The Citizens Party was a political party in the United States. It was founded in Washington, D.C. by Barry Commoner, who wanted to gather under one umbrella political organization all the environmentalist and liberal groups which were unsatisfied with President Carter's administration. The Citizens Party registered with the Federal Elections Commission at the end of 1979. Commoner, a professor of environmental science at Washington University in St. Louis, was the head of the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems in St. Louis and editor of Science Illustrated magazine.
The Citizens Party platform was pro-environmental in nature. Some have claimed that it was possibly socialist as well, but this claim arose from a misunderstanding of the economic democracy platform of the party, which appears to be a form of corporatism. Commoner clearly stated repeatedly that socialism for parts of the economy other than essential infrastructure was a disastrous idea. His economic democracy idea stated that the business of business is to do business, but that the business of government is to regulate business to prevent abuses.
In all, the party was founded around four essential platforms, including economic democracy.
Famous quotes containing the words citizens and/or party:
“What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“He said, truly, that the reason why such greatly superior numbers quailed before him was, as one of his prisoners confessed, because they lacked a cause,—a kind of armor which he and his party never lacked. When the time came, few men were found willing to lay down their lives in defense of what they knew to be wrong; they did not like that this should be their last act in this world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)