Takis Fotopoulos (; born 14 October 1940) is a Greek political philosopher, economist and writer who founded the Inclusive Democracy movement, aiming at a synthesis of classical democracy with libertarian socialism and the radical currents in the new social movements. He is an

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

, and has written many books and over 900 articles. He is the editor of ''The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy'' (which succeeded '' Democracy & Nature'') and is the author of ''Towards An Inclusive Democracy'' (1997) in which the foundations of the Inclusive Democracy project were set.Takis Fotopoulos bio
at Bloomsburry Publishing/Continuum's website. His latest book is ''The New World Order in Action: Volume 1: Globalization, the Brexit Revolution and the "Left"- Towards a Democratic Community of Sovereign Nations'' (December 2016). Fotopoulos is Greek and lives in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

.Takis Fotopoulos bio
at eipcp's (European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies) website.

Early life

Fotopoulos was born on the Greek island of

Chios Chios (; , traditionally known as Scio in English) is the fifth largest Greece, Greek list of islands of Greece, island, situated in the northern Aegean Sea, and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, tenth largest island in the Medi ...

and his family moved to

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

soon afterwards. After graduating from the University of Athens with degrees in

Economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

and

Political Science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

and in Law, he moved to London in 1966 for postgraduate study at the London School of Economics on a Varvaressos scholarship from Athens University. He was a student syndicalist and activist in Athens and then a political activist in London, taking an active part in the

1968 student protests The protests of 1968 comprised a worldwide escalation of social conflicts, which were predominantly characterized by the rise of left-wing politics, Anti-war movement, anti-war sentiment, Civil and political rights, civil rights urgency, youth C ...

there, and in organisations of the revolutionary Greek Left during the struggle against the Greek military junta of 1967–1974. During this period, he was a member of the Greek group called Revolutionary Socialist Groups in London, which published the newspaper ''Μαμή'' ("Midwife", from the Marxian dictum, "violence is the midwife of revolution") for which he wrote several articles. Fotopoulos married Sia Mamareli (a former lawyer) in 1966; the couple have a son, Costas (born in 1974), who is a composer and pianist.

Academia and afterwards

Fotopoulos was a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Polytechnic of North London from 1969 to 1989, until he began editing the journal ''Society & Nature'', later '' Democracy & Nature'' and subsequently the online ''International Journal of Inclusive Democracy''. He was also a columnist of '' Eleftherotypia'', the second-biggest newspaper in Greece.

Inclusive Democracy

Fotopoulos developed the political project of Inclusive Democracy (ID) in 1997 (an exposition can be found in ''Towards An Inclusive Democracy''). The first issue of ''Society & Nature'' declared that:

our ambition is to initiate an urgently needed dialogue on the crucial question of developing a new liberatory social project, at a moment in
History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
when the Left has abandoned this traditional role.

It specified that the new project should be seen as the outcome of a synthesis of the democratic, libertarian socialist and radical Green traditions. Since then, a dialogue has followed in the pages of the journal, in which supporters of the

autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision. Autonomous organizations or institutions are independent or self-governing. Autonomy can also be ...

project like Cornelius Castoriadis, social ecology supporters including its founder Murray Bookchin, and Green activists and academics like Steven Best have taken part. The starting point for Fotopoulos' work is that the world faces a multi-dimensional crisis (economic, ecological, social, cultural and political) which is caused by the concentration of power in elites, as a result of the market economy, representative democracy and related forms of hierarchical structure. An inclusive democracy, which involves the equal distribution of power at all levels, is seen not as a utopia (in the negative sense of the word) or a "vision" but as perhaps the only way out of the present crisis, with trends towards its creation manifesting themselves today in many parts of the world. Fotopoulos is in favor of market abolitionism, although he would not identify himself as a market abolitionist as such because he considers market abolition as one aspect of an inclusive democracy which refers only to the economic democracy component of it. He maintains that "modern hierarchical society," which for him includes both the

capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

market economy and "

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

" statism, is highly oriented toward economic growth, which has glaring environmental contradictions. Fotopoulos proposes a model of economic democracy for a stateless, marketless and moneyless economy but he considers that the economic democracy component is equally significant to the other components of ID, i.e. political or direct democracy, economic democracy, ecological democracy and democracy in the social realm. Fotopoulos' work has been critically assessed by important activists, theorists and scholars.

