2005-03-02

Why We Need a new CCF For the Americas


I hope I speak for most of us that participate together at ECODEMA when I say that we favour a generally non-statist and decentralized approach for empowering workers, families and communities politically, socially and economically through building a solidaristic social economy. Families and communities throughout the Americas deserve the opportunity to participatively and democratically design an economy of the people, by the people and for the people.

In the coming years activists for economic democracy, whether social democratic, christian democratic, anarchist, socialist, progressive or populist should avail themselves of opportunities to work together in order to support, sustain, and challenge the social movement for economic democracy emerging throughout the Americas.

We need to work together...no matter which nation-state we happen to reside. In this particular phase of globalization it is important that Economic Democracy grows throughout the Americas. The greatest opportunity of which I am aware to build a solid base for such the development of a cooperative commonwealth in which the principles of economic democracy are made operative is to be found among the NAFTA partners....Mexico, Canada and USAmerica. To that end, perhaps we can conceptualize a cross-border political caucus to operate within certain hospitable political parties throughout North America, perhaps starting with the NDP, various social democratic parties in Quebec, select state Democratic parties, particularly when found in open primary states. Mexico presents its own opportunities for such a caucus as well, within both PRI and PRD, Democratic Convergence and the fledgling presidential campaign of Jorge Castaneda.

I'm hoping that within the next couple of years the starting-to-be-planned Montreal conference on Economic Democracy will result a new manifesto and I'm hoping this "Montreal Manifesto" us build a new political movement. I'm dreaming of a new CCF...one that has outgrown fabianism and economic nationalism and is capable of bearing off the great cause of Economic Democracy.

Anybody dreaming with me?




Blog (main) / Blogue principal | Alan Avans



COMMENTAIRES

This is it exactly, Alan. Everyone, whatever their politics, who is in favor of economic democracy ought to band together and promote these views. Even though I am an anarchist, I would be very happy if parties like the NDP or Greens were to pick up on these ideas. Let's spread economic democracy far and wide!

Par Larry Gambone le 2005-03-02 12:14

Well said, Alan. For North America, two things that I would like to see are: a common currency; and, free mobility of labour and capital; subject to a common constitution.

Par Mike le 2005-03-02 18:18

Thanks for posting Alan. I'm happy to have opened up a possibility for you to publish directly. Already, I can feel that this website can take a life of its own, beyond myself.

Also, to answer to Mike, I think that we must aim at democratic continental institutions before talking of complete freedom of mobility and capital. Speaking for myself, I hope for a political and social integration and coordination in the Americas. That doesn't meen I'm a free-trader. I'm a fair trader.

Par Pierre Ducasse le 2005-03-02 18:59

Thank you all for your kind comments.

I'm very much in agreement with Pierre's point that there needs to be "political and social integration and coordination in the Americas" Perhaps this coordination could be the result of a social movement that manifests itself both as an international political caucus and as social base for building a cooperative economy. The presense of such a social movement would make such integration and coordinaton feasible.

Assuming that such a social movement existed, I think Mike's perspective has a lot of merit, especially concerning the mobility of capital and labor....and especially if regional economies have strong regional institutions governing pools of capital and incubating new enterprises. I'm not so sure about a common currency just yet. Currencies provide strong feedback to an economy, and that feedback operates best when it reflects the actual production and trade situation of an actual economy. There is no such thing as a Canadian economy, a USAmerican economy or a Mexican economy...the means of measuring such national economies produce aggregated data that ought to be disaggregated to the sphere in which economies actually exist...and that is in cities and the regions round about them.

That being said, a common currency would have much more utility if the means of creating money were not based solely on the generation of debt securities. One of the dimensions of economic democracy that could stand to be much more developed is that of monetary policy.

One of the great opportunities that I think we have before us to to amend NAFTA....to give it something that it presently lacks: an economic bill of rights for actual people. As it stands now only the rights of corporations and investors are truly protected.

Par Alan Avans le 2005-03-03 13:22

The common currency can guarantee stability in integratyed economies. Of course, there are problems with the lack of control over regional monetary polic; it's just a thought, subject to criticism and development.


Key, though, is the mobility of labour, this will promote balance of liviing standards among nations who are included in a common economy.

Though, I must admit that Piere's and Alan's main points have a strong amount of validity: any systemic visions must begin first with a common group of representatives who etch out and negotiate the terms of international cooperation.

Par Mike le 2005-03-03 16:38



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