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  • From: Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Libertarian Municipalism & Permaculture
  • Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 23:51:22 -0400

*Libertarian municipalism*
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian%20municipalism>:
------------------------------

*Libertarian municipalism* is a political program developed by libertarian
socialist <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialist> theorist
Murray
Bookchin <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Bookchin>, to create
democratic <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic> citizens' assemblies
in towns and urban neighborhoods. The assemblies in these free
municipalities join together to replace the state
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_%28polity%29> with a
directly-democratic confederation
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation>.

Bookchin became an advocate of face-to-face or assembly democracy in the
1950s, inspired by writings on the ancient Athenian polis by H. D. F. Kitto
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._D._F._Kitto> and Alfred Eckhard Zimmern
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Eckhard_Zimmern>. For the concept of
confederation, he was influenced by the nineteenth-century anarchist
thinkers. Bookchin tied libertarian municipalism to a utopian
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian> vision for decentralizing cities
into small, human scaled eco-communities, and to a concept of urban
revolution.

Libertarian municipalism uses the strategy of dual power
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_power> to create a situation in which
two powers—the municipal confederations and the nation-state
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation-state>—cannot coexist.

Bookchin's *The Rise of Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship* (1986)
is an overview of the historical conflict between city and nation-state,
which also presents his municipalist program. In Burlington, Vermont
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlington,_Vermont>, Bookchin attempted to
put these ideas into practice by working with the Northern Vermont Greens,
the Vermont Council for Democracy, and the Burlington Greens, retiring from
politics in 1990. His ideas are summarized succinctly in *Remaking Society*
(1989) and *The Murray Bookchin Reader* (1997).

While Bookchin long placed libertarian municipalism within the framework of
political Anarchism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism>, in the late
1990s he broke with anarchism and in his final essay, *The Communalist
Project* (2003), identified libertarian municipalism as the main component
of Communalism
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communalism_%28Political_Philosophy%29>.
Communalists believe that libertarian municipalism is both the means to
achieve a rational society and structure of that society.

Another program in which independent communities form a confederation
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation> was written by the Swiss
historian and philosopher Adolf Gasser
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Gasser>. His work led an alternative
proposal for a European community - the so-called *Council of European
Municipalities and Regions
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_European_Municipalities_and_Regions>*
- which was co-founded by Gasser in 1951. It still exists today, but has
limited power since the centralized European model became the European
organization with the real power.

------------------------------

Interesting: Murray Bookchin <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Bookchin>
| Direct democracy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy> |
Libertarianism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism> | Socialism
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism>

On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 11:40 PM, Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> That is wonderful, Bob. Thanks for the followup.
> It is not too late to adopt village democracy, bringing empowerment,
> clout, authority,
> semi-autonomy to citizens throughout the USA. First, communities need to
> devise ways for people without jobs to earn a living.
> Solution: public works projects, grow food on open public or
> loaned-corporate land; use vacant building to set up manufacturing with
> training for employees who
> will become owner/employees. Thousands of possibilities. A great starting
> point, substitute good water, nutritious food and exercise for alcohol,
> tobacco and drugs;
> live clean and free, never look back.
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 3:12 PM, Bob Waldrop <bob@bobwaldrop.net> wrote:
>
>> Neighborhood assemblies are one of the tactics advocated in my iPermie
>> book on urban permaculture for developing local systems.
>>
>> Here is the chapter on "Precinct Community Assemblies".
>>
>> http://www.ipermie.net/pca.pdf
>>
>> Bob Waldrop, Okie City
>>
>> On 10/23/2014 12:30 PM, Lawrence London wrote:
>>
>>> [Libertarian Municipalism & Permaculture: Could they co-exist in a
>>> synergistic relationship, mutually beneficial to one another?]
>>>
>>> Murray Bookchin and Libertarian municipalism
>>>
>>> I had heard of Murray Bookchin long ago but never knew what his work was
>>> about.
>>>
>>> This is why the years 1950 to 1980 are so incredibly important. Amazing
>>> thinking and how I never ran across this before is beyond me.
>>> We should be paying more attention to the Kurds, and the Yazidis too.
>>>
>>> Libertarian municipalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_municipalism
>>>
>>> Libertarian Municipalism: an ideology adopted by the Kurds currently
>>> fighting ISIS: "The overriding problem is to change the structure of
>>> society so that people gain power. The best arena to do that is the
>>> municipality (village) where we have an opportunity to create a
>>> face-to-face democracy." (en.wikipedia.org)
>>> http://www.reddit.com/r/Green
>>>
>>>
>> --
>> http://www.ipermie.net How to permaculture your urban lifestyle and
>> adapt to the realities of peak oil, economic irrationality, political
>> criminality, and peak oil.
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Lawrence F. London
> lfljvenaura@gmail.com
> http://www.avantgeared.com
> https://plus.google.com/+Avantgeared
> Ello: https://ello.co/ecoponderosa <https://ello.co/ecoponderosa>
> Twitter: @ecoponderosa <https://twitter.com/ecoponderosa>
> Reddit: ecoponderosa
> Cellphone: lfljcell@gmail.com
>



--
Lawrence F. London
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
http://www.avantgeared.com
https://plus.google.com/+Avantgeared
Ello: https://ello.co/ecoponderosa <https://ello.co/ecoponderosa>
Twitter: @ecoponderosa <https://twitter.com/ecoponderosa>
Reddit: ecoponderosa
Cellphone: lfljcell@gmail.com




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