''Horizontalidad'' (, horizontality or horizontalism) is a social relationship that advocates the creation, development, and maintenance of social structures for the equitable distribution of

management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

power. These structures and relationships function as a result of dynamic self-management, involving the continuity of participation and

exchange Exchange may refer to: Physics *Gas exchange is the movement of oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Places United States * Exchange, Indiana, an unincorporated community * ...

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 Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, after the

economic crisis An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with t ...

. 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. The related term "horizontals" arose during the anti-globalisation European Social Forum in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

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," 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)". Horizontalidad is related to the theories of

anarchist communism Anarcho-communism, also known as anarchist communism, (or, colloquially, ''ancom'' or ''ancomm'') is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that advocates communism. It calls for the abolition of private property but retains res ...

, social ecology and

libertarian municipalism Murray Bookchin (January 14, 1921 – July 30, 2006) was an American social theorist, author, orator, historian, and political philosopher. A pioneer in the environmental movement, Bookchin formulated and developed the theory of social ...

autonomist Marxism Autonomism, also known as autonomist Marxism is an anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory. As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tendenci ...

and

participatory economics Participatory economics, often abbreviated Parecon, is an economic system based on participatory decision making as the primary economic mechanism for allocation in society. In the system, the say in decision-making is proportional to the impa ...

. According to these schools of thought, horizontality seems to be a necessary factor for real freedom because it allows personal

autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ow ...

within a framework of

social equality Social equality is a state of affairs in which all individuals within a specific society have equal rights, liberties, and status, possibly including civil rights, freedom of expression, autonomy, and equal access to certain public goods and s ...

. These approaches advocate a kind of socialist

direct democracy Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the electorate decides on policy initiatives without elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently established democracies, which are repr ...

and workers' councils ('' autogestion'') or community/neighborhood councils. 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

hierarchies A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...

that seek to contain them. They are exposed to a montage of ideas, in a way that the structured, difficult-to-conquer knowledge of the 1970s and 1980s did not allow (...) The big question for horizontalist movements is that as long as you don’t articulate against power, you’re basically doing what somebody has called ''"reform by riot"'': a guy in a hoodie goes to jail for a year so that a guy in a suit can get his law through parliament".

Practice

Neka, a participant in the unemployed workers movement of Solano, outside

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South Am ...

, Argentina, described ''horizontalidad'' as:

References

External links

La ocupación de Wall Street en clave argentina
Lavaca, October 1st 2011. *
Horizontalism and the Occupy Movements
By Marina Sitrin. ''

Dissent Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred t ...

'', Spring 2012. {{Anarchism Self-organization Autonomism Anti-globalization movement

Origin

Practice

See also

References

External links