Building Class Power from Below

How Local Assemblies Can Reignite the Workers' Struggle in an Age of Economic Collapse

Introduction

Every era hides its wars. Today, the battlefield is economic, fought in policies that outlaw living wages, privatize survival, and criminalize poverty. The recent assault on local wage ordinances in Michigan exposes an open secret: class war never ended. It only changed terrain. The state now manufactures precarity as deliberate policy, ensuring workers compete for crumbs while elites call it flexibility. Yet the deepest scandal is not repression itself but resignation. When communities stop imagining resistance, the ruling class has already won.

The collapse of industrial economies once powered by manufacturing has bred despair and fragmentation, especially across North American rust belts. The union halls are quiet, the strike banners faded. But as history insists, decline is not destiny. Beneath the silence are small gatherings, mutual-aid circles, and embryonic assemblies beginning to rediscover their collective voice. Out of these fragile spaces may yet rise the infrastructure of a new class movement—one that weds survival to strategy, solidarity to sovereignty.

This essay contends that the path forward lies in rebuilding the collective confidence and connective tissue of working-class communities through neighborhood assemblies. These local nodes, rooted in mutual care and strategic education, transform despair into shared agency. They are the laboratories of a reborn movement. From Michigan to every fractured city, the challenge is not merely to protest reactionary economic policy, but to reinvent the very form of resistance that once made it possible to win.

The State of the Class War

The corporate seizure of government functions is rarely subtle. It operates through incremental legislation rather than open declaration. A ban on municipal living-wage laws seems procedural, but it effectively outlaws local democracy itself. When a capital-controlled legislature forbids cities from determining how their workers are paid, it reveals a political equation: profits are sacred, people expendable.

The Disguised Offensive

Today’s economic war is executed through bureaucratic language—terms like “preemption bills,” “market flexibility,” or “efficiency standards.” Each is code for removing labor’s remaining shields. In Michigan’s case, the target was modest: prevent towns from requiring employers to pay workers enough to live. Yet this modest cruelty is strategically brilliant. It detaches suffering from its cause, dispersing blame across invisible hands of “the market.” Workers experience wage stagnation as personal failure rather than a political outcome.

This ideological camouflage has fractured worker consciousness. Many accept austerity as natural law because collective power has become unimaginable. A generation raised amid layoffs and debt sees protest as nostalgia, not necessity. Restoring a sense of antagonism—seeing class as conflict, not condition—is therefore the first revolutionary act.

Lessons from Industrial Decline

Michigan symbolizes a broader pattern: when industrial infrastructure collapses, so too do the communication networks of solidarity. The factory floor once served as school, stage, and council. With its disappearance, workers lost not only jobs but the daily choreography of unity. The atomization of labor into gig work, care work, and precarious service work erased the spatial proximity that made strikes possible.

Yet history records that every period of disorganization conceals seeds of reinvention. Early industrial unions emerged from taverns, churches, and mutual-aid societies. When the workplace dissolves, the community itself becomes the workshop of rebellion. As Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin and other black radical labor thinkers remind us, class struggle is not confined to factory gates—it unfolds wherever people refuse exploitation together, whether through rent strikes, food cooperatives, or underground education.

Repoliticizing daily survival turns necessity into leverage. To speak of wages, housing, food, and care as collective rights rather than private misfortunes is to reopen the front lines of class war.

Breaking the Spell of Demoralization

Defeat breeds cynicism faster than hunger breeds rage. The challenge is psychological as much as structural: the enemy thrives on our disbelief in our own capacity. Years of neoliberal pedagogy taught the working class to outsource hope to politicians, to accept failure as realism. This spiritual demobilization is the heart of contemporary repression.

The antidote lies in small wins that reawaken collective confidence. A worker reinstated after group pressure, a landlord shamed into repairs, a mutual-aid fund that outlasts four payroll cycles—each success becomes evidence that history can bend locally. Once people taste self-efficacy, they begin to demand more than charity; they start to expect power.

Rebuilding Confidence through Local Assemblies

The neighborhood assembly is the simplest, oldest, and most subversive form of political organization. Three people around a kitchen table can constitute one. Ten in a laundromat, twenty in a church basement—the scale is irrelevant; what matters is rhythm and reciprocity. These micro-institutions cultivate the habit of self-rule. They are not advocacy groups seeking permission, but embryonic councils rehearsing another form of sovereignty.

