Libya – direct democracy, anarcho-syndicalist, Socialist?

[spiltteeth]

Libya has a form of direct democracy that I would think both anarchist and communists would be interested in.

Actually, there are two branches of government in Libya. The "revolutionary sector" comprises Gaddafi, the Revolutionary Committees, and the Revolutionary Command Council, which is not elected and cannot be voted out of office – obviously I’m not talking about this part.

I mean the legislative branch. These bodies are represented by people's committees. Every four years, the membership of the Local People's Congresses elects their own leaders. Those leaders (who CANNOT make decisions on their own but can ONLY deliver the people’s will) represent the local congress at the People's Congress of the next level. Then they elect the members of the National General People's Committee (the Cabinet) at their annual meeting.

It’s direct democracy – from the bottom up. I’m still learning, but this seems to be similar to what the anarcho-syndicalists want.

There are no political parties. Trade unions do not exist; instead numerous small professional associations are integrated into the state structure as a third pillar, along with the People's Congresses and Committees. Instead of striking they have direst power so the Professional associations send delegates to the General People's Congress, where they have a representative mandate.

I’m no expert on Libya and I’m sure there may be awful things about it –but it does have genuine socialist aspects. I see people studying Russia, China, Spain, Nepal etc Why is Libya never brought up? Is it a prejudice to Islamic socialism?

Indecently, Gaddafi outlined his political philosophy in his Green Book; it’s heavily influenced by Jefferson. You can read it free online here: http://www.mathaba.net/gci/theory/gb.htm (http://www.mathaba.net/gci/theory/gb.htm)
Thanks!

[Misanthrope]

That's representative democracy. I'm sure senators and congressmen "have" to represent the the people as well. Anarchists don't want forced representative democracy with a state.

[Durruti's Ghost]

Every four years, the membership of the Local People's Congresses elects their own leaders.

Representation can exist in a direct democracy, but only if all decisions made by the representatives must be ratified by the people and the people may recall the representatives at any time by a simple majority vote. This direct democracy only becomes anarchistic if it is formed by free association, which may be dissolved at any time. So, unless I misunderstand what you are saying (which is certainly a possibility) what you are describing is, as Wolves of Paris said, simply representative democracy, not anarchistic direct democracy.

[Ismail]

I’m no expert on Libya and I’m sure there may be awful things about it –but it does have genuine socialist aspects. I see people studying Russia, China, Spain, Nepal etc Why is Libya never brought up? Is it a prejudice to Islamic socialism?It's basically because el-Qadhafi is considered "lol insane arab/african dictator" just like Russians were considered (some still are) "Asiatic semi-barbarians who cannot live without the iron hand of Ivan in their hearts and minds."

Libya is progressive, but the important thing, for all states when discussing socialism is: do the workers own the means of production and thus the state? Or at least have a strong say in how the state operates as state officials have noticeable ties with the workers and uphold socialism in a genuine way, i.e. are Communists, and the state does not have capitalist relations of production? (I.e. no bourgeoisie)

If yes to either, then they are at some stage of socialism, the latter obviously imperfect (and prone to degeneration), the former hasn't been achieved yet.

Libya, however, is neither. It's a mixture of state and market-capitalism.

Check your PMs, btw.

[Agrippa]

The Libyan political system is one of the more libertarian political structures in capitalist society, I will admit. (much more so even than the USSR, DPRK, PRC, "communist" Cuba, Vietnam, Chavez's Venezuela, etc.) However, what you've described, as others have already pointed out, is not "direct democracy" (an inaccurate term since it is not "democracy" we're talking about but anarchism / communism) but representative democracy, a form of bourgeois class-rule.

The fact that you admit there are elements of the Libyan political structure "obviously" not of "interest" to anarchists, such as "the Revolutionary Committees, and the Revolutionary Command Council, which is not elected and cannot be voted out of office" is very telling.

Yes, "Marxists" who glorify Russia under Bolshevik rule, the pre-"revisionist" PRC, Stalinist Cuba, the bureaucratic puppet-regimes in Korea and Vietnam, and even the modern DPRK and PRC, (not to mention the PRC's pseudo-Bolovarian left-Peronist friends in Latin America) yet not Libya may be prejudiced against "Islamic socialism", but this is not the reason anarchists do not look to Quadaffi's Libya for inspiration. The reason is because Libya, despite its past, historically unprecedented social liberties, is a capitalist system, its social liberties were granted and can be (and have been) taken away by the capitalist state. No one in Libya controls their own labor power, regardless of how much meaningless "democracy" is built into the political structure.

The fact that Quadaffi is inspired by Jefferson the genocidal, racist, totalitarian bourgeois democrat, says it all.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

The fact that Quadaffi is inspired by Jefferson the genocidal, racist, totalitarian bourgeois democrat, says it all.No, actually it doesn't. A lot of the first anarchists were downright sexist and racist, but that doesn't mean you can dismiss someone for finding inspiration in, say, Bakunin. Calling Jefferson a "totalitarian" is also a little absurd considering his entire ideology was built on "limited" government.

I can find inspiration in Aristotle and still see faults.

That said, I'm not sure Libya is a good example. It's more of a confusing case study.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

What about this? It was posted back in February.


Gaddafi offers oil and power to people

Forty years into the revolution he unleashed on Libya Muammar Gaddafi has announced plans to dismantle the Government, hand the riches from Africa's biggest oil reserves to the people and nationalise foreign oil operations that have recently been allowed back into the country.

“The administration has failed and the state economy has failed. Enough is enough. The solution is, we Libyans take directly the oil money and decide what to do with the money,” he says.

