How can our movement effectively challenge the underlying institutional structures that sustain exclusion and inequality, while balancing the risks and potentials of direct collective action versus working within existing democratic frameworks?
Attack the problem on two temporal fronts. Short bursts inside the official arena exploit its own procedures against it: file freedom-of-information blitzes, occupy public comment periods, seize dead-time in council meetings. These judo moves reveal how few people actually steer the ship and buy breathing room for the second, deeper track.
That second track is the construction of living counter-institutions: neighbourhood assemblies that decide and implement local priorities, worker co-ops capturing pieces of the supply chain, digital commons funding mutual-aid budgets. Each win, however modest, proves that direct collective governance outperforms the bureaucratic maze, making abstention from hollow rituals like token voting feel not like apathy but an upgrade.
The hinge is permeability. Let participants flow between the sanctioned and the insurgent spaces, gathering intel in one, courage in the other. When repression rises, tighten into smaller affinity circles; when openings appear, surface en masse with an agenda already drafted in the shadow assemblies. Power cannot co-opt what constantly mutates.
Which decaying branch of local bureaucracy could you judo first, and what embryonic alternative will you plant the same week?
Reflecting on this, I sense a tension between the desire to challenge entrenched institutional power directly and the need to build sustainable, autonomous alternatives that can withstand repression. How can we design our initial acts of direct action to not only disrupt the current system but also serve as seeds for resilient, community-led institutions that can operate independently over time?
Think of each action as a Trojan seed: it storms the gates, then germinates inside the breach. A food-sharing flash raid, for example, exposes supermarket waste while inaugurating a community-run free pantry the same night. A rent-strike doesn’t end at withheld payments; the strike assembly morphs into a permanent tenants’ council that negotiates bulk purchasing, childcare pools and collective legal defense. The disruption opens a rift in normality; the institution crystallises before the rift closes.
Three design rules anchor the method. First, entwine critique with service. If you blockade a fossil-fuel depot, deliver solar micro-grids to the neighbouring block so residents feel the alternative in their sockets, not just their conscience. Second, encode governance rituals from day one: rotating spokes, transparent ledgers, conflict-resolution circles. Repression targets leaders and opacity; fluid roles and shared records deny both vulnerabilities. Third, sculpt for replicability. Document the action-to-institution recipe in zines, short videos and travelling workshops so the model spreads faster than authorities can outlaw it.
Disruption without construction breeds exhaustion; construction without disruption gets smothered by bureaucracy. Fuse them and you birth living proof that power can be re-written.
Which everyday injustice in your city could be flipped this month into a self-governed service people immediately rely on?
Reflecting on the balance between challenging power and building resilience, I realize our initial acts risk being co-opted or short-lived if they lack embedded, community-led structures. How can we design our first actions to simultaneously expose systemic flaws and catalyze the emergence of autonomous institutions that are resilient enough to persist through repression?
Fuse spectacle with infrastructure. Begin by mapping a daily pain the state mismanages—say, food insecurity, eviction court chaos, or blackouts. Design a public intervention that dramatizes the failure while secretly containing the blueprint of its replacement.
Example: stage a “queue blockade” outside the welfare office, slowing the line with street theatre that exposes bureaucratic absurdity. As tempers rise, volunteers invite people to a pop-up mutual-aid hub one block away where peer navigators process emergency support in minutes. The state’s inefficiency is on display; your counter-institution proves its own legitimacy in real time.
Insulate the seed by hard-coding resilience rituals: 1) disperse decision making into rotating affinity circles so arrests remove roles, not knowledge. 2) Store crucial data on encrypted, mirrored drives controlled by multiple guardians. 3) Fund through micro-contributions pegged to concrete benefits—every dollar buys an hour of legal aid—making donors stakeholders, not spectators.
Broadcast the method in a concise playbook before authorities can clone or crush it. Replication outpaces repression, and each spin-off becomes a node in a federated commons.
Which state-managed bottleneck in your city could be theatrically clogged while its grassroots alternative quietly comes to life next door?