A decentralized approach towards more Liberty
Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) is one of the most fascinating philosophers of modern times. He was a professor at Ramapo College of New Jersey, a genuine, accredited public college, even though he himself held no academic degree. Rather, he was a worker who became a polymath through self-study. His parents were Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. His mother came from Vilnius. Perhaps she even came from Užupis, as Užupis was the Jewish quarter of Vilnius at the time. His maternal grandmother was a supporter of the Socialist Revolutionaries, a Russian party that was agrarian and democratic-socialist but also encompassed anarchist currents. He therefore came into contact with politics early on during his childhood in New York City. Murray Bookchin became politically active at an early age. Yet what distinguished his political engagement was that it was driven less by a quest for personal power than by a form of practical scientific research aimed at finding concepts and solutions for a better, more just, and freer society.
He evolved from a Stalinist (In his defense, it must be said that the extent of Stalin’s crimes was not yet known to the global public at the time; that, given the Great Depression, the Soviet Union, which was unaffected by it, did indeed appear to be a successful alternative model to Western capitalism; and that, furthermore, during the Second World War, Stalin was portrayed positively even in the US as the amiable "Uncle Joe.") to a Trotskyist, from a Trotskyist to an Anarchist, and from an Anarchist to a Libertarian Municipalist and Communalist.
As an Anarchist, Murray Bookchin also influenced the founding of both the Libertarian Party and the Green Party of the United States. Alongside the importance of ecology, radical decentralization is the fundamental aspect of Murray Bookchin's philosophy. Following the defeat of the local political party Barcelona en Comú, which had embraced Municipalism, in the 2023 Barcelona municipal elections and the dissolution and full integration of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria into the Salafist-led Syrian Arab Republic in August 2026, it is difficult to say whether there is currently any political entity in the world that aligns with the ideas of Libertarian Municipalism. There may be certain parallels to the Zapatista territories, which encompass about half of the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas within the United Mexican States.
Another example are the many Wählergemeinschaften (local voters' associations) in Germany. Voter associations are local groupings of citizens. Typically, their meetings are transparent and open to the public, and non-members are permitted to participate. Voter associations are organized in a radically decentralized manner. Unlike political parties, they are strictly confined to the specific village, town, or city. In contrast to centrally organized political parties, they pursue a radically decentralized political concept. However, in most large cities, these independent voters' associations were unable to maintain their presence for long and were subsequently displaced by the established political parties. The situation is different in small towns and rural areas. In many villages, these independent voters' associations have succeeded in displacing the political parties. In quite a few villages, the local branches of the political parties have even dissolved. Thus, in some rural regions of Germany, de facto an alternative direct-democratic, non-partisan political system exists.
The Minority List of Austria - Danube Federation is proud to say that one of these voter associations, Bürger für Lübeck (BfL) Unabhängige Wählergemeinschaft in der Hansestadt Lübeck (Citizens for Lübeck (BfL) Independent Voters' Association in the Hanseatic City of Lübeck) officially calls us their partner party.
Another example of a decentralized, municipalist political approach is the Duckonian Union. After all, what does the Duckonian Union do? It does not fight against any existing state; rather, it establishes a growing federal bond between micronations and similar entities. Another example of a decentralized, municipalist political approach is the Duckonian Union. After all, what does the Duckonian Union do? It does not fight against any existing state; rather, it establishes a federal bond between micronations and similar entities. This aligns with the confederalist approach of libertarian municipalism. The Duckonian Union leaves sovereignty at the local level; major changes can only be initiated jointly through the consensus of its members. The Duckonian Union counts the Republic of Užupis, which possesses physical territory and a population of around 8,000 people, among its associate members. The Republic of Užupis itself emerged from an approach rooted in grassroots municipalism and direct democracy. Following the horrors of the Holocaust, the Užupis district in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, had become completely deserted; the majority Jewish population had largely either perished or emigrated.
The Soviet authorities allowed Užupis to fall into decay. People settled there who supposedly had no place in the ostensibly perfect communist society: criminals, prostitutes, drug addicts, and alcoholics. In the 1980s, artists and dissidents moved to Užupis because it was very easy to find cheap housing there. The new residents of Užupis succeeded in building a sense of community, a local identity, and a sense of hope. The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. The positive development in Užupis continued. Led by Romas Lileikis and Tomas Čepaitis, the district declared itself independent as the Republic of Užupis on April 1, 1997.
Today, Užupis is the trendiest and best neighborhood in all of Vilnius. The Republic of Užupis is a part of its residents' daily lives, and the Vilnius city administration and the Lithuanian government have no issue with this; on the contrary, they maintain positive and cooperative relations. Užupis thus serves as a perfect example of how a radically decentralized and direct-democratic approach can be used to establish a completely new, functioning local political community, even within a completely broken environment, without coming into conflict with the existing nation-state.
