So if we are to address the problems of our time—the problems of climate change, inequality, and social insecurity, among others—our first challenge is to expand our very definition of what “the economy” is. Is the market the only serious vehicle for wealth-creation and value, as investors and economists claim? Or are there other forms of value that need to be systematically and rigorously recognized?  

I argue that this is precisely the problem: economics cannot recognize other forms of value and state power has largely adopted neoliberal economic priorities. No wonder our sense of possibility are so constricted! 

As an antidote, I believe that we need to learn how the commons can help us re-imagine our mind-map of the economy. The point is not merely to add a few neglected values into the standard economic framework. It is to challenge some core premises of “the economy” as conventionally understood, by naming the many forms of nonmarket value that are essential to life.  

That’s what the commons does. It is a robust sector of nonmarket stewardship that honors different types of value – ecological, social, ethical, spiritual. More: it is a way to nourish and protect important forms of meaning and cultural identity, as seen in the collective stewardship of forests, fisheries, farmland, and water in many permutations around the world. The commons is at work in agroecology, permaculture, community land trusts, community supported agriculture, and relocalized food systems. The commons is seen in countless open source software projects, platform cooperatives, mutual aid networks, arts and culture projects, and alternative currencies.

The problem is that many actual commons are not seen as commons and therefore as wealth-creating. They exist outside of the market worldview, and so they aren’t considered so valuable or consequential. Mainstream economics, politics, law, and culture mostly ignores them, or worse, considers them a failed management regime, the “tragedy of the commons.”

The great challenge, then, is to learn how to see, name, and reclaim the commons as significant forces in life – a powerful social phenomenon that is not just at play in the Global South, but everywhere. Some of the most significant systems of commons-based value include:

• the care work performed by families, especially women;
• the eco-stewardship of Indigenous peoples, traditional communities, community land trusts, and CSA farms;
• socially committed cooperatives; 
• artistic and academic gift economies;
• alternative local and regional currencies; and
• online communities that revolves around shared software, wikis, scholarly research, scientific knowledge, datasets, and much else. 

What most distinguishes these general classes of commons from capitalist businesses and markets, is the social mutualism that animates them and the sharing of their wealth. Commons are living, relational systems for meeting personal needs and collective well-being that mostly function outside of markets and state power. The interpersonal, social dynamics of these commons are the forces that generate value: the care work within families, the affective commitments of forest-stewards, the sharing ethic of digital commoners, the social commitment of water protectors.

Standard economics tends to ignore these genres of wealth-creation because the value generated is not easily monetized or traded in markets. The value is created without money necessarily changing hands. The value is socially embedded and localized. It arises through the pooling of commitments.

As I describe in my book Think Like a Commoner, just released in a significantly revised Second Edition, commons arise as ordinary people decide for themselves how to identify and meet shared needs. It’s a way to manage common wealth in fair and inclusive ways. This is the process of commoning — the process by which people negotiate, devise, and enact situation-specific systems of provisioning and peer governance. Commoning is not just an economic process; it’s a process that summons forth our deeper, larger humanity, our intersubjective selves in an unfolding field of cooperation.

It helps to see commons as complex life-forms—living processes.  They aren’t like impersonal markets driven by money, rationality and material desire. They are social systems through which people come together to create effective ways of meeting needs and peer-governing themselves. If the neoclassical, capitalist mindset declares that provisioning (“the economy”) must be separate from governance (the state), commons blend these two. The social practices of provisioning, governance, rules-enforcement, and culture are all integrated into one system. 

The general aim of any commons is to mutualize the benefits of shared wealth. People often decide to become commoners because they realize that conventional business requires extractivist strategies: the exploitation workers and consumers, ecological destruction, unfair practices, social disruptions. Commoners realize that the notional Invisible Hand of the market won’t serve the common good. Nor will nation-states, thanks to their deep political alliances with investors and corporations. 

That’s where the commons steps in. Commoners are pioneering new social logics for provisioning and governance at the cellular level of society. They’re meeting their own needs while enhancing the social bonds and shared purpose that the common good requires.

A key virtue of this process is that we can choose and make themselves ourselves, right now. We don’t need to rely on legislatures or courts. The state may offer support to commons, and businesses may engage in limited forms of exchange with them. But outsider control or interference is resisted because commoners prize their social and political autonomy. They want the individual freedom to enter into community agreements, to assume responsibilities, and to reap the benefit of their hard work and cooperation.  

At a time when the market/state system claims dominion over so much of the earth and everyday, imposing its own ideas of social order and value, the commons offers a refreshing alternative. They offer a space in which people can assert significant autonomy and self-determination. They need not rely on formal, legalistic terms dictated by bureaucracies or large corporations. People can innovate by their own lights, to meet their needs in their particular circumstances. They need not submit to the conventional capitalist modes of “development” and “progress,” which so often prove to be unfair, unsustainable, and anti-democratic.

A British money designer and commoner, Dil Green, once made an astute observation about the special role that commons play. He said: “Commons are ‘meso-scope’ social institutions. Not micro/individual or macro/collective, but meso. Right libertarians prioritize agency at the micro level. Statist lefties at the macro. But it’s in the middle where life takes place, where we all live. The missing middle is key. Build commons!”

This insight helps explain both why commons are so vital. They can build a new type of economy through new types of meso institutions. They help us get beyond the private / public binary (corporate/state order) that otherwise controls our sense of the possible. Commons open up new zones for action and creativity.

So let’s modify our mental maps about “the economy”!  We need to shed many of the roles ordained by capitalist economics – consumer, worker, business owner, investor – by creating spaces that let people develop their own solutions based on their own situated needs, knowledge, and wisdom. That’s what the commons does. It steps outside market/state orthodoxy to declare new terms of aspiration. It offers fresh, forward-looking archetypes for meeting people’s needs. It lets us develop new type of social practices for meeting needs, new forms of more democratic governance, and effective strategies for protecting shared wealth.

We can begin by making existing commons more culturally legible and known, and then work to consolidate and expand these commons. Going forward, we must develop new infrastructures to make commoning easier and more normal, and types of finance, legal hacks, and partnerships with the state. While this may seem an ambitious agenda, a robust Commonsverse already exists, poised to liberate us from a market/state system that otherwise limits the scope of possible change.

David Bollier is Director of the Reinventing the Commons Program at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics. He is the author of more than a dozen books on various aspects of the commons, including the just-published Second Edition of Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons. He blogs at www.Bollier.org and hosts the monthly podcast Frontiers of Commoning. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

The post The Liberating Power of the Commonsverse appeared first on Shareable.

Personally, we were imagining a future of peer-to-peer resource sharing, community-based production, and cooperative ownership.

Meeting up after years, we laughed that our work had oddly contributed to the World Economic Forum publishing the line that became infamous as a globalist’s dystopian injunction: “You will own nothing and be happy.”

Although we laughed, it was with a sense of ‘doomer humour’. My friend’s tone had shifted from a decade ago. She felt disappointment and defeat. “All we did,” she told me, “was write a love letter to the next wave of monopolists.”

Her disillusionment was not unique. Many working in alternative economics—whether cooperatives, commons networks, or solidarity enterprises—feel similarly deflated.

Despite huge efforts to get governments around the world to adopt policies to promote the ‘Social and Solidarity Economy’, the tide has been in the opposite direction. Monopoly capitalism has grown stronger, tightening its grip through unrestrained mergers and acquisitions, extractive digital platforms, and ‘techbro’ political interference.

