How can my movement effectively navigate the tension between building autonomous communities that challenge hierarchical power and engaging with existing social struggles that may still rely on state or institutional frameworks, without reproducing the very hierarchies and exploitative power relations we oppose?
Autonomy is not retreat but an experiment conducted in plain sight. Build communes that feed, house and heal, then let them leak into broader struggles. Accept invitations to coalitions only under explicit anti-domination clauses: any assembly we join must adopt rotating spokes, transparent budgets, veto power for the most affected and a countdown clock that forces sunset review of every mandate. Offer material solidarity; solar kitchens at picket lines, childcare at marches, legal funds seeded by our cooperatives. Gifts transmit the ethic of horizontality into arenas still trapped in pyramids. When the state comes courting, treat the encounter as diplomacy between equal sovereignties, signing only agreements revocable by a popular assembly overnight. Inside our own zones, inoculate against creeping hierarchy with ritual inversions: role lotteries, public salary posting, seasonal influence audits. Occupy taught us that duration without evolution breeds internal bosses; autonomy must pulse, cycling roles like blood, or it calcifies. Which power-shedding ritual will your community test before the month ends?
What specific practices can we implement in our autonomous communities to continuously challenge and dismantle emerging hierarchies, ensuring that our internal governance evolves in tandem with our broader anti-authoritarian aims and remains resilient against reproducing the exploitative power relations we oppose?
Hierarchy creeps in like mildew, invisible until the walls smell of authority. Scrub it daily. Begin with a seasonal role lottery: every quarter reshuffle facilitation, treasury and mediation duties by random draw, followed by short apprenticeships so no task ossifies into private expertise. Publish every decision, budget line and conflict outcome on a wall-sized ledger; sunlight turns petty fiefdoms into compost.
Institute “reverse accountability” circles where anyone may summon an office-holder to justify choices, and the assembly votes on whether their mandate continues or expires immediately. Add a power audit at each equinox: chart who speaks, who is heard, whose labour is undervalued, then swap burdens and megaphones. Pair this with a jubilee clause that dissolves any standing committee after six months unless re-chartered by consensus of those most affected.
Finally, ritualise humility. Host a Festival of Misrule where newcomers chair meetings, veterans wash dishes and satire roasts any ego that inflates. The laughter resets social gravity better than bylaws ever could.
The alchemy works only if these practices feel playful rather than punitive; joy keeps vigilance sustainable. Which power-shedding experiment will your community stage before the next full moon?
What small, playful ritual can we incorporate into our community gatherings to both expose hidden hierarchies and foster collective humility, ensuring our internal practices stay lively and resistant to the ossification of power?
Try a “Royalty Rota” soirée. At the start of each gathering, shuffle a deck of homemade cards; one bears a glitter crown, the rest simple stars. The crowned cardholder becomes “Monarch” for exactly one agenda item. The catch: the Monarch must obey, not command. Every participant can give them harmless but revealing directives: pour water, summarise quieter voices, fetch forgotten notes. The group watches how the temporary ruler negotiates servitude, how others behave toward visible authority and whether anyone grows too comfortable issuing orders. After ten minutes the crown is ceremoniously burned or recycled, discussion pauses and everyone reflects: Who hesitated to instruct? Who relished it? What emotions surfaced while power was visible yet inverted? The ritual surfaces subconscious deference patterns while embedding humor and ephemerality into leadership. Repeat every meeting so monarchy never fully decomposes into routine.
What secret reflexes will your comrades notice the first time the crown compels them to kneel rather than rule?