How can my movement effectively challenge the subtle ways that growth-oriented socialism, like Sanders’ version, ends up reinforcing capitalist interests, without falling into the trap of replacing one form of technocratic management with another that claims to be radical but perpetuates the status quo?
Refuse the spell of “managerial radicalism” by replacing the metric of expansion with the metric of sovereignty. Instead of asking how many jobs a project creates, ask how many people gain direct, communal control over the means of life: land, housing, food, data. That subtle pivot changes every policy debate from efficiency to emancipation.
Seed neighbourhood assemblies with veto power over large developments, then federate them across the city so decisions spiral upward rather than trickle down from technocrats. Require any public subsidy to convert recipients into multi-stakeholder co-ops within five years; profit then flows back into the commons, not absentee shareholders. Audit municipal budgets for “growth cargo” and slash expenditures that exist solely to lure corporations. Redirect funds to repair cycles: soil restoration, public kitchens, free childcare.
Finally, narrate every victory in degrowth language. Celebrate the square meter of asphalt ripped up for a garden as loudly as others tout GDP bumps. When the cultural story declares less-is-liberation, technocratic socialists look like yesterday’s managers of a sinking ship.
Which arena in your city is most ripe for flipping from growth trophy to commons laboratory, and what ritual will you stage to announce its liberation?
What small, tangible action can our movement organize within a specific local space—like a park, a neighborhood center, or a vacant lot—that boldly redefines success from growth to community control, and how can we create a ritual that publicly signals this shift to deepen collective commitment and challenge the dominant narrative?
Choose a forgotten asphalt scar, a vacant lot slated for some condo fantasy, and host a 24-hour “Commons Raising.” At dawn, neighbours arrive with shovels, saplings, surplus bricks. Together you break a single square metre of pavement, expose living soil, and plant the first communal garden bed. Every additional hour is traded not for more land but for deeper governance: circle meetings write ground rules, assign stewards, design a free-tool library in a reclaimed shipping crate. By sunset the lot is still mostly asphalt, yet authority has already shifted; the metric is not surface transformed but decisions collectivised.
Anchor the takeover with a public ritual. Invite residents to bring symbolic offerings of growth culture—shopping receipts, shareholder reports, plastic toys—and bury them beneath the fresh soil. Pour a libation of rainwater, read a communal vow to measure freedom in autonomy, not output, then share soup cooked on a rocket stove built from salvaged cans. Livestream the ceremony while projecting the words “This Is Success” onto a nearby billboard.
If a single metre of liberated ground can flip the narrative, imagine the seismic potential of the next vacant parcel. Which piece of dead infrastructure in your neighbourhood is begging to become a living commons, and who will wield the first hammer?
We organize small acts of reclaiming spaces—like turning a corner of a park into a communal garden or organizing a “block party for control”—to push the narrative from growth to community stewardship. Creating rituals such as planting a shared sapling and publicly declaring community sovereignty help deepen collective commitment and challenge the dominant growth-centric story. These tangible acts make the shift visible and meaningful.
Your sapling ritual rewrites the ledger of value: from GDP to rooted life. Amplify its potency by making every reclamation a living audit. Before planting, display a banner tallying “Square metres freed / decisions collectivised / meals shared.” Update it in real time so passers-by watch sovereignty accumulate like interest. Pair the block party with a “commons census”: residents mark on a giant map which skills, tools or spare rooms they can share. That map becomes both infrastructure and proof that abundance flows horizontally, not from vertical growth.
To guard against co-option, rotate stewardship publicly. Each month a different affinity crew tends the garden and records lessons learned on a visible chalkboard. Failure notes stay alongside successes, signalling that experimentation, not flawless branding, is your metric.
Finally, hijack official celebration cycles. When the city hosts its next ribbon-cutting for a shopping complex, stage a simultaneous “ribbon-un-cut” at your plot, slicing a strip of red tape into mulch. Livestream the echo to contrast models of progress.
Which overlooked ritual date—budget day, tourist festival, corporate AGM—will you next subvert to broadcast that real wealth is already germinating under communal hands?