Now, the big tech companies don’t compete in a free market, as they own the markets and can operate similarly to feudal lords. It’s why the Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis labels this era ‘technofeudalism’.

It’s easy to feel like we failed. But that pain—of giving so much for so little change—is not a reflection of personal failure. It’s a sign of deeper structural shifts.

As I outlined in Breaking Together, these are not just difficult times—they are disintegrating systems. From obscene wealth concentration to mass precarity and the soaring cost of basic needs, the indicators are clear: the economic and political order we once tried to reform is already breaking down.

And the breakdown is accelerating.

Oxfam calculates that the world’s richest 1% now own more than 95% of humanity, while poverty is increasing in most parts of the world. In many countries, many households face impossible choices between rent, food, and energy bills.

Economist James Meadway concludes that inflation has become entrenched in the global system—not as a blip, but as a feature of a deeply imbalanced economy that faces the consequences of smashing against planetary boundaries. For a majority of the world’s population, the era of stability and progress has ended.

If those of us in the ‘alternative economics’ field keep trying to scale within this old system—as if it were still functional—we risk becoming demoralised, burnt out, or absorbed into the very structures we oppose.

Worse, the delay in acknowledging collapse means that we miss the chance to prepare for what’s coming next: not a utopia, but an era defined by decline, disruption, and disaster management. If we don’t act with new clarity and courage, our skills and models will be sidelined just when they’re most needed.

But here’s a different way to look at it: if the dominant systems are breaking, then the pressure to “compete” with them is over. We no longer need to validate ourselves by capitalist metrics of success.

Instead, we can position ourselves as the seeds of the next system, or more realistically, as the scaffolding of survival in a world of cascading crises.

Imagine cooperatives that aren’t just “alternatives,” but core providers of care, food, housing, and energy as state and market institutions fail. Picture mutual aid and commons initiatives not as fringe experiments, but as essential infrastructure for keeping communities afloat.

The history of the commons teaches us that this is not a naïve vision.

Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation, has concluded that there is a “pulsation of the commons” where commons-based systems expand and contract in response to the rise and fall of dominant political-economic systems. He explains that these commons of land, and other resources, are often enclosed or co-opted by states and profit-seekers, only to re-emerge in new forms during subsequent crises. Therefore, Bauwens connects the current wave of commons-building efforts, such as open-source software, cooperative platforms, and community land trusts, to this larger pulsation.

Michel Bauwens’ historical analysis supports the view that there is no going back, but certainly a way forward—through shared capacities, collective stewardship, and distributed resilience.

That is the vision many in the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) already carry. What we need now is for more of us to speak it out loud, as currency innovation expert Stephen DeMeulenaere did in a previous article for Shareable.

If you work in the SSE, cooperative, or commons sectors, this is the time to speak clearly and publicly: we are not here to “fix” the current system. We are here to manage collapse with care and cooperation.

Share this framing with your networks, in your newsletters, and in your funding applications. Don’t pretend we’re building toward a global cooperative economy in 2050. Don’t maintain the illusion of working towards ‘sustainable development’.

Instead, explain that we’re helping people now, in the vacuum left by dysfunctional states and extractive corporations.

Convene conversations about what it means to operate as “disaster-responsive” economic actors. Map your community’s most vulnerable needs and match them with the resources your network can already provide—be it food, childcare, housing, or repair.

Strengthen regional alliances between SSE actors and push funders to drop their fixation on scale, and instead invest in redundancy, local relevance, and deep trust.

To do so could help advocates such as RIPESS persuade the international aid and development sectors to allocate more funds towards SSE and the commons. It could even help professionals in organisations like the World Bank and UNDP recognise a new role for themselves in helping soften the collapse.

Let’s also be honest with ourselves: this is emotionally tricky. But we can help each other move through the grief of a failed societal dream, into the resolve of people who are needed in the ruins.

This isn’t a fringe project anymore. It’s frontline work.

It is for this reason that I am engaging once again with people who truly believe in a ‘sharing economy’ rather than the exploitative and monopolistic tyranny that cloaked itself in our hopeful visions. It is why I will be speaking at the Festival of Commoning and joining the Reviving the Commons series, both in the UK in September.

Kaliya, my friend from our YGL days, has also found new energy—not by pretending things will get better soon, but by shifting her expectations. She is convening ‘unconferences’ to network together regenerative initiatives to co-create a thriving future in the San Francisco Bay Delta Bioregion. She leveraged my visit to the region to convene their first unconference, with a second occurring in May 2025, and more to come as part of this new initiative. She is also helping local community groups and ‘neighborsheds’ to deploy the open-source technologies and insights she developed over the previous 20 years.

She is still sad about how things are turning out, but is not hopeless. She feels part of something real that uses her skills and is rooted in where she lives.

For both of us, we have avoided cynicism – not because the world is improving, but because we’re seeking to make a concrete contribution where we can.

To those who feel disheartened: your disappointment is justified, but it’s also a clue.

The system didn’t bend to reform because it’s already broken. But that means your work—your network, your cooperative, your project—is more vital than ever. The collapse is here. So is our role in softening it. And if we act together now, we might not only soften the collapse, but start to shape what is to come.

—

Professor Jem Bendell is author of “Breaking Together: a freedom-loving response to collapse” and writes regularly at jembendell.com

The post Systems are breaking—And that’s our opportunity appeared first on Shareable.

Despite the building blocks of our legacy energy system often being located in Indigenous territories, “Native American communities have higher rates of energy insecurity, while paying higher prices for the energy that is provided to our communities,” says Nicole Donaghy, the executive director of North Dakota Native Vote (NDNV).

NDNV educates and activates Native communities to get more engaged in democratic processes and gets out the Indigenous vote. NDNV was founded in 2018 to push against a voter ID law that disproportionally disenfranchised Native voters. And their work and tribal traditions are the subject of “Spirit Lake”, a new short documentary from The Story of Stuff Project, Rural Power Coalition (RPC), and Shareable.

As Shareable has extensively covered, democratic governance is not limited to government alone—a wide range of institutions can be democratic, governed by elected representatives.

Rural electric cooperatives—also known as electric membership corporations—are institutions of this sort, with great democratic potential at their core. For those serviced by an electric co-op, ratepayers are members who collectively own their utility, and who can be elected to serve on the board of these utilities.

Although these co-ops are democratic on paper, in reality, they often fall short of expectations. “A lot of our community members that we surveyed did not know that they could vote for the governing board,” says Donaghy. “We believe it is by design, by the [rural electric cooperative] so they can maintain levels of power.”

Only one out of fifty-five seats on the governing board of the local energy co-op is Native American, according to Donaghy, despite all tribal lands in North Dakota being served by electric co-ops.

But that may be changing. “We’ve created a task force that is sitting around 125 members that are interested in rewriting the narrative as to what energy production in North Dakota should be,” says Donaghy. “Including getting involved in the governance structure of rural electric cooperatives.”

“Spirit Lake” documents how North Dakota Native Vote is mobilizing Native communities to better represent Indigenous voices in co-op utilities, and to re-democratize these electric cooperatives.

You can also watch and share it on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn.

Take Action

At the time of writing, rural communities are facing significant threats from those who represent them in Congress— with the Senate considering a bill that would undermine the health and well-being of rural residents.

North Dakota Native Vote has a timely call to action here:

https://secure.everyaction.com/1Z60dr83u0i4rh03eGr1aQ2

If you’re interested in following the fight to secure a resilient, modern energy future for rural America, visit the Rural Power Coalition (of which NDNV is a member) and find ways to make your voice heard by telling the Senate to defend key energy programs.

