Associative Democracy

Description

At the end of the twentieth century, if becomes ever more clear that Western countries are witnessing the exhaustion of the two great political and economic systems - democratic capitalism and collective state socialism - that have held sway for the past 150 years. Yet neither the traditional Right nor Left has been able to provide viable solutions to this crisis. In this book, Paul Hirst offers a new approach, which he calls associative democracy. Not simply a utopian idea, associative democracy calls for new forms of economic and social governance as supplements to representative democracy and market economies. It addresses the problems of the overload of big government by democratizing and empowering civil society. It transfers social provision to self-governing voluntary associations, while retaining public funding and political accountability. In the economic sphere, it advocates regional economic regulation through public-private partnerships, the promotion of self-governing industrial districts, and the democratization of the company.

First Sentence

At the end of the twentieth century we are witnessing the exhaustion of the great competing intellectual systems of social organization, liberal democratic capitalism and collectivistic state socialism, that came to fruition in the nineteenth century.

Excerpt

At the end of the twentieth century we are witnessing the exhaustion of the great competing intellectual systems of social organization, liberal democratic capitalism and collectivistic state socialism, that came to fruition in the nineteenth century.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Associative Democracy: New Forms of Economic & Social Governance.University of Massachusetts Press1993-01-01
• Associative DemocracyPaperbackBlackwell Publishers1993-12-01
• Associative DemocracyTaylor & Francis Group2004-01-01