cohesion, and it has become obvious that, to use Bookchin’s phrase, society’s grassroots are turning to straw. When urban governments find themselves without money, as they do today, public volunteerism begins to look more attractive. But officials still hold onto the decisionmaking power, both because that is what they know how to do and because citizens believe that the city is a business for which one must employ professionals. But what better way to satisfy increasing numbers of volunteer citizens than to give them back the ability to make decisions? Decentralized cities can run with much less money than centrally administered ones because the work that gets done is for your friends and neighbors, who pay you back in similar fashion without participating in the cash network. Athens and the first Paris commune were both such “amateur cities”, where the government’s role is to help organize, not to force ideas or perform services. What better way to satisfy increasing numbers ofvolunteer citizens than to give them back the power to make decisions? The ideals of city-democracy have not disappeared. Town meetings, still common in New England, have a respectable resonance in US culture, and these kind of assemblies are the key to uniting people on the local level. In confederation it is still possible that assemblies in towns, cities and the countryside can break up the enormous centralized power of wasteful, hulking nation states. Murrau Bookchinis a key member of The Social Ecology Project (P.O. Box 111, Burlington, VT05402), which prints a compendium of “Readings in Libertarian Municipalism’’ (117 pages, $9 Postpaid). They recommend Bookchin's The Limits of the City, as well as Urbanization Without Cities. Here is their full reading list; Ancient Greece: Finley, M.I. Democracy: Ancient and Modern. Rutgers University Press. 1972. Forrest, W.G. The Emergence of Greek Democracy. McGraw-Hill, 1966. Jaeger, Werner. Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture. Oxford University Press, 1939. Polanyi, Karl. Primitive. Archaic and Modern Economics. Beacon Press, 1968. Webster, T.B.L. Life in Classical Athens. London: B. T. Batsford. Ltd., 1969. Zimmem, Alfred. The Greek Commonwealth. Modern library editions. Early Modem Europe: Barber, Benjamin. The Death of Communal l.ibertv. Mneeton University Press, 1974. Barber, Benjamin R. Superman and Common Men: Freedom, Anarchy and the Revolution. Praeger. Gutkind, E.A. Twilight of the Cities. Free Press, 1962. Marlines, Lauro. Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy. Vintage. 1979. Mumford, Lewis. The City in Hi.storv. Harcourt Brace, 1961. Mundy, John H. Europe in the High Middle Ages. London: Longman Group Ltd., 1973. Waley, Daniel. The Italian City- Republics. McGraw-hill, 1969. Zagorin, Perez. Rebels and Rulers. 1500- 1600, Vol. 1. Cambridge, 1982. American & French Revolutlonsi Breen, T.H. Phiritans and Adventurers: Change and Persistence in Farlv America. Oxford, 1980. Douglass, Elisha P. Rebels and Democrats: The Struggle for Equal Political Rights and Majority Rule During the American Revolution. Quadrangle, 1955. Furet F., C. Mazauric, and L. Bergeron “The Sans-culottes and the French Revolution" in (Jeffry Kaplow, Ed.) New Perspectives on the French Revolution. Wiley, 1965. Jensen, Merrill Jhe New Nation: a History of the United States During the Confederation. 1781- 1789. Vintage, 1950. Kammen, Michael Deputves and l.ihertves: The Origins of Representative Government in Colonial America. Knopf, 1969. Palmer, R.R. The Age of Democratic Revolutions. Princeton, 1958. Soboul, Albert The Sans-culottes: The Popular Movement and Revolutionary Government, 1793-1794. Anchor/Doubleday, 1972. Szatmary, David P. Shavs’ Rebellion. Amherst, 1980. Thompson, J. M. The French Revolution. Basil Blackwell, 1943 (especially pages 280-282, 295-298). 19U) (;«)hry: Binkley, Robert C. Realism and Nationalism: 1852-1871. Harper & Row, 1935 (especially chapters 9-11). Livingston, W.S. “A Note on the Nature of Federalism”, Political Science Quarterly, 1952: 81-95. Riker, William H. Federalism: Origins. Operation. Significance. (Boston, 1964). Where, K.C. Federal Government (London, 1946). Ccahn-T: Berg, Peter, Beryl Magilavy, Seth Zuckerman A Green City Program for San Francisco Bay Area Cities and Towns. Planet Drum, 1989. Bookchin, Murray. The Spanish Anarchi.sts. Harper & Row, 1977. Castells, Manuel. “The Making of an Urban Social Movement: the Citizen Movement in Madrid towards the End of the Franquist Era" part 5 in The City and the Grassroots: a Cross Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. University of California, 1983. Gerecke, Kent, Ed. The Canadian City. Black Rose, 1991. Gordon, David, Ed. Green Cities: Ecologically Sound Approaches to Urban Space. Black Rose. 1990. Kotler, Milton Neighborhood Government. Bobbs-Merrill, 1969. Roussopoulos, Dimitrios, Ed. The City and Radical Social Change. Black Rose, 1982. Schecter, Stephen The Politics of Urban Liberation. Black Rose, 1978. Page 40 Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2
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