The post WATCH: Getting out the Native Vote to indigenize energy sovereignty appeared first on Shareable.

Remembering our history allows us to build our futures.” So said Stephanie Guilloud of movement organization Project South in the initial plenary session of the Resist & Build Summit.

The scope taken on by conference attendees was very ambitious. Held in Atlanta the first weekend of May 2025 with the theme “Solidarity at Scale: Converging our Movements for System Change,” the conference brought together over 300 solidarity economy activists from across the United States, marking the largest gathering of network organizers to date.

“When we say infrastructure, we mean systems that keep us alive.”

Learning from Atlanta

The decision to come to Atlanta was intentional. Atlanta has played an outsized role in civil rights movement history and remains an important center of organizing today. In their session, “Atlanta, Black Reconstruction, and the Black Radical Tradition,” Guilloud and Summers emphasized the importance of creating community institutions in building economies and power—in a word, infrastructure. As Guilloud put it, “When we say infrastructure, we mean systems that keep us alive.”

What kind of infrastructure? In Atlanta’s case, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), such as Spelman College, Morehouse College, and Clark Atlanta University, are critical infrastructure. Other institutions built included Citizens Trust Bank, a Black-owned bank that opened in 1921; and Atlanta Life Insurance Company, a Black-owned insurer founded in 1905 by Alonzo Herndon, who was born enslaved but as an adult became a highly successful businessman.

During the Montgomery bus boycott of 1954 and 1955 in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. participated, Citizens Trust Bank was one of the two primary banks holding the funds of the bus boycott organizers and Atlanta Life Insurance Company, noted Guilloud, “supported the taxi drivers for a year.” If drivers did not have that backing, Guilloud elaborated, the boycott might have failed.

She described these entities as the foundation for movement infrastructure: “You build a bank, life insurance, they can start funding. This is the network that is underneath.” Among the primary elements that need to be built now, according to Guilloud and Summers, are education and training, land stewardship, and self-governance capacity.

Art…is often misperceived as a luxury, but it actually meets a vital human need of self-expression.

Reinforcing Movement Infrastructure

Much of the gathering focused on structured conversations among movement activists about how to build on and expand existing movement infrastructure.

One group centered around building the solidarity economy itself—that is, developing cooperatives, community land trusts, and other instruments of democratic ownership of land and business. A second group focused on how to build a stronger social movement network to resist authoritarianism. A third group looked at resistance efforts at the policy level. Finally, a fourth group looked at the role arts and culture play both in building a solidarity economy and sustaining resistance.

Some key themes from each are lifted up below:

• Building a Solidarity Economy

The solidarity economy group emphasized the need to both build toward meeting basic needs and set the conditions for spiritual and emotional thriving. Creating tangible experiences of the solidarity economy, participants added, is vital to movement building—and to building trust in communities that a solidarity economy is possible.

Groups developed additional priorities including the need to build counter-institutions, such as popular education (freedom schools) and local democratic governance (people’s movement assemblies), as well as the need for systems of community safety, defense, and health that operate outside the state. Another recognized priority was the need to build capacity for “generative conflict.” Participants also noted the importance of developing narratives that inspire collective action, abundance, belonging, and self-determination while challenging narratives that impede solidarity such as the notion of “rugged individualism” or the “charity mindset” common to the nonprofit sector.

Scale, participants said, should be achieved through relationship rather than replication. Effectively, this means a focus on federation over franchising and also puts priority on building a material (economic) base for solidarity that can sustain a parallel economy rooted in such institutions as resilience hubs, community kitchens, time banks (labor hour exchange systems), collective childcare, and solidarity healthcare.

• Arts and Culture

Cultural abundance, participants agreed, is a cornerstone of the solidarity economy. Arts and culture were identified as strategic tools for political education, community defense, and envisioning post-capitalist futures.

But the role of art in a solidarity economy is broader than its instrumental value in organizing and movement building. Art, it was noted, is often misperceived as a luxury, but it actually meets a vital human need of self-expression. Public policy—through such means as universal basic income, subsidized childcare, wellness stipends, housing, and education) that sustains cultural workers and communities—can greatly expand access to the arts.

Through art, people can express both resistance and joy. Indeed, in this perspective, a central part of liberation is enabling everyone to access their own creative process. While present-day capitalist society gives most people very little time to develop their creative process, a central goal of solidarity economy organizing is to create the space and time for people to access their internal creativity.

Part of the work of art too is decolonization, which participants noted has both structural and personal components and includes decolonizing the media (who controls it, who’s represented), arts systems (changing norms of authorship, attribution, and access), as well as challenging internalized scarcity and elitism.

• Policy

Policy often tends to be narrowly defined as what local, state, or national governments do, but at the Resist & Build Summit discussion was broader than that and included forms of governance at the organizational and community level. Dual power strategies in governance seek to build parallel authority outside the system. The 1960s Black Panthers’ free breakfast program is an example of this; mutual aid is another. Co-governance, by contrast, operates inside the system; it embeds community groups in public systems to shift power internally.

Participants noted that which strategy makes sense varies by context. In using inside-the-system strategies, however, participants noted that accountability tools are needed, such as people’s budgets—in which movement groups set expectations regarding public expenditures—are vital tools.

In terms of direct policy work, groups identified priorities including creating policy libraries, better digital platforms, organizing toolkits (with a focus on the local level, also known as municipalism), and pipelines to train movement-aligned politicians and public officials. Several in the group also called for a more integrated policy framework that links a range of economic development policies together including co-ops, community land trusts, universal basic income, and other tools that can advance economic democracy.

Political homes should offer more than analysis—they should provide belonging, nourishment, and stability.

• Movements

Movements, participants agreed, should be grounded in autonomy, connection, and meaning. Central values that were identified included self-determination, participatory democracy, and deep relational care. The idea in short is to be transformative, not transactional, and create spaces where people grow, find meaning, and feel connected.

Participants acknowledged the central challenge of moving from issue-based organizing—as illustrated by the recent “Hands Off” protests against actions of the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—to organizing for systemic change. One strategy for doing this is the idea of formação. In English, the word literally means “training” but in Brazil it’s used to mean bringing people into deeper understanding and collective action, not just accommodating current beliefs. This approach values growth and development with people, rather than treating organizing as customer service.

In the current moment, participants noted that movement organizations must go beyond individual learning and build organizational culture that supports ideological struggle, collective visioning, and long-term relationships. This means that political homes should offer more than analysis—they should provide belonging, nourishment, and stability. Participants also called for imagining beyond the nonprofit model—which it was widely noted is designed to constrain change.

The Role of Storytelling

In a presentation as part of a plenary panel on solidarity economy media and narrative change, Jasmine Banks of Generation Common Good set forth seven principles to guide solidarity economy-aligned storytelling. These were:

1. Define purpose, values, and political alignment.

In addition to setting forth the publication’s purpose and values, this should include clear guidelines that reject sensationalism, uphold truth telling, and center lived experience, especially from marginalized voices.

2. Build infrastructure collectively.

This means prioritizing community ownership (such as through cooperative structures) and using open-source platforms.

3. Center movement journalism and community media.

This can include training local storytellers to document stories.

4. Use sustainable and solidarity-based funding models.

This means, among other things, having sliding-scale membership for community-based and allied organizations and using cross-subsidization from more operations to fund grassroots work.

5. Build interdependence, not competition.

This includes sharing platforms and engaging in joint narrative campaigns around key political moments or crises.

6. Structure governance to center the people most impacted.

This includes using community councils to guide decision-making.

