The governor of the state of Lara, of which Torres was a part, was furious that Oropeza, his puppet, had been bested by this upstart. He decided to cut off the municipality’s funding and appoint a new council. But he hadn’t reckoned on the groundswell of support for the freshly elected mayor. Hundreds of residents marched on city hall, refusing to go home until their budget was adopted.
In the end, the people won. Within ten years of Julio Chávez’s election, Torres had pulled off several decades’ worth of progress. Corruption and clientelism were way down, demonstrated a University of California study, and the population was participating in politics like never before. New houses and schools were going up, new roads were being built and old districts were getting spruced up.4
To this day Torres has one of the largest participatory budgets in the world. Some fifteen thousand people provide input, and assemblies are held early each year in 560 locations across the municipality. Everyone is welcome to submit proposals and elect representatives. Together, the people of Torres decide where to allocate their millions in tax revenue.
‘In the past, government officials would stay in their air-conditioned offices all day and make decisions there,’ one resident said. ‘They never even set foot in our communities. So who do you think can make a better decision about what we need, an official in his office who has never come to our community, or someone who is from the community?’5
2
Now, you may be thinking to yourself: nice anecdote, but one swallow doesn’t make a democratic summer. So some obscure place ventured off the beaten track, why is that a revolution?
The thing is, what happened in Torres is just one instance among many. The bigger story started years earlier, when a metropolis in Brazil took the unprecedented step of entrusting a quarter of its budget to the populace. That city was Porto Alegre and the year was 1989. A decade later, the idea had been copied by more than a hundred cities across Brazil, and from there it began to spread around the world. By 2016, more than fifteen hundred cities, from New York City to Seville and from Hamburg to Mexico City, had enacted some form of participatory budgeting.6
What we’re talking about here is in fact one of the biggest movements of the twenty-first century–but the chances are you’ve never heard of it. It’s just not juicy enough for the news. Citizen politicians don’t have reality-star appeal or money for spin doctors and ad campaigns. They don’t devise pithy one-liners to throw around in so-called debates, and they couldn’t care less about daily polls.
What citizen politicians do is engage in calm and deliberative dialogue. This may sound dull, but it’s magic. It might just be the remedy for the seven plagues afflicting our tired old democracies.
1. From cynicism to engagement
In most countries there’s a deep divide between the people and the political establishment. With the suits in Washington, Beijing and Brussels making most of the decisions, is it any wonder the average person feels unheard and unrepresented?
In Torres and Porto Alegre, almost everyone is personally acquainted with a politician. Since some 20 per cent of the population has participated in city budgeting, there’s also less grumbling about what politicians are doing wrong.7 Not happy about how things are going? Help fix it. ‘It’s not the suits who come here and tell us what to do. It’s us,’ reported a participant in Porto Alegre. ‘I am a humble person. I have participated since the beginning. […] [Budgeting] makes people talk, even the poorest.’8
At the same time, trust in the city council has gone up in Porto Alegre. And mayors are among those to profit most, a Yale political scientist discovered, because mayors who empower their citizens are more likely to be re-elected.9
2. From polarisation to trust
When Porto Alegre launched its participatory budgeting experiment, the city was not exactly a bastion of trust. In fact, there are few countries where people trust each other less than in Brazil.10 Most experts therefore rated the city’s chances of pulling off a democratic spring as slim to none. People first had to band together, form clubs, tackle discrimination and so on. That would then prepare the ground for democracy to take root.11
Porto Alegre turned this equation around. Only after the administration launched a participatory budget did trust begin to grow. Community groups then multiplied, from 180 in 1986 to 600 in 2000. Soon, engaged citizens were addressing each other as companheiro–as compatriots and brothers.
The people of Porto Alegre behaved much like Agora founder Sjef Drummen’s formerly caged chickens. When first released from their coops, they stood nailed to the ground. But they soon found their feet. ‘The most important thing,’ said one, ‘is that more and more people come. Those who come for the first time are welcome. You have the responsibility of not abandoning [them]. That’s the most important thing.’12
3. From exclusion to inclusion
Political debates can be so complex that people have a hard time following along. And in a diploma democracy, those with little money or education tend to be sidelined. Many citizens of democracies are, at best, permitted to choose their own aristocracy.
But in the hundreds of participatory budgeting experiments, it’s precisely the traditionally disenfranchised groups that are well represented. Since its 2011 start in New York City, the meetings have attracted chiefly Latinos and African Americans.13 And in Porto Alegre, 30 per cent of participants come from the poorest 20 per cent of the population.14
‘The first time I participated I was unsure,’ admitted one Porto Alegre participant, ‘because there were persons there with college degrees, and we don’t have [degrees]. […] But with time, we started to learn.’15 Unlike the old political system, the new democracy is not reserved for well-off white men. Instead, minorities and poorer and less-educated segments of society are far better represented.
