A New Perspective

Our Five Principles

1. Direct Democracy

We advocate for a radical decentralisation of power at all levels, championing direct and participatory forms of democracy. Known as Libertarian municipalism, this would see power concentrated at the level of villages, towns, and city districts – where accountability, transparency, and the human scale can flourish. By actively engaging people in directing the course of their communities, we can train a new kind of citizen and dispense with today’s ‘professionalised’ and unaccountable political class; rendering them redundant. For too long politicians have promised one thing and done another. Citizen assemblies would enable people to regularly participate in decision-making, rather than voting every few years for elected representatives who ultimately serve party interests. 

2. People Before Profit

Capitalism has resulted in staggering concentrations of wealth and power in the hands of a minority. It is an inherently exploitative system which is, through its inherent desire for infinite growth, killing the planet and hording wealth. We believe the key to prosperity is an economy based on sharing, cooperation, and democratic control over production and distribution. We want to work for a Britain where everyone does their fair share and gets their fair share in a spirit of community and solidarity. This means local people’s assemblies collectively owning and controlling the land and socially-important property in the community, not profiteers or state bureaucrats. Community wealth, not corporate wealth.

3. Social Ecology

At the heart of communalist thinking is social ecology. We recognise that we can trace the origins of environmental and ecological problems to social problems. This means addressing and overcoming hierarchical forms of organisation, the oppression of women, and the disenfranchisement of a myriad of oppressed groups – particularly working people. We must work with nature, not against it. Our underlying principle is that of social ecology. Corporations purport to be ‘going green’, whilst they continue to pollute our rivers, poison our air and trash our communities. It’s time for a fundamental change to the way we relate to each other, lest we destroy complex animal life, wreck the oceans, and heat the climate any further.

4. The Enlightenment

While the European Enlightenment was by no means free of conflict between major strands of thought, Agitate stands by the basic proposition that a modern society ought to strive for rationality, progress and civilisation. Humanity is marked by its incredible ability to cooperate and ‘self-create’. We increasingly live in a post-truth age, owing to the spread of divisive misinformation and conspiracy theories by polarising politicians, parts of the media and unchecked social media platforms. Protecting the values of the enlightenment, such as rationality, access to education and knowledge, and honest truth-seeking, is necessary to empower people to think for themselves and for their communities. Rational dialogue needs to be wrestled back from the jaws of political manipulation and corporate power.

5. Real change, local change

Agitate is opposed to simply ‘working within the system’ when the system is itself the basis for much modern ill. It requires more than some tweaking and cosmetic reforms. The current system is designed to keep power in the hands of the powerful. We want to take steps towards a fundamental transformation of society. Britain has seen significant historical progress before and it is not beyond us to agitate, to build something new and to build towards a confederal, directly-democratic, and grassroots socio-political system to replace capitalism and the centralised state. Just as the modern nation-state and capitalism supplanted the feudal order. Let’s end the illusion of democracy and let’s make it real.