7. Amplify, archive, and educate.

This work encompasses archiving movement stories; conducting curricula and hosting workshops to develop critical media literacy, especially in working-class communities; and documenting solidarity economy movements in ways that affirm people’s agency, not just their pain.

Moving Forward

As one volunteer member of the planning team shared with conference organizer David Ferris, “This wasn’t just a conference—it was a living blueprint for liberation.”

“The brilliance of this gathering was its refusal to separate fighting back from building forward,” another participant told Ferris. “Every conversation about what we’re against was paired with robust discussions about what we’re for and how we’re building the world we envision.” In short, the conference combined a hard-headed appreciation of the nuances of power building with a full-hearted vision rooted in collective care and motivated by dreams of transformation.

That the challenges remain daunting was widely acknowledged. Nonetheless, the solidarity economy gathering that took place in Atlanta offers valuable pointers for how movements can build infrastructure for the long-term social change work ahead.

If you enjoyed this article about the Resist & Build Summit in Atlanta, please go deeper in this ongoing series about the Resist and Build Framework:

• Our Task Ahead: Reclaiming Revolutionary Struggle in Atlanta and the South
• Resist and Build: A Movement Building Process Centering the Solidarity Economy
• Organizing for the Long Haul: How to Build a Network for Land and Liberation

The post Solidarity Economy Organizers Gather in Atlanta to Build Toward Liberation appeared first on Shareable.

Party kits are most commonly used for children’s birthday parties, with plastic tableware being the most popular choice as it is durable, lightweight, affordable, and suitable for young children. However, party kits have also been used for baby showers, workplace BBQs, community group meetings, and even gallery openings. 

How Party Kits Fit into a Library of Things

The party kit concept aligns closely with the principles of lending libraries, and many have already successfully added party kits to their inventories. There are two main models for incorporating party kits:

1. Pre-packed party kits: These are boxes of tableware lent out as single items. This setup is common in locker-based sharing libraries or libraries where tableware is not the main focus, such as public libraries, toy libraries, and nappy libraries. It simplifies administration by reducing the effort required to prepare each rental, though borrowers may end up taking more items than they need. Here is an example of Share Bristol’s party kit listing: https://things.sharebristol.org.uk/product/2314 

2. Customisable party kits: In this model, users build their own party kits by selecting items from the library’s inventory of tableware, decorations, and other party essentials. A basic party kit, such as a set of plates and cups, may still be offered as a pre-packed option, with the flexibility for borrowers to add other items as needed.  

Regardless of the model, all lending libraries offering party kits require that items are washed before being returned. Clear guidance should be provided on which items are dishwasher safe (most plastic tableware can be washed on an Eco cycle at lower temperatures) and the importance of ensuring everything is thoroughly dried before repacking and returning.

Benefits of Offering Party Kits 

Lending libraries that include kits report numerous benefits for both the library and its members:

Benefits for Borrowers

• Access to a broader inventory, including items like gazebos, bunting, party games, tables, chairs, tablecloths, jugs, and cool boxes. This reduces the need for one-time purchases that can often go unused after the event. 

• Affordability: For libraries with annual memberships, borrowing a party kit is often comparable with buying disposable supplies, with the added benefit that with each hire members are getting even more value for money. 

Benefits for Libraries

• Increased membership: Party kits attract new members, especially families. Anna Perry from Share Bristol said, “The party kits at Share Bristol definitely help us attract new members. Sometimes people find us through the Party Kit Network and join our Library of Things service to borrow one. Other times, people see the party kits as part of our inventory, which is enough to convince them to become members.”

• Inclusivity: Libraries can make party kits accessible to everyone. Lindsey Campbell from Linlithgow Tool Library explained, “We offer a pay-what-you-can system, so we don’t exclude anyone financially.”

• Broader reach: By nature, parties reach a lot of people, an opportunity to increase awareness of the library’s offerings and encourage more people to engage with local sharing.  

Community Impact

• Positive feedback: Borrowers consistently praise the ease of use and reduced waste. Helena Jackson from Stork and the Bees, a sling and nappy library with a party kit, noted: “People who have hired the kits have loved it. They’ve shared how easy it was to use, what a great idea it is, and how it means less waste. Plus, they didn’t have to buy or store reusable items themselves.”

• Visible impact: Borrowers notice the environmental benefits firsthand as they tidy up—there are significantly fewer bin bags of waste! Sharing these stories can inspire others in the community to embrace the switch to reusables and borrowing.

• Health & wellbeing: Borrowing and celebrating foster positive social connections, which are essential for mental health and wellbeing. Karen Elsbury, founder of the Elwood Kitchen Library, explains: “Our kitchen library is all about bringing people together through a love of food. By providing members of our community with access to kitchen items and party packs we enable them to entertain family and friends, celebrate together, and get creative in the kitchen.”

Free Download: “The Library of Things Toolkit”

Getting Started

If your library already includes reusable tableware in its inventory, you can join the Party Kit Network today! Joining is FREE and allows more people in your community to discover your library. Visit partykitnetwork.org/join to sign up.

If your library doesn’t yet have suitable tableware, consider these steps to get started:

1. Gauge Community Interest: Run a survey among your existing members to assess interest in a party kit. This can also be an opportunity to engage the wider community for their input, increasing awareness of your library’s services. 

2. Assess Local Needs: Before purchasing tableware, think about the types of events your members are likely to host. For example, for children’s parties typically 20-30 place settings are needed with durable, lightweight plastic tableware being a practical choice. For adult events such as BBQs, plastic tumblers are often preferred to glass for outdoor gathering due to their lighter weight and safety.

3. Source Tableware: There are several ways to acquire tableware:  

   • Community donations: Reach out to your local community to source reusable items.  

   • Preloved party kits: Purchase second-hand kits to reduce costs  

   • New tableware: Some libraries choose to buy new items, especially if they want to offer matching sets. Aesthetics can be important for members transitioning from themed single-use tableware to reusables.  

   Funding may be available from local authorities through waste prevention or small community grants, which can help cover the cost of purchasing reusable tableware.

4. Plan Hire Logistics:  

   • Hire periods: Many party kits are offered for a three-day hire giving people time to collect, party, wash and return, with most bookings occurring over the weekend. Your opening hours will likely dictate the duration of a hire.

   • Storage: Using rigid plastic storage containers is the easiest way to keep tableware clean and organised. A party kit for 30 can fit into a 48 litre box meaning it doesn’t take up too much space. Choose a size that balances capacity and ease of transport—splitting items into multiple boxes if needed to avoid heavy lifting. 

5. Reduce Losses: Include an equipment list with each party kit to help borrowers keep track of items and return everything they borrowed. Labelling items like jugs can also minimise the risk of them being left behind at party venues, while doubling as advertising for your kit. 

6. Collaborate Locally: I always recommend people check the Party Kit Network map to see if there are existing kits in the area. Most communities can support more than one kit, and connecting with other members allows you to collaborate. For example, you can refer enquiries to another provider if your kit is already booked. 

Case Study

Palo Alto’s Zero Waste Party Packs are reducing event waste

Getting More Support to Set Up a Party Kit

The Party Kit Network is committed to helping lending libraries include party kits, increasing accessibility and strengthening the sharing economy.

