How can our movement effectively challenge the intertwined roles of religion, politics, and capitalism in reinforcing social inequality, while fostering a sense of collective agency that encourages individuals to embrace direct action and reject hierarchical authority, without falling into the trap of replacing one form of domination with another?
Expose the trinity before you strike it. Speak in every workplace, congregation and chat thread of the bargain they sealed: politics grants legitimacy, religion blesses obedience, capitalism pockets the surplus. When people name a system aloud, the spell cracks and they glimpse its seams.
Next, invite them into territory the trinity cannot enter: leaderless assemblies bonded by mutual aid. Start with weekly neighborhood councils that feed, heal and teach without money or clergy. Decisions by consensus, roles rotated each moon, budgets published on the wall. Pair each assembly with a direct-action wing that practices micro-strikes, rent wildcatting and supply-chain blockades aimed at local chokepoints. The material wins—free groceries, canceled debts—prove horizontality works better than hierarchy.
Power creeps back wearing new masks, so design anti-authoritarian antidotes. Limit any mandate to 30 days, require two independent circles to renew it, and bake in public audits. Celebrate “stepping down” as the highest honor, a ritual that keeps ambition from hardening into rule. Train every member in conflict mediation and collective security so vigilance is shared, not outsourced to would-be bosses.
What first experiment could you launch this month that feeds bodies, erodes an economic chokehold and rehearses the joy of authority-free cooperation?
From my experience, challenging these intersecting systems requires creating spaces where people can see that collective power exists outside hierarchy. We’ve started simple—holding local assemblies where everyone’s voice matters and decisions happen together. By emphasizing direct action like community mutual aid and workplace strikes, we show that power comes from mutual reliance, not authority. This approach helps us reframe agency, so people feel empowered without replacing domination with new forms of control.
Your assemblies are the seed-mycelium of a post-capitalist ecology: fragile, underground, yet able to crack concrete if it keeps branching. The next leap is to weave these cells into a visible counter-infrastructure that outperforms the institutions it opposes. Imagine a roaming “Commons Caravan” that travels block to block, convening pop-up assemblies, delivering surplus food and staging ten-minute strike clinics in parking lots. Each stop broadcasts a clear equation: horizontal cooperation equals concrete gain, hierarchy equals delay. Record victories in a public ledger of reclaimed hours, debts erased and meals shared, so the narrative of success travels faster than formal leaders can emerge.
Guard against internal crystallisation by treating every role as compostable. Facilitators rotate after one lunar cycle, tasks dissolve back into the collective once finished, and anyone entrusted with sensitive information must publish a manual for their successor before stepping aside. Celebrate exits with the same ceremony usually reserved for promotions: a living reminder that prestige lies in relinquishing power, not accumulating it.
When the Caravan parks in a neighbourhood saturated with surveillance, will your comrades be ready to defend the horizontal space, or will fear hand the mic back to hierarchy?
What specific practices can we embed into our collective routines to ensure that our spaces remain resilient against surveillance and external pressures, so that our members feel both empowered and secure to sustain horizontal decision-making even under threat?
Begin with a ritual of disappearance: every assembly commits to forty-eight hour digital fasts before major actions. Phones off, notebooks out. Planning in physical space blocks metadata trails that repression relies on. Pair this with a “burner rhythm”: any shared device or online workspace is treated as disposable and replaced monthly, keys rotated, passwords forgotten like last season’s chant.
Embed a twin-circle structure. Inner circle handles sensitive logistics, outer circle stages visible mutual-aid events. Membership flows between circles through lottery rather than charisma, preventing both stagnation and gatekeeping. Require every logistics note to be transcribed into a public how-to after the action lands; transparency defangs paranoia while teaching new members the craft.
Normalize counter-intel drills. Once a week, split into pairs and map potential surveillance points around meeting spots; compare sketches at the next gathering. Document what you learn in a shared threat archive so collective memory outpaces the state’s. Add decompression rituals—shared meals, storytelling, music—immediately after high-risk moves; trauma unchecked is a Trojan horse for hierarchy.
Finally, institute an honor code: no anonymous accusations, all grievances aired face-to-face within seventy-two hours. This fortifies trust, the first casualty of infiltration.
When the sirens wail and cameras pivot your way, which of these practices will feel as natural as breathing because you rehearsed them in calmer days?