4. From complacency to citizenship
On the whole, voters tend to take a fairly dim view of politicians, and vice versa. But democracy as practised in Torres and Porto Alegre is a training ground for citizenship. Give people a voice in how things are run and they become more nuanced about politics. More sympathetic. Even smarter.
A journalist reporting on participatory budgeting in Vallejo, California, expressed astonishment at the level of people’s commitment: ‘here were all these people of different ages and ethnic groups, who could be home watching their local baseball team in the World Series, who were instead talking about rules and voting procedure. And not only that, they were passionate about it.’16
Time and again, researchers remark on the fact that almost everybody has something worthwhile to contribute–regardless of formal education–as long as everyone’s taken seriously.
5. From corruption to transparency
Before participatory budgeting came to Porto Alegre, citizens who wanted a politician’s ear could expect to spend hours waiting outside their office. And then it helped to have a wad of cash to pass under the table.
According to a Brazilian sociologist who spent years researching Porto Alegre, the participatory process undermined the old culture of greasing palms. People were better informed about civic finances, and that made it harder for politicians to accept bribes and award jobs.17
‘We see it [the participatory budget] as an organizing tool,’ said a Chicago resident. ‘It will help our members learn more about the city budget and then we can press the alderman about other things he controls.’18 In other words: participatory budgeting bridges the divide between politics and the people.
6. From self-interest to solidarity
How many piles of books have been written in recent years about the fragmentation of society? We want better healthcare, better education and less poverty, but we also have to be willing to pitch in.
Unbelievable as it may sound, studies find that participatory budgeting actually makes people more willing to pay taxes. In Porto Alegre, citizens even asked for higher taxes–something political scientists had always deemed unthinkable.19
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‘I had not understood that council tax paid for so much,’ enthused one participant in Leicester East (UK). ‘It was very good to find out the services it pays for.’20 This redefines taxes into a contribution you pay as a member of society. Many of those involved in participatory budgeting say the experience made them feel like real citizens for the first time. After a year, as one Porto Alegren put it, you learn to look beyond your own community: ‘You have to look at the city as a whole.’21
7. From inequality to dignity
Before Porto Alegre embarked on its democratic adventure, the city was in dire financial straits. One-third of the population was living in slums.
But then things began changing fast–much faster than in cities that didn’t adopt a participatory budget.22 Access to running water went from 75 per cent in 1989 to 95 per cent in 1996, and access to city sewage service went from a measly 48 per cent to 95 per cent of the population. The number of children attending school tripled, the number of roads built multiplied fivefold, and tax evasion plummeted.23
Thanks to citizen budgets, less public money went into prestige projects like real estate. The World Bank found that more went to infrastructure, education and healthcare, particularly in poorer communities.24
In 2014 an American research team published the first large-scale study on the social and economic impact of participatory budgeting across Brazil. Their conclusion was loud and clear: ‘We find PB programs are strongly associated with increases in health care spending, increases in civil society organizations, and decreases in infant mortality rates. This connection strengthens dramatically as PB programs remain in place over longer time frames.’25
In the mid-1990s, Britain’s Channel 4 launched a new TV programme called The People’s Parliament. The show randomly invited hundreds of Britons from all walks of life to go head-to-head on controversial issues like drugs, arms sales and juvenile crime. At the end of each episode, they had to reach a compromise.
According to the Economist, ‘Many viewers of the People’s Parliament have judged its debates to be of higher quality than those in the House of Commons. Members of the former, unlike the latter, appear to listen to what their fellows say.’26 So what did Channel 4 do? It pulled the plug. Producers felt the debates were too calm, too thoughtful, too sensible, and much preferred the kind of confrontational entertainment we call ‘politics’.
But participatory democracy isn’t an experiment cooked up for TV. It’s a sound method for tackling the plagues of the old democracy.
Like any other, this form of democracy has its shortcomings. The focus on yearly investments can come at the cost of a city’s long-term vision. More importantly, many participatory processes are too limited. Porto Alegre’s budget was curtailed in 2004 when a conservative coalition came to power, and now it’s unclear if the tradition will survive in the city where it all started.
Sometimes participatory budgeting is used as a cover-up–a sham concession by elites who, behind the scenes, are still running the show. Then citizens’ assemblies only serve to rubber-stamp decisions already taken. Naturally, this engenders cynicism, but it doesn’t legitimate denying citizens a direct voice. ‘Treat responsible citizens as ballot fodder and they’ll behave like ballot fodder,’ writes historian David Van Reybrouck, ‘but treat them as adults and they’ll behave like adults.’27
3
It was back in fourth grade that Mr Arnold taught us about communism. ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’ Or as I read (years later) in the Oxford English Dictionary: ‘A theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.’28
As a child, this sounded like a great idea. Why not share everything? But in the years that followed, like so many kids I had to face a disappointing realisation: sharing everything equally may be a fine idea, in practice it degenerates into chaos, poverty, or worse–a bloodbath. Look at Russia under Lenin and Stalin. China under Mao. Cambodia under Pol Pot.
