Tag Archives: Bookchin

Yavor Tarinski: “City, Municipality, Commons: Rebel Cities in the Neoliberal Age”

“Concepts like libertarian municipalism, which are essentially direct-democratic, could be of great use in our efforts at regaining our right to the city. I.e. notions that are rooted in the historic clash over power between the municipality and the nation state. Unlike statecraft, predisposed to bureaucratic centralization and hierarchy, cities tend to empower local populaces, creating citizens, actively involved in public affairs.”

Debbie Bookchin: “Radical Municipalism: The Future we Deserve”

“Only a global confederation of rebel cities can lead us out of the death-spiral of neoliberalism towards a new rational society that delivers on the promise of humankind. … At the same time, though often overlooked by the left, there is a rich history of direct democracy, of radical politics and self-government by citizens: from ancient Athens to the Paris Commune to the anarchist collectives of Spain in 1936, to Chiapas, Mexico, to Barcelona and other Spanish cities and towns in recent years — and now to Rojava, in northern Syria, where the Kurdish people have implemented a profoundly democratic project of self-rule unlike anything ever seen in the Middle East.”