The Duckonian Union is no place for insurgents. The Duckonian Union advocates a radically pacifist approach: building a federal network of decentralized local units that cooperate freely and on an equal footing. A bit like the old Hanseatic League used to be. Though, of course, significantly more egalitarian than those aristocratic mercantile republican city-states of the Hanseatic League were.
Murray Bookchin was clearly a representative of the political Left. Yet he was not a classically dogmatic leftist. His involvement with the Libertarian Party is the clearest proof of this. Today, hardly any ideology is as loathed by the mainstream political Left as libertarianism. What accusations are not leveled against libertarianism? That it is far-right, seeks to abolish democracy, and aims to establish a neo-feudal rule by billionaires.
These accusations are easily refuted. A neo-feudal rule by the ultra-rich? I see. That is precisely what already exists, even in supposedly social and democratic countries. Even under the current system, billionaires enjoy privileges. Even under the current system, major corporations and the ultra-rich influence politics and society. Even under the current system, the poor are exploited by the rich. This has nothing to do with libertarianism.
It is claimed that libertarianism is right-wing radical. This is contradictory. Libertarianism is anti-collectivist. Categorizing people by "race" or nation is fundamentally anti-libertarian. From a libertarian perspective, every person belongs to themselves; every human being is a unique individual. Moreover, libertarianism is socially progressive; it is in no way inferior to the Left when it comes to gender equality, equal rights for homosexuals, or the legalization of drugs. Someone like Donald Trump is NOT a libertarian. Trumpism is authoritarian, nationalist, and conservative.
That is NOT libertarian. That is the opposite of libertarian. Libertarians want to abolish democracy? Democracy is a word. The term democracy has been claimed and used by such different figures as Mao Zedong, Sir Winston Churchill, Fidel Castro, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Kim Il Sung, Pol Pot and even Adolf H#tler (roughly until 1925) in the early years of his political career. Democracy can mean so many things. Libertarians, too, use the word "democracy" in a positive sense. The Libertarian Party of Australia, for instance, was founded in 2001 as the Liberal Democratic Party. Although it was renamed in 2024, the party's branch in the Australian state of New South Wales continues to include the term "Liberal Democratic" in its name; libertarians in New South Wales officially call their party the Libertarian Party (Liberal Democrats). The Consul himself is an Associate Member of the Liberal Democrats in New South Wales. Indeed, there are also individuals who identify as libertarians yet view the word democracy critically. What is the libertarian critique of the concept of democracy? The idea that the rules governing social coexistence can be completely rewritten through majority decisions. That is the point: that 51% of society can act against the fundamental interests of 49% of society. Such considerations are, in fact, reflected in a modern constitutional state. After all, the very purpose of a constitution is to establish fundamental rules of the game and basic rights, rules that cannot simply be altered arbitrarily by a 51% majority vote. As South African State President Frederik Willem de Klerk, who pardoned Nelson Mandela, ended apartheid in South Africa despite fierce opposition within his own party, and received the Nobel Peace Prize for doing so, stated in a parliamentary speech on December 6, 1993: "We have to stop believing that political power is everything. In the future, it will be limited."
Libertarian critiques of the concept of democracy take this line of reasoning even further. Instead, libertarian critics of the concept of democracy call for a few clear rules that cannot be changed or can only be changed with the consensus of literally every affected individual. In this respect, libertarian criticism of democracy represents neither a departure from the republic nor from the rule of law or constitutionalism. Rather, it is a form of ‘‘ultra-constitutionalism‘‘. But even that is not the mainstream within the Libertarian Movement, but rather a very small minority. Socialists and Communists are usually accepted as legitimate political forces in Western Democracies. Most might use the word democracy in a positive way, but some also in a negative way, as they might see Demoracy as ''bourgeois'' and inherently capitalist. And yet ususally nobody makes a bigh deal out of it. Those Libertarians who speak critical about Democracy may critize the abuse of minorities by the political majority, but never the concept of Democracy itself in the sense that people shall rule themself, and have free choice. All real Libertarians support people’s sovereignity. And people’s sovereignity is a, of not THE key aspect of Democracy.
There is someone whom the authoritarian Left frequently trots out as a libertarian bogeyman, as THE argument for why libertarianism is evil and even worse than fascism: Peter Thiel. The "Godfather of Silicon Valley", despite occasionally applying that label to himself, is simply NOT a Libertarian. He is neither a left-libertarian nor a right-libertarian. Peter Thiel has repeatedly spoken out in favor of monopolies. His legendary guest lecture at the prestigious Stanford University sums it up: "Competition is for losers." That is 100% anti-libertarian. Left-libertarians are fundamentally opposed to large private corporations establishing monopolies. Right-libertarians are just as opposed to large private corporations establishing monopolies.
