(Backgrounder) Horizontalidad: Where Everyone Leads

[EFerrari]

(This idea was new to me so I thought it might be worth putting up for others to glance at.)

Horizontalidad: Where Everyone Leads
by Marina Sitrin
posted May 11, 2007

Argentina's workers took over factories, citizens took over the streets—no one seemed to miss having a boss.

The autonomous social movements in Argentina are part of a global phenomenon. From Latin America to South Africa to Eastern Europe and even in the United States and Canada, people are creating the future in the present. These new movements are built on direct democracy and consensus, and they make space for all to be leaders.

Within Argentina, they are also a “movement of movements.” They are working class people taking over factories and running them collectively. They are the urban middle class, or those who have recently lost that status, working to meet their needs in solidarity with those around them. They are the unemployed, like so many unemployed around the globe, facing the prospect of never finding regular work, yet collectively finding ways to survive and become self-sufficient, using mutual aid and love. They are autonomous indigenous communities struggling to liberate stolen land.

Horizontalidad is the word that has come to embody these new social arrangements and principles of organization in Argentina. Horizontalidad implies democratic communication on a level plane and involves—or at least strives towards—non-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian creation rather than reaction. It is a break with vertical ways of organizing and relating.

The social movements in Argentina describe themselves as autonomous to distinguish themselves from the state and other hierarchical institutions. Autonomy also describes a politics of self-organization called autogestion, and direct, democratic participation.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/latin-america-rising/horizontalidad-where-everyone-leads

[EFerrari]

1. Direct Democracy training streamed live here today @ :5:45 pm Eastern.

http://www.occupytogether.org/2011/10/14/live-intro-to-direct-democracy-facilitation-training/

[JDPriestly]

2. Wall Street is the way of the past.

It's just a matter of time.

[cyberpj]

3. This is amazing stuff! Thanks for the hope that things can be different. K&R nt

[stevedeshazer]

4. I think this makes a hell of a lot of sense.

And I say this as someone who spent years as a supervisor and manager.

The workers and a few leaders in a group are perfectly capable of taking on any task in workplaces.

The U.S. is the world's leader in production of dumb-shit managers and Vice-Presidents and CEO's who maybe got an MBA but never spent any time actually managing (which really means promoting collaborative effort) a team of people.

Workers instinctively know what is needed long before the manager bean-counter types do.

Just my two cents.

Now I just drive a truck and manage my own time.

I don't get up and puke every morning before work like I used to.

I sense this model is far superior to the top-down business climate we have today.

My best boss ever was a Swede. She said that money is like manure. If you pile it all up in one place, it stinks and does no good.

If you spread it around, it helps everyone and pretty soon it smells good.

But, I grew up on a farm, so your individual results may vary.

[RegieRocker]

5. This can't be true and surely can't work. Good laugh though!

:sarcasm:

[cyberpj]

6. kick again. nt