As we celebrate International Democracy Day, we explore how deeper democracy can help build economies that serve people and the planet.
Mariana González Ruiz Velasco is a participatory designer, community builder and educator with experience in democratic innovation, sustainability and social impact. She is currently a consultant at Prosociedad: Hacer bien el bien, a lecturer at ITESO, and a member of Economías Alternativas México.
Simon Ticehurst is part of the global team of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll). Before joining WEAll, Simon was Oxfam International’s Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean (2015–2022) and is a member of Economías Alternativas México.
This was originally published on Animal Político in Spanish here.
When we think about democracy, we tend to think of representative democracy through elections, whereby we periodically elect presidents, governors or legislators to make decisions on our behalf. But representative democracy based on voting is actually little more than 200 years old. According to David Van Reybrouck in his book Against Elections: The Case for Democracy, it emerged in the eighteenth century following the French and American Revolutions.
There are other forms of democracy, such as direct democracy, where people decide directly on a law or important national issue through mechanisms such as referendums; participatory democracy, where ordinary people take part in public decisions such as how public budgets are allocated; and deliberative democracy, where groups of people, sometimes selected to represent a broader population, develop public policy proposals through evidence, dialogue and consideration of different perspectives.
Thousands of economic and institutional decisions that affect our everyday lives should be democratic decisions, yet they are often determined by those who wield the greatest economic and political power. Who pays taxes, and how much? Who has access to credit or land? What kinds of businesses or infrastructure are prioritised and subsidised? How are public resources allocated and distributed? Who decides what happens to the environment on which all life depends?
Economies are not something external to democracy. They should be one of its principal expressions. Democracy is not simply a way of choosing governments; it is a way of deciding together how we want to live. And democracy should not end at the ballot box.
Through today’s system of representative democracy and the economic decisions made within it, we have seen growing inequality and an increasing concentration of both economic and political power. According to data from Oxfam International’s 2026 report, Resisting the Rule of the Rich, the combined wealth of the world’s more than 3,000 billionaires has increased by 81% since 2020. Oxfam Mexico’s report Oligarchy or Democracy documented this phenomenon in Mexico, where the richest 1% of the population receives 35% of total income, owns 40% of the country’s private wealth and is responsible for 23% of polluting emissions.
This concentration of wealth coexists with 18.8 million people without adequate access to food, 38.5 million people below the wellbeing poverty line, and 21 million women who devote at least a full working day to unpaid care work.
Those who concentrate wealth shape the rules governing the economy and society to serve their own interests, at the expense of citizens’ rights and freedoms and the health of the planet. Elites end up capturing the democratic game, distorting decisions whose consequences extend far into the future. Alternative economies offer an antidote to both the economic limitations and the democratic deficits of the dominant paradigm.
When Citizens Imagine and Choose Other Economies
The participation of ordinary people in public affairs can significantly change the kinds of decisions that are made. Those who decide how the economy works have a major influence over how we live.
Markets primarily listen to those who have money. Participatory and deliberative democracy, by contrast, brings in the voices of those who are often excluded or unheard—women, young people and Indigenous peoples, for example, who possess deep expertise rooted in their communities.
It is also a way of making visible needs that are often invisible: time for care, the importance of public spaces, public transport, and safe spaces for women.
For example, much of the care work involved in raising children, supporting older people and people with disabilities, and maintaining households is unpaid and falls disproportionately on women. This limits their opportunities for education, employment, participation and wellbeing. Care is one of the most essential, yet least visible, pillars of the economy.
The UTOPÍAS (Units for Transformation and Organisation for Inclusion and Social Harmony) that emerged between 2018 and 2024 in Iztapalapa, Mexico City, are a flagship programme for urban transformation and wellbeing. They provide community centres offering care, health, recreational and cultural activities in the borough with the highest levels of poverty in the city. Through these spaces, care responsibilities are reduced, shared and supported, helping to free up time for those who have traditionally carried them out without pay.
