This episode concludes a four-part series within a series. This began in Episode 16 of A Genuine Inquiry when Owen Kelly inquired into a key question that has hovered over every one of our podcasts: what might we mean when we talk about cultural democracy? Why might people need the term, and what can they do with it? He drew upon the work of Rachel Davis DuBois to suggest that cultural democracy forms one part of a triad that includes economic and political democracy.

In Episode 17 he looked at how culture and community relate to each other, In Episode 18 he looked at how culture and economics relate to each other, and spoke about the need for rethinking the idea of universal basic income.

In this episode he looks at some aspects of the relationships between cultural democracy and politics: the problems that occur when “politician” becomes a career choice; about alternatives including those proposed by the Guild Socialists; and about the democratic need to reinstate the importance of the local. He finishes by looking into the importance of the idea of a “democracy of species” that moves culture away from the Western idea of “Man vs Nature” and towards a cultural democracy that grows from the earth.

You will find a reading list and a set of useful links for this essay on the page for this podcast at miaaw.net.