The Importance of Sharing in an Era of Autocracy
Why we've been talking so much about sharing, and recommended weekend reading
In the weeks leading up to the election last November, I started experiencing a creeping sense of conviction about where we were heading in our national politics (on Trump’s win and many of its consequences I have been correct; I was thankfully wrong about a prolonged dispute potentially involving extralegal force as part of how that would happen). During that time, I began casting about for voices and readings that could help me make sense of not just what might happen but meaningful courses of action to take in response.
Via Scot Nakagawa at The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook (a Substack I very much recommend following in this moment), I learned about an article from 2022 by researchers Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks. Some of you may know Chenoweth from their book Why Civil Resistance Works. They’re also the director of Harvard’s Nonviolent Action Lab, which just hosted a panel on “Organizing and Mobilization During Democratic Backsliding.” You can watch the recording on YouTube:
In 2022, Chenoweth and Marks were looking to assess the ongoing threat to democracy posed by Trump and the MAGA movement and make recommendations that would help lessen their chance of regaining power, which they put into their paper “Pro-democracy Organizing against Autocracy in the United States: A Strategic Assessment & Recommendations.” Many of their recommendations still hold in an era in which that has taken place.
They outline multiple elements to an effective strategy “for protecting local communities and subjugated groups, and for informing a broad-based pro-democracy struggle under a hypothetical authoritarian administration.”
The one that really stood out to me is this:
A second element of the strategy is to build community power through alternative institutions, which ultimately render authoritarian institutions and forces irrelevant in day-to-day life.
Many dissident movements in Eastern Europe, organized under Soviet occupation and Soviet-backed authoritarian regimes, used this strategy. In Poland, for instance, opposition groups resisted the state’s propaganda and control over education by organizing “flying universities,” or underground schools, to build popular education free from autocratic influence.
The more opposition groups are able to establish and maintain political autonomy, prevent the local enforcement of unjust laws and policies, and provide services directly to their communities, the more obsolete authoritarian forces will become relative to pro-democratic ones. Effective organizations build community power, meet people’s immediate needs, and occupy governance vacuums where they exist.
Here, the primary work of pro-democratic forces will be to gradually yet decisively build alternative institutions–such as economic cooperatives, fresh food provision, public health institutions, mutual aid, community safety, strike funds, and other forms of cooperation–that dramatically reduce the reach, impact, and legitimacy of the authoritarian state.
(I’ve introduced some additional paragraph breaks and bolding there to hopefully make it a little more digestible.)
Whether or not you’ve been trying to keep up with the intentionally overwhelming barrage of directives from the Oval Office, by now you surely know that people’s livelihoods are being disrupted, and many programs providing communities support to meet their basic needs face uncertain futures. Rage and shock and fear are rippling across the country, and all that emotion can be directed in a number of ways.
It can, for instance, morph into compliance, and subservience, not just to the current political regime but to the corporate profiteers who are being set up in this moment to privatize what moments ago was a public service, or plunder where there are no longer public servants or processes preventing them from doing so.
Fear and rage can also be manipulated to increase the number of those allied with extremism, and to stoke racist hate (and, as we’re also seeing, gender-based hate). The scapegoating of immigrants and others is a classic tactic of authoritarian leaders.
But what if people are less fearful, what if they experience all of these economic and political shocks less forcefully, because others in their community respond not only with protest, but with care and the rebuilding of community institutions to distribute that care? Well, then we solve some of the new problems being created by the blitz of executive orders, and at the same time lower the likelihood that our neighbors will be recruited into the extremist movements helping grant Trump and his allies some of their power.
This is why the basic act of sharing, in this moment, is so important. It’s what gets us through the coming mess. It also increases the chances for that mess to be a little smaller in size. And it shifts power dynamics and local culture in a way that solves some of the old messes we were already in.
One-to-one sharing, while the bedrock of all of this, won’t be enough, which is why building out the alternative institutions of the sharing or solidarity economy (or the cooperative economy, regenerative economy, etc., whatever you wish to call it) in this moment is critical. There have been many intersecting social movements working on growing these institutions for some time now, though they’re not yet at the scale to meet the need of the present moment.
Scale, in this context, however, doesn’t mean growth into some mega-organization that directs what everyone is doing locally (though Chenoweth and Marks, in their piece, repeatedly state a need for a scaled-up national coalition). It means more of us helping build these institutions on the ground.
One good place to start, if you’re wondering how to connect with others doing this work where you are, is the member directory of the New Economy Coalition. They have member groups in many states, thought not yet all of them.
The US Solidarity Economy Network also has a map of solidarity economy efforts: https://ussen.org/resources/solidarity-economy-map-directory/
Our last couple of posts have focused on attempts to criminalize sharing, be that housing or food and water. A sharing economy always benefits the poor, and the poor (especially the unhoused) are always a prime scapegoat, which is part of why this happens. But a sharing economy also challenges what have become common conceptions about how people should meet their needs (they should pay for them in cash) and that someone (these days, corporate shareholders) have a right to profit from the provision of those needs. We cast shame on those who can’t pay for their survival and lionize those who find new ways to extract profit from others.
Such norms will not serve us well in the coming years. They don’t serve us well now. Yet we can expect to see more attempts in the near future to criminalize sharing precisely because it is a form of political resistance. So as we strive to expand the ways in which we build sharing into daily life, we should remain attentive to attempts to label such practices as illegal, and be ready to oppose them.
People are trying many ways of taking action in this moment. If some of those obvious methods feel a little futile to you (surely, hollering at representatives who either won’t listen or don’t know how to wield power in this moment can really only go so far), consider that they aren’t the only ones available. Gather with some friends and see if you can’t figure out some initial steps to take to meet the basic needs of others in your community. They will feel small. This does not make them unimportant. Need some fancy language to explain to others what you’re up to? Tell them you’re trying to “build community power through alternative institutions, which ultimately render authoritarian institutions and forces irrelevant in day-to-day life.”
Looking for a sense of personal purpose just now? That seems like a good one to me.
I’ve attached the PDF of the Chenoweth/Marks paper below, as well as their list of the primary elements of an effective strategy for organizing against autocracy.
Thanks for reading Unsettling.
Until next time,
Meg
We suggest some immediate investments in infrastructure that could support effective pro-democracy organizing and mobilizing, both today and in the event of authoritarian decline or consolidation across all branches of government. An effective strategy will:
Build and maintain a large-scale, multiracial, cross-class, pro-democracy united front that continues to push for structural/institutional reforms and contest for power, even after authoritarianism has appeared to consolidate. The coalition should use ongoing local, county, state, and national elections as flashpoints by which to build a resilient and expansive pro-democracy movement, document election malfeasance, and promote anti-authoritarian platforms, reforms, and talking points for campaigns to take up at all levels of government.
Protect, hold, and build local and community power through alternative institutions to address urgent communal problems, protect minority rights and lives, reinforce an oppositional pro-democratic culture, develop leadership, and build capacity for collective mobilization when needed.
Build pressure to induce defections among those loyal to the autocrat or authoritarian alliance, including through widespread economic noncooperation and labor action.
Prevent, deter, and strengthen resilience to increased threats of state or paramilitary violence through strategic planning and organized and disciplined actions, including building a capacity to anticipate, induce, and exploit defections; broaden inclusive participation; document paramilitary networks; publicize abuses; and demand local accountability.