Selected bibliography

*
Towards An Inclusive Democracy. The Crisis of the Growth Economy and the Need for a New Liberatory Project
' (London/New York: Cassell Continuum, 1997), 401 pp. and 0-304-33628-9. * ''Education, Culture and Modernization'', ed. by Peter Alheit et al. (Roskide University, 1995). (Takis Fotopoulos contribution

. * ''Defending Public Schools'', ed. by David A. Gabbard & E. Wayne Ross (Praeger, 2004). (Takis Fotopoulos contribution

. * ''Critical Perspectives on Globalisation'', ed. by Robert Hunter Wade, Marina Della Giusta and Uma Kambhampati (Chelthenham, UK & Northampton, MA US: Edward Elgar publishing, 2006). (Takis Fotopoulos contribution

.
''Eco-socialism as Politics: Rebuilding the Basis of Our Modern Civilisation''
ed. by Qingzhi Huan (Springer, 1st Edition, 2010, XI), 224 p., Hardcover, . (Takis Fotopoulos contribution: "The De-growth Utopia: The Incompatibility of De-growth within an Internationalised Market Economy").

ed. by A.J.Nocella, Steven Best, Peter McLaren (AK Press, Oakland, CA & Edinburgh, 2010), 590 p, paperback, . (Takis Fotopoulos contribution: "Systemic Aspects of Academic Repression in the New World Order".

of this essay is published in ''The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy'', Vol. 4, No. 4 (October 2008).
''Critical Pedagogy in the new dark ages: challenges and possibilities''
ed by Maria Nikolakaki (Peter Lang Publishing, 2012), . (Takis Fotopoulos contribution: "From (mis)education to Paedeia," pp. 81–119.)
''Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto''
ed by Frederic L. Bender (second revised edition; New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2013), . (Takis Fotopoulos & A. Gezerlis contribution: "Hardt & Negri's Empire: A new Communist Manifesto or a reformist Welcome to Neoliberal Globalization?," (extract), pp. 232–34.)
''The New World Order in Action. Vol. 1: Globalization, the Brexit Revolution and the 'Left - Towards a Democratic Community of Sovereign Nations
(San Diego, Cal., US: Progressive Press, 2016). .

Notes

References

External links

Overviews
"Inclusive Democracy" entry in the ''Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy''
(ed. by Barry Jones), Vol. 2 (2001), pp. 732–740.
Takis Fotopoulos' Archive
Selected interviews * . Takis Fotopoulos' Interview about Inclusive Democracy". Interview taken by Oliver Ressler for his video serie
''Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies (2003-2008)''
(July 19, 2003). Retrieved 21 April 2014.
Inclusive Democracy - A transcript of the video interview
given by Takis Fotopoulos to Oliver Ressler for the projec
''Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies (2003-2008)''
(Recorded in London, 2003). Retrieved 9 October 2015. *Interview with Galina Tichinskaya for Pravda.ru: and transcript

(26 February 2015).
"On the rise of Neoliberalism: An Interview with Takis Fotopoulos"
(8 May 2009). Retrieved 21 April 2014. *Interview fo
''Equal Time for Freethought''
radio show, [original aired as Show 247: Takis Fotopoulos, 30 December 2007; later due to its poor audio quality replaced and rename
Show 289: 1-Hour Special: A Prescription for Real Social Change
]
WBAI radio
99.5 FM, New York City, USA)
audio (1:00:48 min)
Selected talks
"Inclusive Democracy as a political project for a new libertarian synthesis: rationale, proposed social structure and transition"
talk given by Takis Fotopoulos at the CNT centenary conference on self-management (Barcelona, 10 April 2010). Retrieved 21 April 2014. * Takis Fotopoulos talk on the Multidimensional Crisis and Inclusive Democracy ( Exeter College,

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, 12 November 2008). Video in 3 parts
Part 1 (talk)

part 2 (talk/discussion)part 3 (discussion)
Retrieved 21 April 2014. * A talk given by Takis Fotopoulos about the Internationalization of the Capitalist Market Economy and the project of Inclusive Democracy (

University of Vermont The University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, commonly referred to as the University of Vermont (UVM), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont, United States. Foun ...

(US), 19 April 1996), followed by a discussion with Murray Bookchin, Dan Chodorkoff and others. Video in 3 parts
Part 1Part 2Part 3
Retrieved 21 April 2014. {{DEFAULTSORT:Fotopoulos, Takis 1940 births 20th-century Greek philosophers 21st-century Greek philosophers Academics of the University of North London Alumni of the London School of Economics Anti-globalization writers Greek anti-capitalists 20th-century Greek economists Greek male non-fiction writers Greek political writers Greek socialists Libertarian socialists Living people National and Kapodistrian University of Athens alumni Writers from Athens Writers from Chios Philosophers of economics Philosophers of history Philosophers of technology Greek political philosophers Social philosophers Theorists on Western civilization Writers about activism and social change Writers about direct democracy