Direct democracy works like a charm. Check out Venezuela’s Communes….
Venezuela’s ubiquitous Communes are proof that direct democracy works. And, interestingly enough, those same Communes are powerful buffers to attempted coups, protecting the sanctity of direct democracy in their country.
“Commune or Nothing – Free Men and Free Land,” mural in El Maizal. (Photo: Ricardo Vaz)
In this article we examine the productive activities of El Maizal Commune, based on our visit in May. We also look at the relation between the commune and state companies, and explore the contradictions that emerge as the communal project moves forward.
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Reading the daily headlines, it’s easy to forget that the corollary of a civilization in precipitous decline is a world of creative ferment, a new world struggling to be born. If you could have a God’s-eye view of all the creative resistance rending the fabric of political oppression from the U.S. to Indonesia to Colombia, you would surely be persuaded that all hope is not lost.
The Mexican Revolution by Adolfo Gilly is an exhaustive analysis of the Mexican Revolution from a Marxist perspective. Gilly, himself a revolutionary, was introduced to this history while incarcerated at Mexico’s infamous Lecumberri prison in the 1960s. Friedrich Katz describes the radical milieu in the foreword:
