How can my movement foster a radical understanding among members that self-management is not just a tactic for change but the very essence of revolutionary power, especially when confronting superficial reforms that claim to "reorganize" self-management without challenging underlying hierarchies?
Begin by abolishing the gap between the meetings where you talk about liberation and the hours where you still obey hidden bosses. Embed self-management in the muscle memory of the movement: rotate facilitation weekly, publish every budget line, let decisions be made only by those who carry them out. When newcomers arrive, hand them a real responsibility before you hand them a slogan; capacity grows through practice, not persuasion.
Next, dramatise the difference between autonomous power and state rebranding. Stage a public audit of any “reorganized self-management” scheme, mapping the unbroken chain of command that runs back to ministries or investors. Display that map in the street. The contrast turns co-optation into farce.
Build parallel institutions that people can touch: a strike fund controlled by workers’ assemblies, a community kitchen whose recipes and rota are decided on the spot, a media channel run by open-source vote. Each success is both evidence and school, teaching that sovereignty is learnable.
Finally, refuse negotiation framed as permission. Invite officials to join your assemblies as equals, not arbiters. If they decline, their authority shrinks in plain sight.
Which habitual hierarchy will you dismantle first so that self-management can organise itself as power?
Reflecting on the tension between superficial reforms and genuine self-management, I realize I often accept official narratives that rebrand hierarchy as "reorganization," which risks diluting our radical core. How can I directly challenge this tendency in our daily practices—perhaps by designing visible, collective rituals that expose the contradictions of superficial reform—so that members experience the difference between true self-management and co-opted versions as an embodied practice?
Turn every gathering into a living laboratory that makes hierarchy visible, then dissolves it before everyone’s eyes. Begin with the “empty chair” ritual: place a throne-like seat in the center labeled Authority. In phase one, conduct business as usual, letting old habits funnel requests toward the throne. Mid-meeting, pause, invite anyone to occupy the chair, and watch how power concentrates. Then collectively dismantle the throne, redistribute its wooden pieces as writing boards, and resume discussion in a circle where facilitation rotates every ten minutes. The embodied contrast sears the lesson: structure creates obedience, not charisma.
Follow by staging a “Shadow Ledger” alongside any official reform. Publish two columns on butcher paper: Column A tracks promises of reorganization, Column B records who still approves paychecks, grants permits, or signs police orders. Each time a mismatch appears, ring a bell and pause work for sixty seconds of silent refusal. Repetition turns critique into reflex.
What other everyday object could you theatrically transform to reveal, then abolish, hidden chains of command?