with anarchism and libertarianism, it criticizes wage slavery relationships within the workplace, emphasizing workers' self-management and decentralized structures of political organization. As a broad socialist tradition and movement, libertarian socialism includes anarchist, Marxist and anarchist or Marxist-inspired as well as other left-libertarian tendencies. Anarchism and libertarian Marxism are the main currents of libertarian socialism.
  Libertarian socialism often rejects the state and asserts that a society based on freedom and justice can only be achieved with the abolition of authoritarian institutions that control certain means of production and subordinate the majority to an owning class or political and economic elite.
context_section_description: Participism is a 21st century form of libertarian socialism. It comprises two related economic and political systems called participatory economics or "parecon" and participatory politics or "parpolity".
  Parecon is an economic system proposed primarily by activist and political theorist Michael Albert and radical economist Robin Hahnel, among others. It uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the production, consumption and allocation of resources in a given society. Proposed as an alternative to contemporary capitalist market economies and also an alternative to centrally planned socialism or coordinatorism, it is described as "an anarchistic economic vision" and it could be considered a form of socialism as under parecon the means of production are owned by the workers. It proposes to attain these ends mainly through the following principles and institutions: workers' and consumers' councils utilizing self-managerial methods for decision making, balanced job complexes, remuneration according to effort and sacrifice and participatory planning. Under parecon, the current monetary system would be replaced with a system of non-transferable "credit" which would cease to exist upon purchase of a commodity.
  Parpolity is a theoretical political system proposed by Stephen R. Shalom. It was developed as a political vision to accompany parecon. Participism as a whole is critical of aspects of modern representative democracies and capitalism arguing that the level of political control by the people is not sufficient. To address this problem, parpolity suggests a system of "Nested Councils", which would include every adult member of a given society. Under participism, the state as such would dissolve into a mere coordinating body made up of delegates which would be recallable at any time by the nested council below them.
caption: Michael Albert
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