Here are some resources to guide you through the process:

• Comprehensive Guide: Download our detailed guide to running a party kit at https://www.partykitnetwork.org/start 

• Facebook Group: Join our active community on Facebook, where members share advice and ideas: https://www.facebook.com/groups/partykitnetwork 

• Online Meet-ups: Attend our regular online sessions to ask questions and get tailored support: https://partykitnetwork.eventbrite.com 

• Tableware Materials: For more information on tableware materials, please see our guide to reusable tableware: https://www.partykitnetwork.org/post/which-type-of-reusable-tableware-is-the-greenest   

Or please drop me an email with any questions or concerns, or to be connected with another library already successfully running a party kit – hello@partykitnetwork.org 

Conclusion

Party kits are a perfect fit for lending libraries. Libraries have seen their members utilise party kits when added to the inventory, and even join a library because a party kit was offered. It has been straightforward for libraries to set up a party kit, requiring minimal storage and experiencing low rates of loss.

By offering party kits, libraries empower their communities to celebrate more sustainably, reducing waste and promoting reuse. This not only strengthens connections within the community but also supports a thriving sharing economy, where resources are used efficiently and inclusively.

Adding a party kit is a small step with a big impact—encouraging more sustainable celebrations and reinforcing the vital role of sharing libraries in creating a better future.

This article was originally published by the Party Pack Network.

The post How (and why) to add a Party Kit to your Library of Things appeared first on Shareable.

We are often forced to fight defensive battles in our movements. When your house is on fire, the immediate and urgent priority is to extinguish the blaze. Such is the case with many struggles against the present administration of President Donald Trump. Virtually everyone I know is finding ways to support—and celebrate the successes of—the vital struggles being led by federal workers, nonprofit workers, and community development financial institutions.

As critical as this resistance work is, we must also confront the reality that the current system is collapsing. This means we must build a new one. The People’s Network for Land & Liberation (PNLL) coalition was formed to do just that.

PNLL is a multiracial, multiethnic consortium of six community-based organizations located across the United States. Its aim is to create a bold yet practical solidarity economy that can transform both politics and the economy from the ground up.

All six PNLL members share a common goal of shifting from power-over, extractive, and unsustainable sociopolitical systems to cooperative, regenerative, and balanced systems. PNLL is also a member of the broader national Resist & Build formation, in which I actively participate.

Central to PNLL’s vision is securing community stewardship over land. As Kali Akuno, cofounder of Cooperation Jackson, explained in NPQ, “A lot of businesses go out of business because they just cannot make the rent. So, we wanted to remove that from the equation as much as possible.”

As critical as this resistance work is, we must also confront the reality that the current system is collapsing. This means we must build a new one.

Forging the Vision

The People’s Network for Land & Liberation first emerged amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Today, six organizations comprise the network, all united behind a transformative political program that aims to:

Decommodify land using community land trusts for community-owned affordable housing, commercial space for worker-owned cooperatives, food production using a food sovereignty framework, and to preserve the integrity of the life-giving ecosystems of Mother Earth.

Support community production employing both digital fabrication technologies and regenerative agriculture-based materials and energy. This means decentralized manufacturing that empowers local communities to create goods collaboratively and sustainably using resilient local supply chains.

Incubate an ecosystem of worker-owned cooperatives that go beyond “co-ops for the sake of co-ops” to create profitable and vibrant local supply and value chains.

Engage in an internal self-education program that engages folks to foster critical thinking, dialogue, and empowerment.

Infuse art and culture in everything. This includes making things beautiful but goes much deeper. Operate according to the adage: “If it isn’t soulful, it isn’t strategic.”

Building the People’s Network for Land & Liberation

Within these five categories, each member group has a somewhat different focus, although there is a lot of overlap. Here is an overview of who’s who within the network:

Community Movement Builders has nine national chapters rooted in the Black radical tradition of self-determination and liberation. Their largest chapter is in Atlanta, GA, where they have been leaders in the Stop Cop City movement, a massive militarized police training facility. They also own and operate four community houses, operate a Community Sea Moss cooperative, and are incubating an aquaponics co-op. They recently purchased 14 acres of land near Atlanta as a space for food production, a movement retreat, and training space, which they call the Love Land Liberation project.

Cooperation Jackson owns 52 separate properties in Jackson, MS. Six are single-family homes with 12 people currently living in them, others are single-family properties that need to be rehabilitated, and some are land being farmed by the Freedom Farms Cooperative. They also operate a 6,000-square-foot community center and a community production center, and own a six-unit strip mall on a city block that is being remodeled to be the site of what will be called the People’s Grocery Store, intended to operate as a worker co-op.

Cooperation Vermont, based in rural Vermont, purchased the historic 150-year-old Marshfield Village Store and converted it into a worker co-op. The second floor is being used as workers’ housing, and they are currently renovating the third floor for additional cooperative housing. The store served as a relief and resilience hub during the recent floods that decimated the region. Earlier this year, they purchased the nearby Rainbow Sweets Bakery building and are converting the ground floor into a commercial kitchen to support local food producers in preparing goods for a commercial market, with the second story to be used for affordable housing.

Incite Focus is based in Idlewild, MI. Also known as “Black Eden,” Idlewild became famous during the Jim Crow segregation era as a place where people could be “fully human and unapologetically Black.” Today, they are recognized as leaders in the process of local community production using digital fabrication technologies in concert with local supply chains, based on regenerative agriculture. They are also in the process of converting a 60-acre resilience hub, a 10,000-square-foot community center, and a historic hotel and restaurant into a land trust. They are incubating worker-owned cooperatives to operate them all.

Native Roots Network is an Indigenous-led community organization that operates in the traditional lands of the Wintu, Yana, and Pit River peoples in what is now known as Shasta County, CA. The group practices “Acornomics,” an Indigenous regenerative framework for land stewardship, cultural revitalization, and community resilience. It has already rematriated two sites: a 4.5-acre parcel which is being developed to become a community resilience center; and a 1,200-acre site for Traditional Ecological Knowledge or TEK land restoration, Native food, and fiber cultivation and community production, with digital fabrication technologies and an aim to develop an ecosystem to support worker-owned cooperative businesses.

Wellspring Cooperative is working to build a local solidarity economy ecosystem in greater Springfield, MA, by leveraging a community land-trust model. Wellspring already has elements of this ecosystem in place, including a shared-use community kitchen, mutual aid and food security projects, and redevelopment of an abandoned fire station as a community center/co-op hub. It is also continuing to build out a network of mutually supportive co-ops, including Wellspring Harvest—a quarter-acre hydroponic greenhouse (the state’s largest), producing roughly 250,000 heads of lettuce, greens, and herbs per year—Wellspring Upholstery, Natural Living Landscapes, a weatherization co-op called Energía, and Catalyst Cooperative Healing, a mental healthcare co-op.

The central goal of the collaboration among these projects is to fundraise and develop a common land-acquisition fund that can enable community groups to decolonize and remove from the market (decommodify) as much land as possible, capitalize the launch and conversion of businesses anchored in the land and in the community, and use both as the foundation to create local and regional supply and value chains. Ultimately, the network seeks to replace capitalism, not reform or coexist with it.

Can Impact Investing Be Transformative?

The next phase of PNLL is to create a movement owned and operated by a catalytic impact investment fund to scale these efforts. But to realize our transformative vision, our movement needs to completely redesign what impact investing is about.

The central goal…is to fundraise and develop a common land-acquisition fund that can enable community groups to remove land from the market.

Today, a lot of well-meaning wealthy people turn to impact investing as a way to align their money with their values. And on the surface, that makes sense—who wouldn’t want to support companies that are doing good in the world?

But impact investing, as typically practiced, doesn’t actually challenge systems. Instead, it often helps wealthy people stay wealthy, while perhaps easing the guilt that comes with knowing the system is rigged in their favor.

