they’re referring to anarchist federalism, which scales in principle from neighbourhoods and work groups up to nations.
And if decisions are at rhe lowest possible levels then it seems like thats a hierarchy, which is more horizontal rather than not being a hierarchy.’
And i dont know what you meam by “the position” or “temporal” or “at the start” and that it “changes everything”.
horizontalism does not create a hierarchy, because a hierarchy (from Greek, for ‘rule of priests’) is a structure which creates superiors and subordinates.
say there’s a community — a geographical neighbourhood, a nongeographical group with shared interests, a workgroup… — that holds meetings on their own self-management and needs. when their needs concern more than themselves, then they delegate someone to communicate their concern to a larger (‘higher’) group — a city, a region, an industry — on a mandate: that they are temporary (till the concern is resolved, till the end of a project, or for an arbitrary time decided by the group); that they represent the group consensus; and that they can be recalled for any reason, more specifically in the event that they aren’t fulfilling their obligations to the group they represent.
proposals go up a chain, and revisions/changes are sent back down the chain. this cycle continues until the smallest (‘lowest’) groups are in agreement, with that agreement communicated by the delegates up to the largest relevant group. with a population like the US, these rounds of consensing can be done in the span of a month: https://participatoryeconomy.org/project/computer-simulations-of-participatory-planning/.
this structure can take infinite forms, but those structures remain fundamentally similar and therefore compatible.
there are examples like anarchist Spain, the Zapatistas, and — aspirationally — Rojava, mostly in in the Rojavan restorative justice system. to be fair to Rojava: they have been under siege for a decade.
for some thought experiments: Can This Book Save Us From Dystopia? (43m), The Future of Socialism (15m).
when the GP says ‘this changes everything’, they mean that the temporary and recallable nature of holding a special role in society flips the current paradigm: where politicians can promise whatever they want and then fail to deliver, because other (economically-)viable candidates are few and they already have their position. there’s nothing in the current system that gives constituents the ability to immediately remove a representative who isn’t representing the people who elected them, or who uses their position to further personal agenda.
a system where the people directly involved in their work and their lives are also participants in their own work and their own life creates people who are invested in the world around them.
i’m not who you asked for, but i’ve worked a lot with people in Sweden.
first, let’s talk about options. you don’t really have any negotiating power unless you are a member of one of the big three unions, and even then: only if you’re in the union which your employer has a collective agreement with, and even then: you don’t have any say in negotiations.
there’s TCO, which is the Liberal’s Choice™ confederation of unions, ranging from cops, to office workers, to insurance scammers. within TCO is the largest: Unionen (lit. ‘The Union’), whose unofficial motto is ‘if the boss could pick’ (om chefen själv för välja). Unionen is the default character’s choice for anyone who’s ever touched a keyboard.
there’s LO, best known for their hit single IF Metall, and they’re right-wing blue-collar productivists.
there’s Saco, best known for uhhhh. and they primarily represent the elite, lawyers, quacks, and other priests (such as religious ones).
the main alternative is the Syndicalists. they’re anticapitalist, they have few agreements with anybody, and they’re a great way to get blacklisted and wiretapped. their ideology is outlined here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/rasmus-hastbacka-swedish-syndicalism
the independent Dockworkers Union is a great example of a functioning union. but they’re only for one industry, and many of their members give off national syndicalism vibes.
it’s definitely a pacifier.
the unions primarily serve to maintain a minimum level of comfort for the middle class, while acting on behalf of employers to crush left-wing organising and militancy. they give leeway to the largest employers, while ignoring the plight of employees at small companies. they follow the party line of the socdems, which in recent years is ‘whatever the far-right is on about this week’. the general view toward salary negotiations is ‘the highest paid jobs should be paid even more, and the lowest paid jobs should be paid even less so we can pay the highest paid jobs even more’.
whenever there’s any criticism of the unions, the socdems, or the Swedish government/economy overall: you’ll get union leaders and politicians across the spectrum snapping back that ‘hEre in SweDeN, wE hAvE a ModEl’ and then passing/proposing laws to criminalise and punch down at criticisms of ‘the Swedish System’ as some kind of foreign threat. you can’t criticise or protest ‘elected’ leadership, because that’s ‘undemocratic’ and ‘strongarm’, and ‘you should just shut the fuck up and wait till the next vote’.
there’s two short English essays here (from a syndicalist perspective):