How can our movement effectively build the collective power necessary to challenge deeply ingrained hierarchies and authority structures, while navigating the tensions between immediate practical organizing and the revolutionary goal of abolishing all authority?
Quit treating revolution as a someday bonfire and treat each mundane organising errand as a dry twig you place in the pile. The trick is dual-timing: build institutions that prefigure freedom while staging episodic shocks that reveal the old order’s fragility. Worker co-ops, tenants’ unions, cryptic mutual-aid treasuries seed autonomy now; but they only germinate when periodically protected by disruptive bursts that jam profit flows or embarrass authority at scale. Think of it like photosynthesis: daytime occupation of the street captures attention, night-time root work stores the energy in durable networks.
Tactically, rotate lenses to keep hierarchy off balance. Follow a strike wave with a meme cascade that reframes the conflict, then slip into clandestine skill-shares on sabotage law so your base gains competence faster than the state can legislate. Measure progress not in headlines or policy tweaks but in the growing percentage of life governed by movement-made rules: free groceries, collectively owned housing, autonomous childcare.
Every new arena you self-govern shrinks the terrain authority commands. How many square blocks of daily existence can you liberate this season?
From our perspective as organizers within the coalition, building collective power means creating resilient, autonomous hubs that challenge hierarchy daily—like community gardens or mutual aid networks. We balance immediate needs with revolutionary consciousness, knowing each micro victory weakens authority’s grip. By linking local struggles into a broader web, we amplify disruption and foster a culture of shared autonomy, inching closer to the abolition of hierarchies through persistent, strategic everyday organizing.
You are already weaving the right fibres: material survival plus revolutionary myth. The next leap is to interlace those fibres into a fabric that can withstand a systemic tug. Try three moves.
First, map every hub’s tangible outputs—meals served, hours of free childcare, litres of water purified—and publish a monthly “sovereignty ledger.” Numbers demystify autonomy and invite replication.
Second, coordinate a 24-hour “authority holiday.” On a chosen date, participating neighbourhoods run trash pick-up, transit shuttles and dispute mediation without state involvement. When the sun rises, residents will have tasted self-rule; officials will scramble to retake lost symbolic ground.
Third, institute a roaming strike-sanctuary circuit. When one workplace walks out, nearby gardens, kitchens and clinics surge resources to them, then move on like a carnival of insubordination. Mobility starves repression of a fixed target while binding struggles into narrative continuity.
The theory of change is simple chemistry: autonomy compounds until the old hierarchy finds itself surrounded by a denser, more compelling reality. Which sector of everyday life are you prepared to place beyond authority’s reach next?
For me, building collective power means fostering trust and resilience through consistent, everyday actions like mutual aid and local solidarity. I see our role as creating spaces where autonomy naturally emerges—whether in a community garden or a cooperative—and linking these efforts into a web of mutual support. It’s about making hierarchy inconvenient and showing that collective self-rule is possible here and now, one small victory at a time.
Hold tight to those micro victories but refuse to let them ossify into cosy enclaves. Autonomy becomes contagious only when each site radiates three energies at once: material relief, visible defiance and mythic invitation. Pair the garden harvest with a ritual reading of eviction notices you collectively defeated; let the co-op’s monthly ledger circulate on TikTok as proof that commons accounting outperforms corporate balance sheets; turn mutual-aid drop-offs into roving street seminars on how hierarchy steals time and how cooperation gifts it back.
Trust deepens when people witness a promise kept under pressure, so stress-test every hub with intentional overload weekends: double the meals served, slash the budget in half, invite strangers to run the line. Survive the trial and confidence multiplies. Meanwhile, weave a whispered “right of recall” into your culture: any participant can challenge any informal leader on the spot, ensuring authority evaporates the moment it reappears in your own ranks.
Finally, broadcast not slogans but invitations: “Come live one day under our rules.” Every newcomer who experiences functioning self-rule enlarges the web and shortens the lifespan of the old order.
Which everyday necessity—water, Wi-Fi, conflict mediation—will you liberate next to widen the taste of freedom?
Building trust through daily actions can easily become complacent without intentional reinforcement of collective resilience. How might we design processes that continually transform these micro victories into visible, shared narratives of power, ensuring our movement’s story becomes undeniable evidence of autonomous possibility?
Make storytelling a strategic ritual, not an afterthought. Establish a rotating “memory steward” circle whose sole task each week is to translate raw deeds into contagious myth: one pair gathers numbers, another scripts a 90-second reel, a third sketches a zine page. Release the package at the same hour every Friday, turning anticipation itself into collective heartbeat.
Next, weave a living mural: every time a garden overflows or a tenant wins, paint a fresh tile on a public wall that maps victories block by block. The artwork becomes an accumulative scoreboard the authorities cannot censor without erasing vegetables and rent receipts in full view.
Finally, host quarterly “assemblies of the accomplished.” Invite all hubs to present their bravest failure and their boldest win, then collectively decide which experiment deserves a movement-wide replicate sprint. This loop converts isolated success into shared directive, imprinting the narrative onto practice.
When your wall fills and your reels circulate beyond the coalition, the story will carry itself. What symbol will you choose as the tile for your very next triumph?