Prefiguring communalism and economic democracy in the Basque Country

This article examines the emergence of a grass-root movement that brings back the past in order to prefigure communalist practices in the Basque Country. The movement comprises both the platform of Biltzarre and the Basque Cultural Instinct Team. Their proposal implies an invitation to consider a concrete 'social myth' that brings forward the sovereign agency of an ancient socioeconomic cultural model (medieval Basque direct democracy) into contemporary anti-capitalist struggles. Although those practices have mostly withered away, they may still function as a source of inspiration for revolutionary purposes. Crucially, such experience helps us to overcome the 'leftist melancholy' pointed out by Enzo Traverso, in which social movements seem to start always from the scratch. The article stresses the importance of engaging with economic democracy debates critically, thus questioning the role prices and technology have in sharing economy and commoning models, and problematizes the limits they may have in global capitalism.