PluralistCommonwealth.org

Together with my colleagues at the Democracy Collaborative, we have assembled what we hope will be a useful resource for activists, scholars, and policy makers trying to come to terms with the system problem: If we know the system is broken, and we want to move beyond both corporate capitalism and state socialism—how do we clarify the nature of a serious alternative?

Over the last decades, I have tried to sketch an answer—or at least a serious point of departure for defining and refining an answer.  The Pluralist Commonwealth is a system anchored in the reconstruction of communities and the democratization of wealth.  It involves plural forms of cooperative and common ownership, and, following the principle of subsidiarity, begins with decentralization and then moves to higher levels of regional and national coordination, but only when necessary. I invite you to visit the new site now; or keep reading to learn more about what you’ll find there.

The site begins with an overview of a few key texts drawn from some four decades of work which present the underlying principles of the model and explain its evolution.

Outlining the major elements of the model alongside relevant texts and excerpts, the site then explains how the Pluralist Commonwealth addresses:

• Democratized ownership forms
• Local democracy, community culture, and the non-sexist city
• Scale and regionalism
• Climate change, growth, and the environment
• Liberty and reduced work hours
• Both planning and markets

Finally, a historical section attempts to put the Pluralist Commonwealth model in context; explaining how struggles against war, poverty, and deindustrialization helped shape the development of this systemic alternative vision.

We intend the site to function as an ongoing, actively growing archive of material related to the Pluralist Commonwealth and related aspects of systemic change. Please visit the site today, share it with friends and colleagues, and let us know if there’s anything we can do to make it more useful.