Isocracy. The Institutions of Equality

Description

In the twentieth century, two great political and social paradigms were the liberal-democratic and the libertarian (in its various socialist, anarchist, and communist declinations). The basic idea of the first approach is equal freedom or isonomy: the exclusion of any unjustified discrimination since the law and the rights are the same for everyone. The central idea of the second approach is, rather, freedom of the equals in power or isocracy: only if inequality between the one who commands and the one who obeys diminishes until it disappears, the society opens to the pursuit of pluralism and complex equality. This book analyzes the main economic and political institutions of an isocratic society. The utopian register becomes, however, realistic when the author argues the anthropological and structural reasons for which an alternative horizon needs to be imagined and practiced. The book is for an audience interested in the critique of contemporary capitalism and in a renewed perspective of democratic socialism and left libertarianism. Foreword......Page 6 Contents......Page 9 List of Figures......Page 10 List of Boxes......Page 11 1 What Is the Aim of a Good Place to Live?......Page 13 2 Power as the Fundamental Motivation......Page 16 3 Power Is a Sure Cost for Those Who Are Subject to It and an Uncertain Change for Those Who Hold It......Page 20 4 Complex Equality and Simplicity of Power......Page 25 5 Distributive Justice and Political Justice......Page 32 6 From Power Distribution to Power Production......Page 35 7 Isocracy as a Coherent and Sustainable Ideal......Page 39 References......Page 45 Abstract......Page 48 1 Premise......Page 49 2 Cooperative Controlled by Shares (Labour–Capital Partnership)......Page 50 3 The Social Dividend......Page 57 4 The Common Goods Sector......Page 60 5 The Social Salary......Page 63 6 Currency and Money......Page 68 7 The Redistribution of Working, Care, Leisure, Creativity and Politics Times......Page 73 8 Socialisation and Investment Planning......Page 85 9 Taxation on Income and Wealth......Page 89 10 The Transformation of the Positional Competition......Page 92 11 Drawing Conclusions......Page 95 References......Page 96 Abstract......Page 101 1 Representative Democracy and Radical Conflicts......Page 102 2 From Representative Democracy to Political Isocracy......Page 111 3 Institutions Based on Reputation of Impartiality......Page 116 4 The Institutions of Distributed Power......Page 122 5 The Institutions of Power-Sharing......Page 127 6 Partisans Institutions......Page 128 7 Federalist Institutions......Page 133 8 Drawing Conclusions......Page 148 References......Page 149 Abstract......Page 156 1 Premise......Page 157 2 Passions as Foundation of the Human Condition......Page 159 3 From Passions to Needs and Emotions......Page 170 4 The Capitalist Removal of (Hot) Passions......Page 176 5 Power to the Imagination......Page 182 6 Conflictual Passions......Page 185 7 Drawing Conclusions......Page 189 References......Page 190 Abstract......Page 195 References......Page 205 Index......Page 207