Impact investing still operates within the logic of capitalism, which prioritizes private ownership, competition, and endless growth. That means the goal is still to extract more value than is put in, usually from communities or ecosystems that don’t get a say in the process. It’s a gentler capitalism—but it’s still capitalism.

If we’re serious about system change, we have to go deeper.

The solidarity economy offers a different path. It’s about shifting power, not just dollars. It centers cooperation instead of competition, shared ownership instead of private control, and values people and the planet over profits. This isn’t about charity or better business practices. It’s about transformation—building an economy rooted in democracy, sustainability, and justice.

For those with wealth, that means moving beyond just doing “less harm” with investments. It means investors need to ask harder questions, such as whether they are willing to give up some control, to invest in community-owned enterprises where decisions are made democratically, and to support regenerative models that may yield below-market returns but will help generate meaningful community value.

Truth be told, for our movement’s work to succeed, we don’t need more impact investors. We need more people to help us build the solidarity economy. We need accomplices who are ready to redistribute wealth, shift power, and co-create a future where everyone can thrive, not just the lucky few.

Fortunately, some of these accomplices exist. Ava Keating and Charlie Spears are a couple who inherited wealth and have gone “all-in” on this approach. As Keating told NPQ in an interview, “[The] so-called socially responsible investing is a myth. We know that we need something new.”

She added, “As donors, we need to bring our full selves. This means developing class analysis and organizing skills. It means cultivating relationships… I don’t want a return on investment. I want to help create a humane, equitable world that we all deserve. I want—and need—system change.”

For his part, Spears added, “We are all existentially in the same boat here. Either we break from the capitalist mode of production and create a new society, or there’s no point in having money because the world will be burning around us.”

We need accomplices who are ready to redistribute wealth, shift power, and co-create a future where everyone can thrive, not just the lucky few.

At an institutional level, Boston Impact Initiative (BII) is an example of a nonprofit impact investing fund that is going beyond great projects and is dedicated to building financial, social, and political power. An example is their Fund Manager Education program, which trains community organizers to become fund managers who can implement this vision.

As Shavon Prophet, director of education and strategic partnerships at BII, explained to NPQ, the goal is to engage “in a transformational collaborative process that is challenging assumptions, sparking new ideas, and deepening our shared collective understanding.” Broadly speaking, BII aims to reject extractive systems and advance a solidarity economy rooted in shared power, mutual accountability, and community control.

What’s Next?

We are at a pivotal moment in history. As Antonio Gramsci observed in his Prison Notebooks, after Italy had become the world’s first fascist state a century ago, “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: Now is the time of monsters.”

As society confronts the reality of ecological collapse and rising fascism, the urgent need for transformative change has never been clearer. The solidarity economy stands as a beacon of possibility.

By decommodifying land, nurturing worker-owned cooperatives, embracing political education, and embedding art and culture into every facet of our work, it is possible to collectively go beyond merely resisting the old: Communities can actively build the new in a spirit of cooperation, shared ownership, and ecological stewardship.

If you enjoyed this article about the People’s Network for Land & Liberation, please go deeper in this ongoing series about the Resist and Build Framework:

• Our Task Ahead: Reclaiming Revolutionary Struggle in Atlanta and the South
• Resist and Build: A Movement Building Process Centering the Solidarity Economy

The post Organizing for the Long Haul: How to Build a Network for Land and Liberation appeared first on Shareable.

After Donald Trump’s re-election in late 2024, Shareable staff saw the pressing need to build skills and pathways for those newly engaged in the shared struggles to come.

Working with our partners and collaborators, we designed a free and virtual mutual aid learning series for early 2025 that featured past writers, organizing partners, and guests from The Response podcast. It became abundantly clear that this training and peer support network was needed when over 1,500 people attended the first session!

To make the learning series as accessible as possible, we’re excited to debut “Mutual Aid 101: Solidarity, Survival, and Resistance,” an introductory toolkit for mutual aid organizing—from starting a group to sustaining it for the long haul.

Free Download: Solidarity, Survival, and Resistance An introductory toolkit for mutual aid organizing—from starting a group to sustaining it for the long haul

This toolkit (available digitally on our website and in a PDF format) breaks down the recordings from the four live sessions hosted in February and March 2025. Whether you choose to watch the videos, read the key takeaways and summaries, or a mix of both, we hope this toolkit is helpful for you to start or to fine-tune a sustainable and robust mutual aid group in your community.

There are six sections, each addressing critical aspects of mutual aid organizing. Topics range from foundational and introductory knowledge (We’re all we’ve got—intro to mutual aid) to building mutual aid projects to vital considerations like legal basics, governance, and cybersecurity.

This toolkit is by no means exhaustive. For a deeper dive, check out the Resources section—an aggregated collection crowdsourced by Shareable staff and Mutual Aid 101 learning series presenters and participants!

This toolkit would not have been possible without the incredible presenters from the Mutual Aid 101 Learning Series and support from Emergent Fund, Shift Foundation, Resist, New Economy Coalition, and Shareable supporters like you.

The post Introducing Shareable’s new toolkit: “Mutual Aid 101: Solidarity, Survival, and Resistance” appeared first on Shareable.

As a handy person, Devon Curtin spends a lot of time helping people enrich their living spaces. Recently, while working with a friend to remodel their floor, Curtin noticed that the cost of do-it-yourself projects is already rising because of Donald Trump’s tariffs.

“The cost of mahogany was the same as Douglas fir, which is kind of wild, but the cost of oak was double. And I was like, ‘Oh, we’re probably getting oak boards from Canada, and so the tariff cost on that is going to skyrocket,’” said Curtin. “And so all of a sudden, this project of building an oak countertop doubles in price because the tariffs are there.”

With the price of materials climbing (or set to), many DIY projects have become more difficult to finance overnight. But what if Curtin’s friend didn’t also have to purchase pricey tools to complete the project? What if he borrowed them all from neighbors instead, and returned them when he was finished? And what if those neighbors helped him through the project each step of the way?

This is more or less how tool-lending libraries work. Curtin, who is a volunteer and steering committee member of the nonprofit Rhode Island tool library PVD Things, connects people with the tools and know-how to make daunting do-it-yourself projects more accessible. For a sliding scale fee, members of the cooperatively-run library have access to a catalogue of about 1,630 items that have been amassed over the past four or so years through donations. Tools like the power washers, hammers, drills, cameras, lawn mowers, pet carriers, grills and pop-up tents can be borrowed for one to two weeks. But PVD Things is about much more than just the things. Volunteers get to know their neighbors and their stories, and provide guidance if they need help. Those volunteers told me about a local poet who borrows pop-up tents and tables to speed-write poems for passersby, and a surfer who borrowed palm sanders and dust extractors to build a fiberglass surfboard from scratch. Another member built out a camper van with their power tools. Several weeks ago, 30 gardeners borrowed rakes, shovels and pruners en masse for a big clean up party at a community garden that had been overgrown for years.

During open hours, I saw volunteers celebrating a member’s upcoming 10K when she came in to borrow a GoPro to document the run. The space was warm and welcoming, with a wall of free things, a whiteboard full of local event flyers near a seed library, and power tools impeccably organized on curvy psychedelic shelves that were designed and made by a program that works with Providence youth.

“It’s not really like a Home Depot where you just go in, you don’t talk to anybody, you pick a tool up and leave,” said volunteer and board member Erica Bello. “A lot of times we’re having really in-depth conversations with what these people are doing and their projects and all that stuff. And some people just come and hang out.”

