Explore every episode of the podcast Demarchic Communism Podcast

Shaunsky and Sasha begin reading our second engagement with a criticism of lottocracy. "Sticking to the Long Road of Participation: Replies to My Critics" is a response from Cristina Lafont to criticisms of her book Democracy Without Shortcuts. 

Recorded May 4, 2025. The discussion of what we were intending to call "Part 1" ran about 2 hours, so we've now divided Episode 19 into parts A & B.  You can find the essay at https://krisis.eu/article/view/37053/34617.

Intro music: "District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Shaunsky and Sasha tackle a criticism of lottocracy for the first time. "Alternatives to Democracy" is the fourth section within "What If This Book Is Wrong?" which is the final chapter of Benjamin Studebaker's book The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy: The Way Is Shut. There is no link to this text online, but email us (demarchiccommunism@proton.me) if you would like us to send you the pdf file we read from. Intro music: "District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Shaunsky and Sasha read a short essay by Sasha: "Real Democracy Will Require Revolution." https://tinyurl.com/352md9a3

If you would like to contribute to the project, or have questions, criticisms, comments, or suggestions, contact us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me.

Contact Sasha directly on Bluesky @demarchicroad.bsky.social or on twitter @demarchiccommie.

Intro music: "District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Shaunsky and Sasha finish reading chapter 3 of David Graeber's The Democracy Project, "The Mob Begin to Think and to Reason: The Covert History of Democracy."

https://astudygroup.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/the-democracy-project.pdf

If you would like to contribute to the project, or have questions, criticisms, comments, or suggestions, contact us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me.

Contact Sasha directly on Bluesky @demarchicroad.bsky.social or on twitter @demarchiccommie.

Intro music: "District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Red, Shaunsky, and Sasha continue reading in David Graeber's The Democracy Project, chapter 3 "The Mob Begin to Think and to Reason: The Covert History of Democracy."

https://astudygroup.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/the-democracy-project.pdf

If you would like to contribute to the project, or have questions, criticisms, comments, or suggestions, contact us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me.

Contact Sasha directly on Bluesky @demarchicroad.bsky.social or on twitter @demarchiccommie. Find Red on twitter @ComradeRed49.

Intro music: "District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Shaunsky and Sasha continue reading in David Graeber's The Democracy Project, chapter 3 "The Mob Begin to Think and to Reason: The Covert History of Democracy."

https://astudygroup.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/the-democracy-project.pdf

If you would like to contribute to the project, or have questions, criticisms, comments, or suggestions, contact us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me.

Contact Sasha directly on Bluesky @demarchicroad.bsky.social or on Twitter @demarchiccommie.

Intro music: "District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Shaunsky, Red, and Sasha begin reading David Graeber's The Democracy Project.

https://astudygroup.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/the-democracy-project.pdf

If you would like to contribute to the project, or have questions, criticisms, comments, or suggestions, contact us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me.

Contact Sasha directly on Bluesky @demarchicroad.bsky.social or on Twitter @demarchiccommie.

Intro music: "District Four" by Kevin MacLeod 

Outro music: "Warpath" by Drezus https://drezus.bandcamp.com/track/warpath-2

Shaunsky and Sasha read "Can We Go Forward If We Fear To Advance Towards Socialism?" which is the 11th chapter (of 13) of Lenin's pamphlet The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It.

Text available at Marxists Internet Archive at https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/11.htm#v25zz99h-360

If you would like to contribute to the project, or have questions, criticisms, comments, or suggestions, contact us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me.

Contact Sasha directly on Bluesky @demarchicroad.bsky.social or on Twitter @demarchiccommie.

Intro music: "District Four" by Kevin MacLeod 

Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Shaunsky, Red, and Sasha finish up Lesson 4 of Araling Aktibista.

If you would like to contribute to the project, or have questions, criticisms, comments, or suggestions, contact us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me. Activist Study (Araling Aktibista) can be found at https://foreignlanguages.press/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/S22-Activist-Study-ARAK-4th-Printing.pdf

Contact Sasha directly on Bluesky @demarchicroad.bsky.social or on Twitter @demarchiccommie.

Intro music: "District Four" by Kevin MacLeod 

Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Red and Sasha discuss Activist Study from the Communist Party of the Philippines, Lesson 3, "The Mass Line" and the first part of Lesson 4, "Democratic Centralism."