The Anatomy of Collective Confidence

Confidence is not a mood but a structure built from repeated collaborative experiences. Assemblies create venues where ordinary people learn to speak as equals, deliberate collectively, and witness their decisions materialize in small tangible outcomes. Each moment of decision-making erodes the learned helplessness drilled into workers by wage discipline.

To nurture this confidence, meetings must embody the society they aim to build—horizontal, participatory, and nourishing. Rotating facilitation prevents the rise of new bureaucrats. Shared meals convert abstraction into fellowship. Ending each gathering with a collective affirmation or gesture, even a spoken vow to reconvene, transforms the meeting from an event into a ritual. Ritual sustains morale when victories lag.

Education as Weapon

It is not enough to feed bodies without feeding political consciousness. Assemblies double as classrooms for re-learning class analysis. Instead of sterile lectures, use participatory methods: wage-theft audits where workers calculate their exploitation in real numbers; storytelling circles tracing family histories of labor struggle; guided readings of radical texts woven with personal testimony.

Consciousness spreads most effectively when linked to immediate material experience. When a barista notes that her unpaid overtime matches her rent arrears, theory crystallizes into clarity. Political education must never be abstract charity; it is diagnostic practice revealing the structure of oppression.

Mutual Aid as Infrastructure, Not Bandage

Mutual aid—community food programs, childcare swaps, rent funds—serves a dual purpose. It meets urgent need while demonstrating that collective provision works better than capitalist neglect. Yet it must avoid becoming mere service provision. The goal is not to replace the state but to delegitimize it by performing what it refuses to do. Aid becomes radical when it organizes, politicizes, and replicates.

A solidarity pantry that lasts multiple pay cycles proves collective endurance. Once stability is visible, broader sections of the community, including the cautious or apolitical, are drawn in. They witness cooperation’s credibility and may later defend it against repression. Sustained mutual-aid projects are schools for courage.

Assemblies as Parallel Authority

In time, consistent assemblies begin to function as alternative institutions—issuing statements, resolving disputes, and coordinating direct action. This evolution marks a qualitative leap. The group moves from support network to proto-government—the embryo of dual power. Even purely symbolic actions, like holding a workers’ tribunal to publicly condemn wage theft, reinforce legitimacy. When residents bring grievances to the assembly before filing official complaints, power has already shifted.

The state senses this substitution instinctively and often reacts with permitting crackdowns or surveillance. Such repression, paradoxically, confirms the assembly’s potency. The correct response is not retreat but federative expansion—linking with neighboring circles to generate redundancy. Many small bases of power are harder to crush than one centralized movement.

Restoring the Political Imagination

Confidence without imagination decays into routine. Therefore, assemblies must also operate as theaters of the possible. Public art actions, community radio, projection protests, and storytelling nights function as rehearsals for liberation. When workers see themselves not as victims of austerity but protagonists of history, the mental barrier to revolt collapses. Narrative regeneration is as vital as logistical preparation.

The Michigan factory ruins lit with projected testimonies of wage theft could become both spectacle and sermon. Every message—“How much is your boss stealing?”—shifts moral terrain. A movement that can make injustice visible in poetic form gains cultural gravity that presses institutions to respond.

Each of these elements—confidence, education, mutual aid, authority, imagination—forms part of a chemistry experiment aimed at producing a new political molecule: the organized community confident in its power to act.

From Survival to Strategy

Most small community efforts begin with survival. Food distribution, eviction defense, mental-health circles—these acts sustain bodies through crisis. But if survival is not politicized, capitalism will absorb it as unpaid labor supporting the very system that caused the crisis. The strategic task is to evolve survival into resistance.

Linking the Immediate to the Structural

Every aid distribution should map the structural enemy. Who profits from hunger? Which landlords lobby for housing policy? Which corporations funded the wage-ban legislators? By drawing these lines publicly, organizers teach participants that misery is neither random nor immutable—it has addresses, donors, and headquarters. Posting this intelligence on walls or digital maps transforms every meal or meeting into investigative journalism of oppression.

Once enemies are visible, tactics clarify. Targeted disruptions—boycotts, shaming campaigns, coordinated complaints—can escalate pressure. Each action should amplify the narrative: the class war is not metaphor; it is naming names.

Timing and Rhythm

Movements succeed when their cadence clashes effectively with institutional tempo. Bureaucracies move slowly, banking on public amnesia. Grassroots resistance must therefore act in short, intense bursts followed by reflection periods. This lunar rhythm prevents burnout while maintaining unpredictability. Weekly assemblies followed by spontaneous flash actions keep adversaries off-balance. Structuring campaigns around these cycles transforms chaos into strategy.

Choosing Confrontations Wisely

Victory bred from small, winnable fights sustains morale. Select issues where immediate demands intersect with popular grievances: unpaid wages, workplace safety, housing violations. Each triumph, even symbolic, accrues legitimacy to the assembly. Publicly celebrating these gains—photos, videos, storytelling—converts victory into propaganda for participation. Confidence grows exponentially with proof.

But escalation must accompany maturity. Repetition of tactics turns victory into routine and invites suppression. Once the pattern is known, innovate. Shift venues, invent new rituals, integrate cultural expression. Surprise is the lifeblood of insurgency.

Expanding the Circle

Recruitment thrives on relationship, not messaging. Each assembly participant should be encouraged to form a new micro-circle—co-workers, tenants, relatives—and mirror the model. The movement scales not by counting followers but by compounding gatherings. Mobility lies in modularity; every group can act autonomously yet resonate as part of a whole. This is how contagion defeats control.

Federations of local assemblies can coordinate regionally without central bureaucracy, trading resources and lessons. Horizontal exchange breeds adaptability. When authorities confront dispersed yet networked cells, repression becomes resource-intensive and self-defeating.

Integrating Cultural and Spiritual Dimensions

Economic struggle stripped of spirit dries into technocracy. Every historical uprising that transformed society—from the Black freedom movement to anti-colonial revolutions—translated material grievances into moral and emotional language. Songs, chants, ceremonies, and poetry bind participants beyond rational interest. Modern organizers should not fear the sacred dimension of resistance. Rituals of remembrance, collective mourning, and thanksgiving after small victories feed the soul of struggle.

If capitalism functions as a secular religion worshiping profit, movements must offer a counter-spirituality grounded in solidarity. In Michigan’s shadowed towns, potluck vigils for dignity could rekindle that lost faith.

The Ethics of Resistance

Rebuilding class power is not purely technical; it requires ethical clarity. Reactionary politics thrives on blame and division. Movements risk mirroring that toxicity unless guided by principles that anchor means to ends.

Radical Honesty and Accountability

Transparency inoculates against leader betrayal and bureaucratic corruption. Assemblies must normalize public feedback, rotating responsibilities, and open accounting of funds. The goal is not moral perfection but trust rooted in visibility. Corruption poisons morale faster than repression. A culture of accountability—regular debriefs, collective therapy, open apology—makes endurance possible.

Inclusivity Without Tokenism

Economic injustice intersects with racial, gender, and ecological oppression. Yet inclusivity cannot be emptied into liberal performance. It must mean transferring decision power to those who bear the brunt of exploitation. In Michigan, that includes Black workers, immigrants, and single mothers juggling gig jobs. Solidarity means following their lead, not using their pain as banner decoration.

Constructive Conflict

Avoiding disagreement kills creativity. Assemblies should treat conflict as data, not threat. Structured debate sessions prevent factional splits from festering. Diversity of ideology—anarchist, socialist, syndicalist—enriches strategy if tethered by shared ethics of collective care. Remember: unity is not uniformity; it is synchronized divergence aimed at common emancipation.

Refusing Despair

Despair masquerades as realism. Media cycles of defeat feed apathy. An ethical discipline of hope, grounded in action, protects organizers from cynicism’s rot. Celebrate small progress. Normalize rest. Create spaces for joy amid struggle. Laughter at the assembly table is itself resistance—it signals the ruling class has not colonized your spirit.

Nonviolent Defiance and the Threshold Question

Whether to employ disruptive or militant tactics is context-dependent. The guiding criterion is efficacy combined with moral resonance. Occupations, blockades, and boycotts form legitimate expressions of working-class power when calibrated to public empathy. Violence for its own sake isolates. Yet defenders of profit will always label even peaceful defiance as extremism. The line between order and disorder is drawn by those afraid to lose control. Movements must not internalize those boundaries.

The true ethical test is whether your action expands collective courage or shrinks it. Choose tactics that grow the circle of the fearless.

Historical Echoes: Lessons in Class Renewal

From Mutual Aid to Revolution

History shows how localized aid morphs into systemic challenge. During the Great Depression, unemployed councils distributed food then led rent strikes, forcing the state into New Deal reforms. In 1960s Black communities, survival programs like the Panthers’ free breakfasts radicalized neighborhoods into seeing themselves as government-in-exile. Contemporary assemblies can harness similar logic, using mutual support to expose the incompetence of existing governance.

Occupy Wall Street and Pattern Decay

Occupy reignited anti-capitalist imagination but plateaued when its ritualized encampment became predictable. The lesson: ritual must evolve before repression outpaces it. The horizontality of Occupy remains potent, yet its failure to transform solidarity into alternative institutions revealed the importance of endurance infrastructure. Your neighborhood assemblies can inherit Occupy’s spirit while solving its organizational entropy.

The Québec Casseroles Example

In 2012 Quebec’s students faced tuition hikes. Their sonic protest—banging pots nightly—spread across neighborhoods, drawing parents and grandparents into rhythm. It proved that creativity can multiply participation beyond ideological bounds. Similarly, Michigan’s workers might design signature tactics—perhaps synchronized sirens or light displays echoing industrial heritage—to register dissent in everyday landscapes.

History rewards the inventive, not the nostalgic.

Putting Theory Into Practice

Translating analysis into action requires grounded experimentation. Below are strategies to begin or strengthen assemblies capable of confronting the class war around you:

• Anchor Regular Assemblies: Set a consistent meeting rhythm—weekly or biweekly—linked to community spaces like laundromats, churches, union halls, or courtyards. Predictability builds reliability; reliability births trust.

• Blend Aid with Education: For every distribution of food or rent assistance, facilitate discussion circles on wage inequality, local legislation, or labor history. Pair survival with consciousness.

• Map Power Locally: Identify which corporations, landlords, and politicians shape your neighborhood’s economy. Visualize these ties publicly through simple diagrams or wall maps so residents grasp the local architecture of oppression.

• Stage Small Confrontations: Pick attainable fights—reinstating a fired worker, forcing repair commitments, halting an eviction—and mobilize collectively. Each win anchors faith in collective power.

• Integrate Art and Storytelling: Transform testimonies into murals, street projections, or social-media campaigns. Cultural expression spreads faster than manifestos and invites broader emotional engagement.

• Build a Federation of Assemblies: Link with neighboring circles through rotating delegates. Share logistics while maintaining local autonomy. This network prevents isolation and multiplies resilience.

• Ritualize Reflection: After each campaign, hold debriefs to evaluate tactics, recognize fatigue, and ritualize renewal. Failure examined collectively becomes instruction rather than shame.

• Protect the Psyche: Schedule rest cycles, celebrate victories, and provide emotional care. Movements crumble when burnout masquerades as devotion.

Practically, remember that transformation follows repetition. A weekly ritual of care and defiance, practiced for months, attunes participants to the possibility of victory. Organization is faith made operational.

Conclusion

Every legislative attack, every factory closure, and every stolen wage belongs to a coherent war: the ruling class defending its monopoly on security. The counteroffensive begins in humble rooms where neighbors feed one another and rediscover their collective strength. Out of these rooms can grow assemblies that govern, defend, and imagine together.

The thesis is simple yet radical: before you can fight capitalism, you must believe you can. Confidence precedes revolution. By merging mutual aid, political education, and small confrontations within enduring assemblies, communities convert despair into organized defiance. When local councils of the dispossessed coordinate across cities, the era of defensive survival ends; the era of offensive reconstruction begins.

Class power is not a memory of the twentieth century—it is a muscle waiting to be retrained. History owes nothing to the resigned. So the question remains: will you gather your people, build the assembly, and rehearse sovereignty before the next decree of poverty arrives?