Who We Are

The Libertarian Socialist Caucus is an organization of members of the Democratic Socialists of America who believe that libertarian socialist values are the fullest embodiment of this democratic socialist vision. We cherish the DSA’s status as a multi-tendency mass socialist organization and wish to create a space within the DSA to discuss and organize for the development of socialism beyond the State, and all other forms of hierarchy and domination.

We take libertarian socialism to encompass those parts of the socialist movement (including syndicalists, council communists, anarchists, cooperativists, communalists and libertarian municipalists, among many others) which have historically seen the surest path to socialism as residing in the creation of independent, autonomous working class institutions in civil society that give people direct power over their lives.

We believe in the socialist principles of common ownership and that worker control over workplaces can only be advanced through the creation and support of worker-owned cooperative firms, radical trade unions, workers’ & neighborhood councils, hubs of mutual aid, popular assemblies, time banking, alternative banking systems, community land trusts (CLT’s), and other directly democratic non-State institutions. Through the assemblage of liberated institutions and non-hierarchal practices, we can “build the new in the shell of the old.” The power of any socialist parties or socialist governments should be subordinate to these decentralized, autonomous formations. See our Dual Power platform here for more information on this strategy.

Our particular vision of a libertarian socialist society—and the specific path we intend to take to get there—will emerge out of the discussions and activities of the LSC itself. We believe that radical, engaged direct democracy is an ongoing participatory process of deliberation, renegotiation, and collective self-determination. It is for the people themselves to decide what the world they wish to live in is to be. Our inability to describe the precise contours of the liberated society is rooted in the simple fact that democracy is inherently a work in progress, continually created and recreated by its participants.

In short, wherever domination exists—of bosses over workers, of men over women and gender nonconformists, of states over subjects, of whites over people of color, of human society over the rest of the web of life—we seek to replace it with equality, cooperation, love, and mutual respect.

Ours is a vision of total liberation, not just in some far-flung revolutionary future, but in the here and now.

Educational Recommendations

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Please fill out our intake form and we’ll get you plugged in to LSC as quickly as we can! To connect with us directly, email dsamkemutualaid@gmail.com.

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