Before construction began, participatory assemblies were held in what were called “imagination pavilions”, where residents collectively designed the spaces. Their sustainability derives from a sense of ownership. Communities look after these spaces because they feel they belong to them: they are not simply “government programmes”, but common goods.
The model is now being extended across Mexico City, with plans to build 200 new centres across the city’s different boroughs.
Economic decisions often respond to immediate needs and incentives. But democratic deliberation makes it possible to think further ahead—beyond traditional political cycles—by focusing on collective wellbeing and future generations, while taking climate risks and the regeneration of nature into account.
One example of deliberative democracy is citizens’ climate assemblies, in which randomly selected ordinary people develop proposals to address the challenges of climate change. In July this year, 45 participants aged between 7 and 14 from the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area in Mexico took part in the Climate Assembly with Children and Adolescents of Jalisco. They learned, deliberated and developed proposals to protect people and the environment from the effects of climate change. Children and adolescents have historically had very few opportunities to participate in these decisions, yet their young age gives them a long-term perspective oriented towards the common good.
Economic Democracy in Action
There are many examples of how democratic practices can help drive alternative economies.
One remarkable and pioneering experience is the participatory budgeting process that began in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989, through which citizens directly decide how public resources are allocated.
These experiences have spread around the world. One example is the participatory budgeting process carried out in Santa Ana Tzacuala, Hidalgo, Mexico, a 100% Indigenous community where women had no political representation until 2022. Two of the three projects selected were proposed by women, including one girl. Ollin, the organisation that implemented the process, observed that the women’s proposals focused particularly on the wellbeing of communities and children.
Moving towards the inclusion of more-than-human beings in public decision-making, in the urban municipality of Curridabat, Costa Rica, the Ciudad Dulce (Sweet City) programme has implemented an innovative vision of urban development that places pollinators—bees, butterflies and hummingbirds—as well as biodiversity, at the centre of planning.
It is transforming the urban environment into a flourishing ecosystem that improves the quality of life of all its inhabitants, human and non-human, through reforestation, environmental management and education, and a network of parks connected by biological corridors. The programme has flourished thanks to high levels of neighbourhood participation, with residents acting not as spectators but as active participants in designing their urban environment and strengthening its connection with the natural world.
Beyond formal and governmental spaces, Huerto Roma Verde, in the heart of Mexico City’s Roma neighbourhood, is a biosocial and community laboratory where people cultivate experiences of social organisation and participatory governance. It integrates a regenerative culture into economic activities while developing alternatives for collective wellbeing at the local level.
There is no shortage of ideas and practical experience.
Democracy and Collective Wellbeing: A Virtuous Circle
Wellbeing economies and deeper democracies reinforce one another. When people participate meaningfully in decisions that affect their lives, policies are more likely to emerge that are oriented towards care, the common good, equity and environmental sustainability. And when wealth, opportunities and economic power are distributed more fairly, everyone has a greater chance to exercise their citizenship fully.
In times of polarisation, more participatory democracies can help build and rebuild trust in people and institutions. When people participate, they gain a better understanding of difficult decisions; they learn how institutions work and hear different perspectives. Legitimacy and cooperation increase, transforming the relationship between citizens and institutions and strengthening social cohesion.
But it is important to recognise that participatory and deliberative democratic mechanisms do not automatically guarantee outcomes oriented towards economies of the common good. It is essential to ensure that these processes incorporate different dimensions of representation and inclusion, including the voices of groups traditionally excluded from decision-making, as well as the interests of future generations and the natural world.
Democracy needs an economy that does not concentrate power; and a wellbeing economy needs democratic institutions capable of listening, deliberating and building the common good.
Democracy and the economy are two sides of the same system of power distribution. Strengthening both can help us build economies that put people and the planet at the centre, while fostering citizens who are engaged and willing to share responsibility for the future.