Tool libraries such as these have surged in popularity since the Great Recession. Public library systems house many of them, as in Oakland and Berkeley, California; Grosse Pointe, Michigan; and in Providence, Rhode Island, through a partnership with PVD Things. Independent nonprofit tool libraries are flourishing across the country too. Hubs in Denver, Chicago and Buffalo all offer thousands of things and workshops; another in New York City’s Flatbush neighborhood offers free membership to all Brooklyn residents. A longstanding library in Baltimore heavily influenced the organizational structure of PVD Things.

Tool libraries are typically hyperlocal projects sustained primarily by donations and volunteers, making them relatively insulated from the whims of far-away neo-fascists and tech billionaires. As the Chicago Tool Library recently put it, “There are no tariffs on sharing. The more we share, the more we have.”

They aren’t insulated from politics entirely. “This is a not-for-profit, and we are directly benefited by a lot of the programs and grants that kind of extend from what’s available in the state or in the city, or federally,” Curtin said. “That gives us the opportunity to grow.”

“We want people to realize their own self-reliance. You don’t have to be a consumer. You can be a repairer.”

The use of such grants and programs can also be a vulnerability. Last month, the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), a government agency that funds one-third to one-half of state library agencies’ annual budgets, was gutted by the federal government. IMLS had provided grants to fund at least two tool libraries in California. Berkeley’s tool lending program — one of the first in the public library system — was originally funded by a federal grant in 1979.

PVD Things has secured a couple of grants, including one that led to the hiring of their first part-time employee, Manuela Hincapie Vidal, as a workshop programmer and volunteer coordinator. Born in Colombia, Hincapie Vidal moved to Rhode Island at age 11, where she was exposed to squatting culture and the Zapatistas at a community space in Providence shortly after graduating from high school. She first learned about tool libraries after enrolling at Berea College in Kentucky — a tuition-free college for low-income students — from an inspiring professor who also taught the class about back-to-the-land movements, timebanking, and municipal internet.

Hincapie Vidal said her Latina roots inspire her to ensure PVD Things’ workshops are accessible to their mostly Latinx neighbors. She has helped organize three Spanish-speaking workshops, spreading the word through Latina organizations and ditching Google docs — which seemed more friendly for English-speakers — in favor of email and text sign-ups. All three workshops quickly reached maximum capacity.

“Workshops help people feel a sense of belonging and ownership of the space,” said Hincapie Vidal, “and bring people in that feel compelled to be volunteers.”

Through workshops, locals have learned the basics of power tools, electrical work, plumbing, machine sewing, hand sewing, wood working, little free library building, sign making, and more. With these new skills, people are better equipped to repair their belongings when they break, saving them money and keeping things out of landfills.

“We want people to realize their own self-reliance. You don’t have to be a consumer. You can be a repairer,” Bello said. “So many things are kind of built nowadays where you can’t fix it, and corporations want you to discard it. It’s planned obsolescence. We are trying to give empowerment back to the people.”

PVD Things aspires to host open shop hours where people can fix things and collaborate on other projects together. When I asked Curtin and Bello about their other utopian dreams, Curtin said he hopes for each public library to involve a tool-lending program. Bello envisions a world where the proliferation of tool libraries allows people to climb up the economic ladder, and Curtin chimed in that tool libraries can serve as an incubator for small businesses.

Later, Hincapie Vidal pulled me aside and said that she had dreams too. “Imagine a world where there are tool libraries in every neighborhood, and they’re third spaces for people to hang out without having to spend money,” she said. “There are potlucks to share food, and urban farms.” We talked about alternative economic systems, such as solidarity economies that weave together things like worker-owned cooperatives, community land trusts, popular assemblies, and mutual aid networks to build a world that prioritizes people and planetary health over economic growth. “That would just be a disaster for capitalism,” she said cheerily.

Entire economies could even be organized around library concepts, as some have suggested: Under a system called “library socialism,” popularized by utopian comedy podcast “Srsly Wrong,” and further explored by YouTuber Andrewism, all kinds of goods and resources could be collectively catalogued and distributed to meet everyone’s basic needs and desires. Under library socialism, for example, apartments might be doled out by a collectively managed housing committee that is accountable to its local popular assembly. An affinity group might run a collective kitchen and return the space rental to the housing committee once it’s no longer being used. None of the concepts are necessarily new — solidarity economies and library socialism are modern spins on what many societies have been experimenting with since the dawn of humanity.

“It sounds utopian, but it’s not. We’ve been made to believe that capitalism is the only way, because it feels like it has existed forever and that there are no other alternatives,” said Hincapie Vidal. “But that’s not true. It’s pretty new. The history is there so we can bring it forward and learn and share it.”

Free Download: “The Library of Things Toolkit”

The post “No Tariffs on Sharing”: Tool Libraries Offer Resilience Amid Federal Chaos appeared first on Shareable.

State of the Movements is a recurring NPQ column dedicated to tracking the pulse of social movements and the solidarity economy in 2025. 

“As goes the South, so goes the nation.” This maxim may not yet be standard among political analysts, but its truth is undeniable. Nowhere is this more evident than in Atlanta, a city steeped in both radical history and corporate reinvention.

Beyond the familiar narratives of a “Black Mecca” or a Democratic stronghold, Atlanta is a battleground where grassroots movements, labor struggles, and corporate influence collide. The city holds a strategic position, not just geographically but in the broader political landscape of the South, where movements for economic justice, racial equity, and abolitionist futures take shape and fight for survival.

Atlanta occupies a unique position in the South, both as a site of historical Black economic and political power and as a contested space for social movements.

As the present contradictions of racial capitalism sharpen and the cracks of neoliberal solutions give way to reveal the facade of racial progress, communities are searching for solutions transcending business-as-usual identity-based social justice driven by national nonprofits. There are unique lessons in Atlanta about sustaining movements beyond philanthropic support. The urgency of the moment demands that we learn lessons from the past and embrace radical solutions.

Atlanta as Bellwether—Or Anti-Revolutionary Bulwark

Jerome Scott, a longtime labor organizer and cofounder of Project South, embodies the tradition of Southern radical resistance. His experience, from being fired from Chrysler to organizing with the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, shaped his perspective on the necessity of independent, working-class struggle. His experience early on helped him to realize not all skinfolk are kinfolk, and he found a sophisticated strategy in entering the hospitality workforce across from the factory that fired him—allowing him to connect and organize across races.

In a recent conversation with NPQ, Scott reflected on the founding of Project South and the challenges of maintaining movement integrity in an era of increasing co-optation by philanthropy and electoral politics. “We didn’t even apply for a single grant during the early years…we were clear on our values and the threat of capture,” he explains.

Project South was born out of necessity, created to serve as a space for political education, movement building, and base development among Southern communities. Unlike many organizations that rely on large foundation grants, Scott and his cofounders were intentional about rejecting funding that came with restrictions. Their decision was rooted in the understanding that corporate and philanthropic interests often seek to domesticate radical movements, making them palatable to power rather than effective tools for change.

Over the years, Project South has stood as a counterweight to the creeping professionalization of people-powered community and social justice efforts by the nonprofit industrial complex. It has remained committed to organizing people at the grassroots level, particularly in the South, where systemic underfunding has historically left movement organizations to fend for themselves. This resistance to compromise has allowed Project South to build deep and lasting relationships with frontline communities, ensuring that its work remains relevant and accountable to the people most impacted by racial capitalism.