After all, the very system we see today in the USA and many other countries, where major corporations establish monopolies to the detriment of ordinary citizens, amass incredible power, and maintain close ties to the government, is precisely what right-libertarians term "Corporate Socialism" and vehemently reject. Right-libertarians are against monopolies and privileges for large corporations, and in favor of free competition for the benefit of consumers. A central promosise of a right-libertarian free market economy is that due to free competition, products and services are continuously improving, which is beneficial for customers. With monopolies, the exact opposite happens. Which we can see in many sectors. Due to monopolies, the quality of producst and services is getting worse. That development is widely known as ‘‘Enshittification‘‘.
It is a bitter irony that people who despise Liberty argue against the very idea of Liberty by pointing at people who also despise Liberty. It is a general misconception that libertarianism is a self-contained, uniformly dogmatic movement. There are many varieties of libertarianism. The Libertarian Party of the USA has long effectively represented the diversity of libertarianism. Admittedly, so-called right-libertarianism, the form of libertarianism that advocates a free-market economy, was dominant from the very beginning.
The big controversial question that separates right-libertarians from left-libertarians is: What offers more freedom? Absolute unrestricted capitalist economic freedom or the radical democratization of the economy? The question is hard. Not easy to answer. There are arguments for both ways. With absolute economic freedom, individual creativity and the spirit of innovation can be unleashed. However, absolute economic freedom always entails oppression and exploitation. However, those on the left-libertarian side often overlook the argument raised by right-libertarians that absolute economic freedom includes the freedom to join forces with others. This implies that, in an economic order structured according to right-libertarian principles, workers would once again have a stronger incentive to organize into unions. If workers unite in solidarity within these unions, they can engage with employers on equal footing; such solidarity-based organization protects them from exploitation.
If workers were to organize themselves collectively into trade unions within such a completely free system, a turbo-capitalist economic system of this kind would quite automatically evolve in a syndicalist direction. This development towards a syndicalist approach would be a natural organic development. That’s what right-libertarians often don’t understand.
What many right-libertarians completely underestimate is that, in economic life, true freedom for the masses can only be achieved collectively. However, such collectives, meaning trade unions, cooperatives, and enterprises with worker self-management—are naturally far stronger and more stable when they are based on voluntary participation rather than government coercion. In the German Democratic Republic, for instance, nearly all workers were members of the Free German Trade Union Federation under communist rule. This federation wielded enormous influence, both within workplaces and in the political sphere. When communist rule ended and reunification with ‘‘Social Market Economy‘‘ capitalist West Germany loomed, the vast majority of workers withdrew from the Free German Trade Union Federation. In reunified Germany, the German Trade Union Confederation has comparatively few members and relatively little influence. The compulsion in East Germany, where people were effectively required to be trade union members, triggered a defiant reaction in many: as soon as that compulsion was lifted, they immediately quit and never joined a trade union again.
On the other hand, within the left-libertarian camp, there are various ideas regarding how an economy could be organized more equitably and democratically, whether through cooperatives, enhanced workplace co-determination, or even worker self-management, similar to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Ironically, both approaches boil down to workers having greater opportunities for participation and for shaping their working lives: in the case of a completely free-market economy, through renewed strong organization in trade unions; in the case of a libertarian-socialist economy, through state-mandated rights of participation. Stagnation has set in within the currently dominant economic system of Rhenish Capitalism. Because the state, within this so-called social market economy, conveys the impression that it intervenes in the economy to a degree sufficient to protect workers' interests, most workers no longer organize into trade unions. They have become passive wage slaves. It is precisely this economic system, intended to forge a fair compromise between the free market and a socialist economy, and designed specifically with the interests of the working masses in mind, that has reduced workers to a weak and passive position.
There are some wealthy individuals within the orbit of Trumpism who are mistakenly viewed as libertarians, yet who engage in union-busting, that is, the obstruction and suppression of trade union activity, within their corporations. Once again, Trumpism is not libertarianism. Suppressing union activity stands in diametric opposition to the concept of a free economy; after all, such suppression distorts competition in the labor market. In a truly libertarian society, people, in one way or another, play an active role in economic life. They are acting individuals. Not passive, exploited objects.