These days, the C-word tops the list of controversial ideologies. Communism, we’re told, cannot work. Why? Because it’s based on a flawed understanding of human nature. Without private property, we lose all motivation and swiftly revert into apathetic parasites.
Or so the story goes.
Even as a teenager it struck me as odd that the case for communism’s ‘failure’ seemed to rest solely on the evidence of bloodthirsty regimes in countries where ordinary citizens had no say–regimes supported by all-powerful police states and corrupt elites.
What I didn’t realise back then was that communism–according to the official definition, at least–has been a successful system for hundreds of years, one that bears little resemblance to the Soviet Union. In fact, we practise it every day. Even after decades of privatisation, big slices of our economy still operate according to the communist model. This is so normal, so obvious, that we no longer see it.
Simple example: you’re sitting at the dinner table and can’t reach the salt. You say, ‘Please pass the salt’ and, just like that, someone hands you the salt–for free. Humans are crazy about this kind of everyday communism, as anthropologists call it, sharing our parks and plazas, our music and stories, our beaches and beds.29
Perhaps the best example of this liberality is the household. Billions of homes worldwide are organised around the communist principle: parents share their possessions with their children and contribute as they’re able. This is where we get the word ‘economy’, which derives from the Greek oikonomíā, meaning ‘management of a household’.
In the workplace we’re also constantly showing our communist colours. While writing this book, for instance, I benefited from the critical eyes of dozens of colleagues, who didn’t ask a penny for their time. Businesses, too, are big fans of internal communism, simply because it’s so efficient.
But what about strangers? After all, we don’t share everything with everyone. On the other hand, how often have you charged people who asked for directions? Or when you held the door open for someone, or allowed another person to shelter under your umbrella? These are not tit-for-tat transactions; you do them because they’re the decent thing to do, and because you believe other strangers would do the same for you.
Our lives are filled with these kinds of communist acts. The word ‘communism’ comes from the Latin communis, meaning ‘communal’. You could see communism as the bedrock on which everything else–markets, states, bureaucracy–is built. This may help explain the explosion of cooperation and altruism that happen in the wake of natural disasters, such as in New Orleans in 2005. In a catastrophe, we go back to our roots.
Of course, we can’t always apply the communist ideal of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’, just as not everything can be assigned a monetary value. Zoom out, however, and you’ll realise that on a day-to-day basis we share more with one another than we keep for ourselves.
This communal basis is a vital mainstay of capitalism. Consider how many companies are utterly dependent on the generosity of their customers. Facebook would be worth far less without the pictures and videos that millions of users share for free. And Airbnb wouldn’t survive long without the innumerable reviews travellers post for nothing.
So why are we so blind to our own communism? Maybe it’s because the things we share don’t seem all that remarkable. We take sharing them for granted. Nobody has to print flyers explaining to people that it’s nice to take a stroll in Central Park. Clean air has no need for public service announcements instructing you to inhale it. Nor do you think of that air–or the beach you relax on or the fairy tales you recount–as belonging to somebody.
It’s only when someone decides to rent out the air, appropriate the beach, or claim the rights to the fairy tale that you take notice. Wait a minute, you think, didn’t this belong to all of us?
The things we share are known as the co
mmons. They can include just about anything–from a community garden to a website, from a language to a lake–as long as it’s shared and democratically managed by a community. Some commons are part of nature’s bounty (like drinking water), others are human inventions (websites like Wikipedia).
For millennia, the commons constituted almost everything on earth. Our nomadic ancestors had scarcely any notion of private property and certainly not of states. Hunter-gatherers viewed nature as a ‘giving place’ that provided for everybody’s needs, and it never occurred to them to patent an invention or a tune. As we saw in Chapter 3, Homo puppy owes its success to the fact that we’re master plagiarists.
It’s only in the past 10,000 years that steadily bigger slices of the commons have been swallowed up by the market and the state. It began with the first chieftains and kings, who laid claim to lands which had previously been shared by everyone. Today, it’s mainly multinationals that appropriate all kinds of commons, from water sources to lifesaving drugs and from new scientific knowledge to songs we all sing. (Like the nineteenth-century hit ‘Happy Birthday’, to which, up until 2015, the Warner Music Group owned the rights, thus raking in tens of millions in royalties.)
Or take the rise of the advertising industry, which has plastered unsightly billboards all over cities across the world. If someone sprays your house with graffiti, we call it vandalism. But for advertising you’re allowed to deface public space and economists will call it ‘growth’.
The concept of the commons gained currency with a piece published in the journal Science by American biologist Garrett Hardin. This was 1968, a time of revolution. Millions of demonstrators around the world took to the streets in protest, rallying to the cry: ‘Be realistic. Demand the impossible.’
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