Council Democracy and Social Self-Organization – IDA in Discussion with Dario Azzellini

📅 May 15, 2024, 7:00 PM
📍 Café Kotti, Adalbertstraße 96B, Berlin

In the history of modern revolutions, uprisings, and strikes, the spontaneous formation of (workers’) councils has occurred again and again. Especially when established structures of power collapse or become paralyzed, people have to create democratic bodies for decision-making, coordination, and implementation in order to keep social life – the economy, transport, and social infrastructure – functioning.

Even though councils often disappeared as quickly as they emerged, we can expect that such forms of social self-organization will also arise in future moments of crisis. But what exactly are councils? Are they economic or political organs? Are they part of the state? Do they still reproduce domination or hierarchies? How can grassroots democracy be combined with society-wide economic planning? Could labour-time accounting be a useful tool in this process?

We want to explore these questions together with Dario Azzellini on May 15. He has been researching council organization and workers’ self-management for many years. For this occasion, we invite you to an informal evening at Café Kotti. After Dario’s talk, we’ll discuss with everyone interested the relevance of councils today, and whether they could point towards forms of democracy and socialism beyond state domination and capitalist market economy.

Come join us!