About my political commitments
Statement of purpose and beliefs
The corrosion of social bonds, the atomising effects of market forces, the accumulation of unearned income in the hands of the fortunate few, the privatisation and commodification of public life, the empire building of capitalist firms, the recurrence of investment cycles generated by the animal spirits and profit-hunger of capitalists, and the subordination of political power to the interests of capital. It is for these reasons and more that I hold the belief that socialism should displace capitalism. I hope to advance socialism by contributing innovative research to an ongoing, collective intellectual effort and open-ended dialogue within the worldwide socialist movement to strengthen the theory of socialism, to provide the theoretical ammunition to undo the damage wreaked by capitalism.
Society, organised as a political community, should furnish citizens with the correct balance of rights and obligations that allows them to harness their social nature and creative faculties. It is my contention that individuals cannot flourish optimally if society operates according to the demands, ebb and flow, and requirements of capital accumulation. It is this belief that sustains my research. The purpose of my research therefore resides in tackling the key issues that arise when we attempt to move society into a different direction. My main concern is therefore related to how socialism could potentially generate and distribute material and immaterial resources among the population in a way that promotes self-government, civic pride and virtue, social and personal responsibility, and independence from arbitrary domestic and foreign powers.
In this theoretical endeavor, I have sourced civic republicanism for political inspiration. In my view, republican socialism could provide the theoretical ammunition to help serve the cause of universal emancipation.
About my influences
Main theoretical sources
My intellectual influences draw from three main sources. In the area of political theory, from civic republicanism. In the area of economic thought, from reform socialism. In the area of social analysis, from neo-Gramscianism.
In terms of political philosophy, the political lineage of Aristotelianism—particularly by way of Philippa Foot and Alasdair Macintyre—and republicanism—spanning from the classical era into the modern theory of neo-republicanism—have greatly influenced my political thought. From this tradition I borrowed the importance of self-government, moral development, civic virtue and active citizenship, the notion of freedom as independence, and the need for a balanced constitution.
In the field of economic thought, studying how reform currents in the socialist bloc grappled with the issues of socialist economic planning has been greatly illuminating. In particular, the works by Włodzimierz Brus, Michał Kalecki, János Kornai, and Leonid Kantorovich have impressed on me greatly, in addition to David Laibman. Their insights guided me in the direction of the conclusion that general, centralised planning complemented by parametrically guided decentralised planning can potentially form the basis of a feasible model of socialism.
I have further found the materialist and dialectical method of scientific enquiry, pioneered by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, to have been extraordinarily useful in aiding my understanding of the causal links that underpin social reality. The additional contributions of their successors, such as Antonio Gramsci, Nicos Poulantzas, Anwar Shaikh, Michał Kalecki, the Amsterdam school of international political economy and Bob Jessop, as well as criticisms of Marxism, such as those formulated by Ranajit Guha, Anthony Giddens, Gayatri Spivak, Joan Robinson, Friedrich Hayek, Ernesto Laclau, and Chantal Mouffe, have helped clarify more clearly the extent of the usefulness of the Marxist method, as well as its potential limitations. This has impressed on me the notion that Marxism can remain an effective tool of social analysis to the degree that traces of functionalism, structuralism, essentialism, and economism are systematically avoided. The theoretical void produced by this process of elimination can, in my view, be filled with the conceptual framework of neo-Gramscianism.
About my Political Thought
Republican Socialism
My political beliefs are mainly inspired by civic republicanism and socialism. They are combined to form what might be called “republican socialism” or “socialist republicanism”, a new branch of theoretical investigation being developed by a handful of theorists.
According to my understanding, society should be re-founded as a universal community governed by constitutional law, inhabited by citizens endowed with equal status. Their flourishing is facilitated by the cultivation of moral character through the practice of virtue in relational processes of social teaching and learning. To achieve this end, citizens should enjoy more or less equal access to the moral and material resources for participation in social life. The course of the political community should be guided by the common good, which implies that citizens are able to overcome their narrow, partial, sectional, or factional interests. Citizens are in turn able to achieve their own good by participating in the common goods of different, layered spheres of social life—from their households to their workplaces, from their local community and clubs to their national community and beyond.
This, in my view, is best effected by organising the political community as a constitutional republic, combined with a symmetrical distribution of resources and social ownership. The constitutional regime should balance different democratic procedures in such a way that the political outcomes generated by them conform closely to the long-term good for society as a whole. In contrast to other forms of socialism, republican socialism is not based on the principle of a maximum extension of democracy into every sphere and direction of social life. Instead, it seeks to optimise democracy by combining different institutional features that are bound to different types of political procedures, ranging from sortition, direct elections, indirect elections, citizen assemblies, and representative mandates.
According to republican-style socialism, the relationships among citizens should be primarily mediated by public institutions, rather than the private machinations of commercial enterprise motivated by personal gain. Hence, production and distribution should be organised directly in the public interest in order to sensitise producers and consumers to the common good. This premise forms the basis behind the political theory of socialist republicanism. Marrying republicanism and socialism into a single union poses the challenge of formulating a way to curb the excesses of democracy without relying on oligarchic features to do so. I propose that this can be achieved thus.
Self-government by the people around their common good can be secured through a combination of sortition, direct legislation, and elected representatives bound by a ‘mandat représentatif‘ within constitutional legal boundaries. Deputies are elected by ballot in public assemblies or drafted by lot into bicameral legislative assemblies, which simultaneously bear responsibility for executive functions. This achieves a balanced constitution without relying on oligarchic elements to effect it.
The processes of production and distribution should mirror the political sphere of the republic. This, then, is not achieved by rendering the principle of democracy fully operational throughout the economy, but by balancing decision-making power over the allocation of resources and the distribution of income among different public institutions of different scale and significance. This should generate an economic mechanism capable of enhancing the general welfare of the community. Further, this would reinforce a cultural atmosphere of civic virtue in place of a morale of private acquisition and avarice.
I have outlined a model based on republican socialism in ‘The Constitution of Socialism‘ (forthcoming) and plan to develop a corresponding theoretical framework in the near future (in ‘General Principles of Socialist Republicanism‘).