Pluralizing Emancipation. From communalism to a commons-based democracy

Communalist and self-management theories share the same concern for humans’ direct control over their own lives and the same demand for a radical participative democracy extending to all social spheres. But they differ in their conceptions of the locus of democracy: Communalism prioritizes democratizing the municipality, where the political center governs all other social spheres, whereas self-management advocates the diffusion of politics and the democratization of diverse social, economic, and cultural structures. This article argues that communalism should revise its classical vision of politics and embrace a more pluralist conception of social and political processes, as its democratic ideals are best realized through a polycentric organization of democracy: a confederation of commons rather than of communes.