Preface by the Workshop to the publication of the AAdTP text
“For an internationalist territorial autonomy – Creating a country within a country”
We have chosen to publish this text by the AAdTP (Acteurs et Actrices des Temps Présents) because it makes a valuable contribution to the struggles currently underway: that of giving substance to regional autonomy, linking social and ecological solidarity, and concretely strengthening the means to endure in times of crisis.
This text offers a pragmatic and inspiring toolkit: canteens, granaries, land funds, cash funds, knowledge networks, protection mechanisms… all experiences that can arm our struggles and nurture real solidarity. It also opens up perspectives for internationalism, through its multilingual translation and the links it forges between South and North.
We recognize in this work strong convergences with communalist social ecology:
- the local and democratic anchoring of initiatives,
- the dualism of power in relation to the State, although still formulated in an incomplete and sometimes ambiguous way (see § divergences and weaknesses),
- the building of material solidarity,
- the need to protect those who organize,
- the call for internationalism.
But we also want to point out certain limitations that, for us, remain decisive. The text highlights tools, but does not yet fully establish the beating heart of the communalist project: sovereign popular assemblies, imperative and revocable mandates, a confederation of free communes capable of going beyond the logic of a network alone.
In this regard, several divergences and weaknesses are worth noting:
- an incomplete questioning of the State: certain passages seem to suggest that alliances with existing public institutions are conceivable, or that it would suffice to transpose social tools to renovated or autonomous public institutions, thus risking the restoration of “public authority” instead of building a radically distinct popular power;
- Fragile governance: the emphasis on management committees, unregulated random selection, and veto rights granted to initiators opens the door to oligarchic abuses;
- a lack of clear confederation: the inter-territorial scale is conceived in terms of networks, without a genuine federal and confederal institution articulated by binding mandates and a common charter;
- an ambiguity in the relationship with institutions: openness to alliances with public structures or NGOs directly or indirectly financed by private lobbies or foundations, without a clear assessment of the risks, may encourage a reproduction of reformist or integrative logic;
- an insufficiency in the conception of the economy: the economic question is relegated to the background and reduced to a tool (such as the communalist fund), whereas the aim is to build a moral and communal economy, subordinate to politics and guided by ethical principles of solidarity, sharing, and rejection of unlimited commodification.
That is why we are publishing the link to this text accompanied by a communalist framework. We are doing so not to correct but to engage in dialogue: to enrich the toolbox of the democratic compass and to remind us that only a holistic approach—political, social, ecological, cultural, and ethical—can give lasting form to our hopes for emancipation. For while we find this text fruitful in its tactical proposals, it still lacks a radical analysis of capitalism in its essential categories and its social totality, a necessary condition for truly overcoming this system. Struggle and self-management experiments, however important they may be, are not enough on their own: they must be part of a clear strategy for moving beyond capitalism.
In this sense, we consider this text to be a step and a lever: it is up to us collectively to incorporate it into a federal and confederal strategy in order to build a true popular power, against and outside of state and capitalist institutions, capable of paving the way for a free, ecological, and solidarity-based society. Such a path also requires constant dialogue between different tendencies in order to counteract identity-based withdrawal and to jointly establish sustainable local and communal institutions, in tension with the state, serving as places for learning direct democracy, mutual aid, and immediate response to our essential needs. It is through this dual movement—enriching our struggles with practical tools and affirming an anti-capitalist strategic perspective—that we can move forward together.
Link to the AAdTP text: Building autonomy
Rebounds: