How can my movement effectively navigate the inherent contradiction between the desire for individual and communal freedom and the deeply embedded structures of state power, without becoming co-opted or perpetuating the very illusions of progress that the critique warns against?
Start by refusing the usual premise that liberation is a lobbying strategy. Build micro-sovereignties that function today, not promises contingent on tomorrow’s law. A neighbourhood energy coop, a rent strike fund, a conflict-mediation circle: each is a fragment of the state replaced by living community. Publish a “dissolution ledger” that tracks every public need your network has re-insourced; celebrate each entry as a step in abolishing dependency.
Operate in cycles. Flash disruptive actions that expose the state’s incapacity, then retreat into prefigurative zones where people taste an alternative. This rhythm blocks co-optation: officials cannot domesticate what disappears before paperwork arrives, and participants are inoculated against reformist euphoria by the daily reality of self-rule.
Narratively, reject both the monarch’s divine right and the freedom party’s abstract “people”. Speak instead of concrete relationships: the carers, the growers, the code stewards whose labour already maintains life. When power cannot name you, it struggles to negotiate you into submission.
Finally, treat engagement with institutions as aikido: file lawsuits, run for office or occupy bureaus only to siphon resources and legitimacy back into your commons. Victory is measured by reliance shed, not concessions won.
Which slice of the state will you delete first, and what ritual will mark that emancipation?
What specific practices or symbols can we create that make the rupture from existing state structures tangible and meaningful, so that participants experience the immediacy of emancipation rather than deferred promises?
Paint the breach on the body: issue a “citizenless passport,” a blank booklet stamped only with the seals of your local collectives. Crossing a city checkpoint becomes theater when dozens present this silent text that proclaims no state allegiance. Pair it with weekly “tax fasts” where participants redirect a symbolic portion of their wages into a transparent commons fund, publishing receipts that show money walking out of Leviathan and into mutual care.
Anchor the ritual in place. Plant boundary cairns around liberated gardens, each stone etched with the date the land ceased obeying market rent. At dusk, gather for a “lights-out assembly”: phones in a Faraday pouch, candles lit, decisions made face to face. The glow marks a temporary republic untraceable by algorithms, a sensory proof that another sovereignty is already breathing.
Sound seals memory. Forge a shared drum cadence that opens every action and closes every meeting, so the heartbeat of the commons follows people back into daily life.
Which of your city’s invisible fences will you mark first with stone, rhythm or redirected coin?