The Elysian is a media collective exploring utopian futures, now we have a Manifesto—one way the world could go from here.
The Elysian Manifesto
We will create a world of cooperative city-states, like Mondragon,1 by following the Cooperatist Manifesto of the Spanish Priest who inspired it.2 To get there, we will make all companies employee-owned,3 and we can do that by selling companies to workers.4 Over time, worker-owned, democratically run corporations will usurp the nation-state and become global, self-governing economies.5
People will work for cooperative economies, but they will be governed by the small, autonomous nation-states where they live. Large superpowers, like the US, will split into 50 independent nations,6 or even 100 smaller nations to better govern local communities.7 With open borders between nations, citizens will move to the utopian nations of their choice.8 Countries will compete for citizens,9 with good countries becoming richer and more populous, and bad countries depopulating and losing power.
A world of small, autonomous nations will federate together for matters of military or commerce, but federal governance will be decoupled from nation states.10 We will work for the cooperative economies that provide all of the things we need for society, while living in the small local governments of our choice, even as our economies and nations federate together for matters of global organization.
Thank you for supporting this work and for joining us as a member of The Elysian League.
Sincerely,
Founder, Elysian Collective