Atlanta occupies a unique position in the South, both as a site of historical Black economic and political power and as a contested space for social movements. As Scott and others have pointed out, the city has long served as a gatekeeper, determining which movements gain visibility and resources and which remain on the margins.

Spelman College brought civil rights leader Efia Nwangaza to Atlanta, and the Atlanta Project kept her there. The Atlanta Project, originally a part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Nwangaza told NPQ, learned the lessons of revolutionary capture.

Across the South…corporate philanthropy and liberal electoral politics often work hand in hand to neutralize revolutionary demands for change.

“The ‘misleadership class’ had a general agreement that the movement would not ‘disrupt’ governance agreements and so the Atlanta Project-SNCC were often excluded from those discussions because we would not comply with the PR and marketing campaigns that Atlanta was the ‘city too busy to hate’ despite its repression of Black people,” Nwangaza said.

This same dynamic is evident today in the ongoing Stop Cop City movement, where activists and organizers are pushing back against the city’s efforts to expand policing at the expense of Black and working-class communities. Notably, among the advances in activism and impact this movement has accomplished amidst immense state repression, the Stop Cop City movement stands out for its integration of mutual aid, cooperative organizing, and communal organizing into more traditional organizing tactics.

As organizer Julian Rose observes, “One of the main things that has felt so different about this movement is the ways people have cared for one another. This can be explained, in part, by the fact that many of the Black radical youth organizers in Atlanta who have been holding down mutual aid since the initial stages of the pandemic are also sustaining care work in support of the Stop Cop City movement.”

The struggle in Atlanta reflects a broader pattern across the South, where corporate philanthropy and liberal electoral politics often work hand in hand to neutralize revolutionary demands for change. The myth of Atlanta as a “Black Mecca” has been weaponized to obscure the deep racial and economic inequalities that persist in the city. The 2020 State of the South Report from the Southern Movement Assembly makes it plain: “Despite its richness in diverse landscapes and natural resources, the South is financially ranked as the region with the most poverty in the country and with pockets of persistent poverty throughout, particularly in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia (also known as the Black Belt).”

The post Our Task Ahead: Reclaiming Revolutionary Struggle in Atlanta and the South appeared first on Shareable.

Appropriating the planet

In a fragment by Jorge Luis Borges, successive generations of cartographers create increasingly exacting maps of China. Their maps grow steadily larger to incorporate more and more minute details until “the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it,” for the only map that could communicate every detail of China would be a map on the scale of the country itself. Today, the Chinese maps are even larger than the empire.

The commanding heights of the gentrification economy are tech and biotech firms that collect, systematize, privatize, and commodify inputs such as genetic data, personal information, and behavioral profiles at levels far beyond that accessible through first-person experience: the stuff of ever-growing maps, new material for market exchange. The more perfect these maps, whether of a user’s consumer proclivities or genome, the more profits may be wrung. These inputs are not initially purchased from another party. Instead, as Shoshana Zuboff explains, “Surveillance capitalism unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data.”

For Marx, capitalism is necessarily based in primitive accumulation, the “conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, in short, force” necessary for one class to acquire capital and for another to be dispossessed to the degree that it must sell its labor to survive. Marx placed this initial violent accumulation in the late 15th and 16th centuries, when English peasants were forced off feudal lands and Indigenous American and African peoples were enslaved.

Peter Kropotkin was quick to critique Marx’s “erroneous division between the primary accumulation of capital and its present-day formation.” Later Marxists likewise found that primitive accumulation was not a bounded historical event but an ongoing process. Silvia Federici cites World Bank structural adjustment programs which, under the guise of making poor countries “competitive,” uproot the “last vestiges of communal property and community relations” and “force more and more people into wage labor” as one example and the exploitation of women’s unpaid domestic labor another. The social, biological, and psychological data now closed off and privatized by capital are a new frontier of such accumulation.

The material limit of appropriation of land is the amount of existing acreage, just as the material limit of the appropriation of iron ore is the quantity found in a certain mine. The gentrification economy is based on the modeling and mapping of the world; its material limit is the representation of the world down to the atomic level. So long as this endeavor remains profitable and requires a small caste of educated technicians, the gentrification economy and the struggles against displacement may only be expected to continue.

User, subject, worker, resident

There are at least three lines of popular political critique of the tech economy aside from resistance to community displacement. One critique of tech companies concerns their management of platforms that serve as a semi-public space. The prohibition or promotion of certain content or communities is criticized from the perspective of users. There is also a line of critique from the perspective of those subjected to new forms of power: quantified, mapped, and modeled. And warehouse workers, rideshare drivers, and software engineers alike criticize their tech industry employers from the perspective of workers. The struggle against gentrification is a critique of a fourth type. In addition to the user, the subject, and the worker, there is the resident. The Block Sidewalk campaign in Toronto joined an anti-gentrification fight to concerns about surveillance technology and U.S. corporate encroachment: resistance on the terms of the subject as well as that of the resident. The fight to kill Amazon’s New York campus highlighted both how housing costs would rise and how few local residents would get high-paying jobs: the resident and worker. The fight against Google Berlin pulled together opposition “from the displacement of the neighborhood, through data abuse of Google, to criticism of power and technology,” the synthesis of such critiques “made possible by a shared intensification of a social conflict.”

From the perspective of the ruling class, existing residents are residual, remainders, leftovers. “Join the dance of those left over,” goes the Los Prisioneros song, an anthem of the movement against Pinochet that found new life during Chile’s 2019 Estallido Social. “The games ended for others with laurels and futures. They left my friends kicking stones.”

Common sense militancy

It is hard to imagine a demand more modest than the maintenance of one’s home, community, and life. And yet to stop displacement would demand, housing activist Vasudha told me, “a reimagining of the current socio-economic system, because as it currently exists, gentrification is incentivized and encouraged until every cent of profit is milked out. The last 200 years of housing policy and how the ‘market’ works is encouraging and incentivizing gentrification. To stop it will require masses of people to really come together and pitch in and make sacrifices to a larger movement to restructure the socio-economic system as it currently exists.” The reasonable demand for universal housing in an economic system based on private land ownership is a “non-reformist reform” in the original sense outlined by André Gorz: not an especially progressive reforms to demand of the capitalist state, as the democratic socialists would have it, but an apparent reform that in fact could only be instituted by a “fundamental political and economic change” created through the “autonomous power” of the dispossessed.

We must unfortunately still contend with those whose superficial concern for the oppressed is outweighed by a greater fear of the oppressed developing just such an autonomous power. Neither the benevolence of corporate charity nor the “proper channels” offered by local representative democracy have proven, in any city in the world, sufficient to halt economic gentrification. Yet the partisans of propriety and moralists of reform continue to insist that those facing displacement and death restrict themselves to permissible tactics proven to fail. And so homes continue to be destroyed and our neighbors continue to expire on the streets. The hands of the self-declared pacifists drip with blood as their throats fill with empty platitudes. Those who demand decorum and reasonableness in resistance are accessories to the most indefensible outrages.

“I don’t know that we can challenge gentrification on political terms,” says Daniel González of San José. “It’s going to require a lot of militancy. Not just militancy, because you need a multi-faceted approach to enable greater participation. But you do need to have a very real and material threat to the stakeholders, to the city, to the investors. It needs to go beyond the arena of representative politics.”

Andrew Lee is the author of Defying Displacement: Urban Recomposition and Social War. Lee has supported grassroots social movements for more than 15 years and his work has been published in outlets including Teen Vogue, Yes! Magazine, and The New Inquiry. He writes at In Struggle and is a board member of the Institute for Anarchist Studies.

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