The Libertarian Party of the USA has long managed to unite the various strands of libertarianism within a single party. From 2016 to 2023, Vermin Love Supreme, arguably the USA's best-known left-anarchist satirist and perennial candidate, was a high-ranking member of the Libertarian Party. From 2020 to 2022, he was a member of the Libertarian Party Judicial Committee. Vermin Love Supreme, who is inspired by Russian Anarchist Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (1842-1921), ran for the Libertarian Presidential Candidate nomination in 2020. He came on the third place and his running mate Spike Cohen in the end even became the official candidate of the Libertarian Party for the office of the Vice President of the United States of America. At that time, the Libertarian Party still was the third-largest political party in the USA. Quite apart from classical libertarians, the Libertarian Party also attracted people who had grown weary of the increasing polarization between Democrats and Republicans.
Then came the 2022 Libertarian Party National Conference, a historic disaster that led to a split in the Libertarian Party and reduced it from the country's third-largest party to a minor party. During this era, the balance between right-libertarians and left-libertarians was completely disrupted. Paleolibertarians took over the national party leadership during this phase, which lasted until 2025. It is questionable whether paleolibertarianism, a combination of ultra-conservatism and right-libertarian economic theory, can even be classified as a form of libertarianism. Many moderate members became alienated from the party and founded the Liberal Party USA. Left-leaning members, such as Vermin Love Supreme, also left the party, joining groups like the United States Pirate Party.
After the ‘‘hostile takeover‘‘ by paleolibertarians had severely weakened the Libertarian Party, some of those very paleolibertarians subsequently defected to the Republican Party. Just as the Swedish Pirate Party serves as the original model for all other Pirate Parties worldwide, the Libertarian Party of the USA is the model for all other Libertarian parties around the globe. Consequently, the schism within libertarianism in the USA has negative repercussions worldwide. Despite being a leftist, Murray Bookchin engaged with the Libertarian Party partly because even those libertarians who did not share his economic views, for instance, were closer to him in their love of liberty than authoritarian leftists were. The global Pirate Party movement, which originated in Sweden, is itself a libertarian movement, specifically, a civic libertarian one. However, there are widely differing views within the Pirate movement. A segment of the movement has drifted toward authoritarian left-wing radicalism, with the polarization caused by the war in Gaza acting as an additional driving factor. A large part of the Pirate movement currently operates, de facto, somewhere between Green politics and modern liberalism.
Since 2021, a renewal movement known as "Neo-Piratism" has emerged from within the Turkish Pirate Party; it has been vastly underestimated so far. Neo-Piratism is explicitly Libertarian. The English-language Wikipedia article defines the Turkish Pirate Party as representing ‘‘Big tent Libertarianism‘‘. So, neither explicitly left-libertarian nor explicitly right-libertarian. And that is exactly where we need to return. Today, freedom is under attack from various quarters: from the left, from the right, from religious fanatics, from major corporations, and from people who claim to stand for freedom but in reality continue to erode it.
While the connection to the Libertarian Party did not last long, Murray Bookchin’s ideas have continued to influence the left wing of libertarianism, both within and outside of libertarian parties. Let us return to unity. The enemies of freedom are strong because they are united in their rejection of freedom. Friends of freedom often feel compelled by extreme left-right polarization to align themselves with either the authoritarian Left or the authoritarian Right. Freedom can only lose in this scenario. This path leads only to our sliding ever deeper into oppression. Put a stop to the advance of the oppressors, the enemies of freedom! No pasarán! Back to the origins of libertarianism. Back to an era when figures as diverse as Murray Bookchin (left-libertarian), Murray Rothbard (right-libertarian), and Karl Hess (syncretic or Big tent libertarian), despite their sometimes vast differences, were able to work together to shape a united political force dedicated to the cause of Liberty. As is so often the case, the best solutions do not lie in adhering to a dogmatic line, but rather in a blend of different approaches. This also applies to the questions regarding economic systems and free-market competition that so deeply divide the libertarian movement. When it comes to free competition, the best solution, as is often the case, lies in a mix of two distinct models.
In some economic areas, free market competition benefits both liberty and consumers; in others, it does not. For example, let’s have free market competition, regarding who makes the best Spaghetti all'Arrabbiata in town, but not regarding who drains the maximum profit out of you when you are sick.
What can you do today if you want to join a decentralized, ecological, freedom-oriented project? The Duckonian Union is definitely an excellent choice.
Anyone wishing to participate in an international project, one that establishes a federal structure linking various municipalist entities on a decentralized, municipalist basis, thereby contributing positively to the development of local communities (and, by extension, the entire world) through a civil-society-led federal approach, all without conflicting with existing state structures, is cordially invited to take part in the further development of the Duckonian Union. This can be done either by getting involved with an existing entity within the Duckonian Union or by founding new entities that subsequently join the Duckonian Union as full or associate members. And also check if free party membership in the political party Minority List of Austria - Danube Federation, an Observer Member of the European Pirate Party, might be something for you.
