Community Socialism

Community Socialism is a branch of socialist thought with an emphasis on community councils and worker-based management.

Community socialism was pioneered by Canadian Rick Smith who founded the Canadian Renaissance Organization (CRO) to advocate his ideas. It has since disbanded and reformed as the Canadian Community Socialist Organization (CCSO).

Community socialism shares many similarities with libertarian socialism and Rosa Luxemburg's ideas. Community socialists believe that the means of production (eg. factories, railroads, mines, etc.) should be owned by the communities that surround them and operated by workers and management chosen by the workers.

Politically, community socialists seek to transform the modern state into what they consider to be a more democratic institution. They believe in achieving this through peaceful organization of community councils that rally for autonomy from the various levels of government.

Basics of community socialism
Community socialism adheres to a program that they call "Fourteen Visions for a New Society" written by Rick Smith, chairperson of the Canadian Community Socialist Organization. The Fourteen Visions outline the desire of community socialists for direct democracy (which they also call "community democracy"), workers' councils in the workplace, individual freedom and environmentalism as well as their opposition to racism, sexism, heterosexism and classism.

Organizations promoting community socialism
Presently, the Canadian Community Socialist Organization (CCSO) is the only active group promoting community socialism. Chairperson Rick Smith has expressed interest in making the push for community socialism an international initiative but that the movement must be built in Canada as a start.

The CCSO is a grassroots organization, does not take donations and only loosely keeps track of members, mostly through Facebook. They also maintain a blog.

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