If you would like to contribute to the project, or have questions, criticisms, comments, or suggestions, contact us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me. Activist Study (Araling Aktibista) can be found at https://foreignlanguages.press/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/S22-Activist-Study-ARAK-4th-Printing.pdf

Contact Sasha directly on Bluesky @demarchicroad.bsky.social or on Twitter @demarchiccommie.

Intro music: "District Four" by Kevin MacLeod 

Outro music: "Lookin' Up" by The Bar (Bambu and Prometheus Brown)

Red, Shaunsky, and Sasha finish reading Alpa Shah's article "What If We Selected Our Leaders by Lottery? Democracy by Sortition, Liberal Elections, and Communist Revolutionaries." Article available online at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/dech.12651.

If you would like to contribute to the project, or have questions, criticisms, comments, or suggestions, contact us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me. Contact Sasha directly on Bluesky @demarchicroad.bsky.social or on Twitter @demarchiccommie.

Intro music: "District Four" by Kevin MacLeod 

Outro music: "What Are We" by Savage Family

Red, Shaunsky, and Sasha continue with part 3 of Alpa Shah's article "What If We Selected Our Leaders by Lottery? Democracy by Sortition, Liberal Elections, and Communist Revolutionaries." Article available online at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/dech.12651.

If you would like to contribute to the project, or have questions, criticisms, comments, or suggestions, contact us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me. Contact Sasha directly on Bluesky @demarchicroad.bsky.social or on Twitter @demarchiccommie.

Intro music: "District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Shaunsky and Sasha continue with part 2 of Alpa Shah's article "What If We Selected Our Leaders by Lottery? Democracy by Sortition, Liberal Elections, and Communist Revolutionaries." Article available online at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/dech.12651.

If you would like to contribute to the project, or have questions, criticisms, comments, or suggestions, contact us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me. Contact Sasha directly on Bluesky @demarchicroad.bsky.social or on Twitter @demarchiccommie.

Intro music: "District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

New co-host Red joins Shaunsky and Sasha to review the first section of Alpa Shah's article "What If We Selected Our Leaders by Lottery? Democracy by Sortition, Liberal Elections, and Communist Revolutionaries." Article available online at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/dech.12651.

If you would like to contribute to the project, or have questions, criticisms, comments, or suggestions, contact us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me. Contact Sasha directly on Bluesky @demarchicroad.bsky.social or on Twitter @demarchiccommie.

Intro music: "District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sasha finishes reading Brian Martin's "Democracy Without Elections."

Apologies for the echo/reverb in a few places. I was trying to bring in a better microphone, but I obviously don't know enough about audio to get that right.

If you would like to contribute to the project, or have questions, criticisms, comments, or suggestions, contact us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me. The essay can be found on Brian Martin's website at https://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/95sa.html

Intro music: "District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Shaunsky and Sasha read and discuss section 2 of Brian Martin's essay "Democracy Without Elections." If you would like to contribute to the project, or have questions, criticisms, comments, or suggestions, contact us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me. The essay can be found on Brian Martin's website at https://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/95sa.html

Intro music: "District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Recorded June 2, 2024

Published June 19, 2024

Shaunsky and Sasha read and discuss the first section of Brian Martin's 1995 essay "Democracy Without Elections." 

If you'd like to get involved with the podcast, email us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me, or send us a message on twitter @demarchiccommie 

or BlueSky @demarchicroad.bsky.social

Intro music: "District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sasha and Shaunsky review the reading of the Introduction & Chapter 13 "On Democracy" of Cockshott & Cottrell's 1993 book Towards a New Socialism which was read in Episode 1A. To send us questions, comments, or to get involved in the project, email us at demarchiccommunism@proton.me

Sasha reads the Introduction and Chapter 13 "On Democracy" of 𝘛𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘢 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘚𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮 by Cockshott and Cottrell (1993).

Full text of 𝘛𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘢 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘚𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮 at https://users.wfu.edu/cottrell/socialism_book/new_socialism.pdf

link to The Trouble with Elections: Everything We Thought We Knew About Democracy is Wrong by Terry Bouricius

https://democracycreative.substack.com/p/the-trouble-with-elections?r=cvh3h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=substack

Intro music: "District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro music: "RetroFuture Nasty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sasha briefly discusses what Demarchic Communism is, what the show will be about, how it will be formatted, and asks for volunteers interested in being part of making it a collective effort. To get involved with the podcast, email demarchiccommunism@proton.me.

transcript: https://tinyurl.com/jbuv8ju9