Horizontalidad (, horizontality or horizontalism) is a social relationship that advocates the creation, development, and maintenance of social structures for the equitable distribution of management power and is a prominent concept within anarchist thought.[1][2][3] These structures and relationships function as a result of dynamic self-management, involving the continuity of participation and exchange between individuals to achieve the larger desired outcomes of the collective whole.
Origin
As a specific term, horizontalidad is attributed to the radical movements that sprouted in December 2001, in Argentina, after the economic crisis. According to Marina Sitrin, it is a new social creation. Different from many social movements of the past, it rejected political programs, opting instead to create directly democratic spaces and new social relationship.[4]
The related term "horizontals" arose during the anti-globalisation European Social Forum in London in 2004 to describe people organising in a style where they "aspire to an open relationship between participants, whose deliberative encounters (rather than representative status) form the basis of any decisions,"[5] in contrast to "verticals" who "assume the existence and legitimacy of representative structures, in which bargaining power is accrued on the basis of an electoral mandate (or any other means of selection to which the members of an organisation assent)".[5]
According to Paul Mason, "the power of the horizontalist movements is, first, their replicability by people who know nothing about theory, and secondly, their success in breaking down the
Practice
Neka, a participant in the unemployed workers movement of Solano, outside Buenos Aires, Argentina, described horizontalidad as:
See also
- Anarchism
- Autogestion
- Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army
- Corporative federalism
- Consociationalism
- Economic democracy
- General assembly (Occupy movement)
- Kritarchy
- Libertarian Municipalism
- Meritocracy
- Multicameralism
- Panarchism
- Participatory Economics
Further reading
External links
- La ocupación de Wall Street en clave argentina Lavaca, October 1st 2011.
- Horizontalism and the Occupy Movements. By Marina Sitrin. Dissent, Spring 2012.
References
- Marina Sitrin. Anarchism and the Newest Social Movements 2022^
- Daniel Baryon. A Modern Anarchism 2022^
- Horizontalism: voices of popular power in Argentina AK Press, 2006^