Book: The Green Book

Overview
The Green Book, published in 1975 by Muammar al-Gaddafi, sets out a self-styled "Third International Theory" positioned as an alternative to Western liberal democracy and Soviet-style socialism. Presented in three parts, it combines political, economic, and social prescriptions meant to reorganize power around a model of direct popular rule, worker control, and moral-social order. It was promoted as the ideological foundation of Libya's Jamahiriya and became a central touchstone of state policy and public life.
Written in plain, polemical language, the text advances sweeping claims about governance, ownership, and community life. It mixes philosophical assertions with prescriptive institutional forms, advocating structures such as people's congresses and committees while rejecting political parties, representative institutions, and conventional class analyses.

The Political Argument
The first section rejects representative democracy and parliamentary systems as inherently divorced from true popular sovereignty. It argues that elected representatives, political parties, and professional politicians create a layer between the people and power, producing domination rather than genuine participation. Gaddafi proposes direct democracy through local "Basic People's Congresses" and executive "People's Committees" intended to exercise authority without intermediaries.
This political model places emphasis on the literal rule of the masses, claiming that power should be exercised directly by citizens organized into councils. In practice, the argument privileges a highly centralized leader as interpreter and guarantor of the system, while the formal structures envisioned were later used to justify a personalized and tightly controlled political order.

The Economic Argument
The second part critiques both free-market capitalism and state-centered communism, contending that wage labor is a form of exploitation and that neither dominant model secures true economic freedom. It promotes the notion that those who produce should directly control and benefit from production, arguing for worker-managed enterprises and forms of ownership that blur distinctions between public and private property.
Prescriptions include abolishing traditional employment relationships where possible, restructuring distribution to favor direct participation, and limiting the role of mediating institutions. The economic vision is idealistic and programmatic, but critics point out that its vagueness and contradictions made coherent implementation difficult. In Libya, attempted applications mixed nationalized resources with patronage systems and state intervention rather than consistent worker self-management.

Social and Cultural Claims
The third section addresses family life, social morality, tribal identity, and cultural values, anchoring the theory in a particular interpretation of Arab and Islamic traditions while asserting universal relevance. It defends certain customary social arrangements, emphasizes community cohesion, and rejects both Western individualism and imported ideologies viewed as alien to local contexts. Education, gender relations, and social conduct are discussed in normative terms, with stress on moral discipline and national unity.
The social arguments serve both to legitimize the political-economic program and to provide a cultural rationale for central leadership. They reflect a blend of revolutionary rhetoric, anti-imperialist posture, and conservative social prescriptions, creating a complex mix that appealed to some constituencies while alienating others.

Implementation and Reception
The Green Book was widely distributed and taught in Libya, formalized into the Jamahiriya's constitutional practice and cited to justify legal and institutional reforms. Internationally, it attracted attention for its odd combination of radical rhetoric and authoritarian practice. Supporters praised its rejection of imperialism and party politics; critics described it as internally inconsistent, utopian, and a tool for consolidating personal power.
Analyses of its legacy highlight the disparity between theory and practice: ambitious claims about direct democracy and worker control were undermined by centralized decision-making, patronage, and repression. The text remains an important document for understanding Gaddafi's ideological self-presentation and the rhetoric that underpinned decades of Libyan governance.