To end the corruption that has sapped the vast oil wealth, bundles of cash should be delivered to the poor, three quarters of the ministries should cease to exist and the workers should run hospitals and schools.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article5776215.ece

[spiltteeth]

First thanks for all the responses. I’m not suggesting that we copy Libya, and I’m sure Qadhafi may be one crazy dude, but Libya is definitely supposed to be a socialist direct democracy, and that’s what it has tried to be – I just don’t know the reality. But I do think it is very fruitful to look at places that tried to implement this kind of thing and see why it failed, or where it succeeded. I’ve just never come across an analysis of Libya from the left.

The green book presents an argument for socialist direct democracy, and even if the guy who wrote it is batshit crazy, the ideas at least seem interesting.
I found this summery of the green book on the internet and copied what I thought was useful and interesting:
The Green Book begins with the premise that all contemporary political systems are merely the result of the struggle for power between instruments of governing. Those instruments of governing--parliaments, electoral systems, referenda, party government--are all undemocratic, divisive, or both. Parliaments are based on indirect democracy or representation. Representation is based on separate constituencies; deputies represent their constituencies, often against the interests of other constituencies. Thus, the total national interest is never represented, and the problem of indirect (and consequently unrepresentative) democracy is compounded by the problem of divisiveness. Moreover, an electoral system in which the majority vote wins all representation means that as much as 49 percent of the electorate is unrepresented. (A win by a plurality can have the result that an even greater percentage of the electorate is unrepresented; electoral schemes to promote proportional representation increase the overall representative nature of the system, but small minorities are still left unrepresented.) Qadhafi also believes referenda are undemocratic because they force the electorate to answer simply yes or no to complex issues without being able to express fully their will. He says that because parties represent specific interests or classes, multiparty political systems are inherently factionalized. In contrast, a single-party political system has the disadvantage of institutionalizing the dominance of a single interest or class.
Qadhafi believes that political systems have used these kinds of indirect or representative instruments because direct democracy, in which all participate in the study and debate of issues and policies confronting the nation, ordinarily is impossible to implement in contemporary times. Populations have grown too large for direct democracy, which remained only an ideal until the formulation of the concepts of people's committees and popular congresses.
Most observers would conclude that these organizations, like congresses or parliaments in other nations, obviously involve some degree of delegation and representation. Qadhafi, however, believes that with their creation contemporary direct democracy has been achieved in Libya. Qadhafi bases this conviction on the fact that the people's committees and popular congresses are theoretically responsible not only for the creation of legislation, but also its implementation at the grass-roots level. Moreover, they have a much larger total membership as a percentage of the national population than legislative bodies in other countries.
In many ways, Qadhafi's political ideology is part of the radical strain of Western democratic thought associated primarily with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. For, as scholar Sami Hajjar noted, Qadhafi's notions of popular sovereignty are quite similar to the Rousseauian concept of general will. Both hold that sovereignty is inalienable, indivisible, and infallible. Both believe in equality and in direct popular rule. Thus, concludes Qadhafi, "the outdated definition of democracy--democracy is the supervision of the government by the people--becomes obsolete. It will be replaced by the true definition: democracy is the supervision of the people by the people."
the basic relationship between the producer, who is a wage earner, and the owner, who pays the wages, is still one of slavery. Even where the state owns the enterprise and the income derived from it reverts to the community, the plight of the wage earner, who contributes to the productive process for someone else's benefit, remains the same. Qadhafi's solution to the problem is to abolish the wage system. Rather than contributing to the productive process for the owner's benefit, or profit, the actual producer should be a partner in the process, sharing equally in what is produced or in the income derived from what is produced.
Qadhafi believes that a person cannot be free "if somebody else controls what he needs" to lead a comfortable life. Thus, each person must fully possess a house, a vehicle, and an income.
The 1969 constitutional proclamation recognized both public ownership ("the basis of the development of society") and private ownership (so long as it was nonexploitive). Collection of rent is illegal. Scores of firms were taken over; presumably the firms were to be controlled by the new people's committees.
With regard to land, Qadhafi rejects the idea of private ownership. Drawing a distinction between ownership and use, he argues that land is the collective property of all the people. Every person and his heirs have the right to use the land to satisfy their basic needs. The land belongs to those who till it. To hire farm hands is forbidden because it would be exploitive.

[Agrippa]

No, actually it doesn't. A lot of the first anarchists were downright sexist and racist, but that doesn't mean you can dismiss someone for finding inspiration in, say, Bakunin.

What Qadaffi finds inspiration in Jefferson for is his advice on how to run a democratic state. World colonialism is an intrinsic aspect of the transition from aristocratic to democratic forms of political rule within the European mercantile empires.

So yes, if someone found "inspiration" in Bakunin's beliefs that Jewish revolutionaries are inherently "authoritarian", that person would be a racist.


Calling Jefferson a "totalitarian" is also a little absurd considering his entire ideology was built on "limited" government. Yes, but the "limited government", in both Jefferson's mind and in reality, leads to a more stable form of capitalist control.


I can find inspiration in Aristotle and still see faults.

Aristotle wrote wisely on a wide variety of subjects. Jefferson wrote wisely on one subject, which was bourgeois state-rule

[Demogorgon]

There is a difference between how things are meant to work on paper and how they work in practice. The reality of politics in Libya is cronyism and behind closed doors decision making. The system of election is actually worse than representative democracy in practice as it allows plenty of room for weeding out people who will be too troublesome to the regime and keeping them far away enough from power. Add to that a fairly compliant press that never looks too closely at the regimes flaws except when the Government has already agreed to do something about them and you have a recipe for plenty of corruption, but little democracy.

Gaddafi of course is a good example of why you should never give someone too much power. He may well believe in democracy but upon getting his hands on power he simply found it too convenient to give that much of it up.

It isn't exactly the one man dictatorship it is portrayed as in the west and it is probably better than its neighbours, but it is hardly a shining example of good government.