Overview

""How can we get free? How can we free ourselves, our communities, our environments, our society? And what will this freedom look like? While the present moment holds incredible possibilities to organize for our collective liberation, there are powerful forces readily willing and able to summons all available weapons of repression to contain and suppress revolutionary movements.... ""The question of freedom is central to all revolutionary movements. It is at the root of everyday struggles against white supremacist colonialism, heteropatriarchy, capitalism, the authoritarian state, and every other form of systemic oppression. But we have to ask, again, what will freedom look like? Often, the realities we each face constrain the ways we can answer this question, so we ask it in pieces: How do we provide for each other? How do we protect, nurture, care, love, and create? How do we liberate ourselves from the hardships of enclosure, exploitation, and dependency that are imposed on our minds, bodies, communities, and environments? How do we free our sense of freedom, so it is not a set of individual and extractive privileges, but is instead the grounding for a communal form of abundance?"" By laying bare the mechanisms of capitalism, imperialism, settler colonialism, climate catastrophe, heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, exploitation and dispossesion, and a range of other oppressive structures and countering them with a historical account of revolutionary movements from around the world, Organizing for Autonomyoffers a brazen and determined articulation of a world that centers community, love, and justice. With an unparalleledbreadth and by synthesizing innumerable sources of revolutionary thought and history, CounterPower presents the result of years of inquiry, struggle, and resistance. Bold, fearless, and radically original, Organizing for Autonomyimagines a decolonized, communist, alternative world order that is free from oppressive structures, state violence, and racial capitalism and helps us to get there.

Full Product Details

Author:   CounterPower
Publisher:   Common Notions
Imprint:   Common Notions
ISBN:  

9781942173212

ISBN 10:   1942173210
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   10 December 2020
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION The Specter That Haunts Us Guerrilla Tektology Building Counterpower for a Free Society Outline of the Book CHAPTER 1: POLITICS 1.1: Everything is Political! Value Standpoint Composition Inquiry 1.2: A Communist Politics From Counterpower to Communism CHAPTER 2: METHODS 2.1: Radical Social Science Demystifying Reality and Illuminating Paths to Freedom Against Reductionism Historical-Geographical Materialism An Itinerary for Radical Social Science 2.2: Conceptual Framework Complementary Holism The Human Center Character Structures Institutional Boundary Spheres of Social Activity Intra-Actions Among Spheres of Social Activity Evolution and Revolution 2.3: Research from Below Social Group Composition The Multitude of Workers and Popular Social Groups Cycles and Circuits of Struggle Decoding the Hidden Transcript Critical Assessment and Summation Future Directions for Inquiry CHAPTER 3: ANALYSIS 3.1: The Imperialist World-System Empire as a World-Producing Force Center/Periphery Relations A Geopolitics of Imperialism The Ecological Rift Imperialist Strategies of Domination Imperialist Crisis and Decay Resurgent Fascism 3.2: Revolutionary Situations CHAPTER 4: VISION 4.1: Communist Alternatives Territories of Freedom Commons Conviviality Councils Communes Assembling Communist Alternatives 4.2: Kinship Communism at Point Zero Communities of Full Care Free Love and Free Partnerships Communal Habitations Education for Autonomy 4.3: Economics The Abolition of Class Society Stewardship of the Commons and Collective Enterprises Federated Councils of Workers and Consumers Multidimensional Production Social Provisioning, Remunerative Justice, and Factors of Consumption Communal Participatory Planning 4.4: Polity Negate the State A Communal Participatory Polity Conflict Resolution and Restorative Justice Communal Defense and Security 4.5: Community Decolonization The Indigenist Perspective Polyculturalism and Intercommunalism A Psychedelic Transformation of Everyday Life 4.6: The World Commune CHAPTER 5: STRATEGY 5.1: Levels of Political Praxis 5.2: Continuous Revolution 5.3: Organized Autonomy Organs of Counterpower Defending the Area of Autonomy Create Two, Three, Many Parties of Autonomy! From United Front to System of Counterpower 5.4: Protracted Revolutionary Struggle A Path to Liberation Phase 1: Laying the Groundwork Phase 2: The Emergence of Territorial Counterpower Phase 3: Insurrectionary Rupture Phase 4: Direct Transition to Communism  CONCLUSION SummationThe Question of Program

Reviews

The old world is collapsing all around us, and communism is in the air. Organizing for Autonomy asks us to breathe deeply of that air, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our comrades, and to plot the way forward together. Its cohesive analysis and ambitious vision point toward the North Star and offer a militant strategy for how to get going. It is not a roadmap to the new world, but no matter. After all, communism is not the destination, it is the path itself. -George Ciccariello-Maher, author of Building the Commune and Decolonizing Dialectics Praise for CounterPower Whenever I meet someone who is radicalizing, who is looking for a way to understand the world we live in and inspire hope that we can live in a fundamentally different and liberating society, [CounterPower's] writing are some of the first pieces I share along with Wretched of the Earth, Sister Outsider, This Bridge Called My Back, and models of change from Mexico to Spain. -Uruj Sheikh, Campaign Manager, The Real News Network [A]n organization of organizers, a revolutionary organization involved in mass struggles...serious, smart...[with] no qualms about calling itself revolutionary -Todd Gitlin, author of Occupy Nation and a founding member of SDS. Sounds benign and non threatening; however a closer look reveals an organization that is bent on the destruction of America...Their beautifully written mission statement and other language on their web site, boiled down to basics, shows that the organization wants to replace our capitalist system with socialism at best. -Milton Reid, Retired Corporate Executive

"""CounterPower offers a deeply thoughtful analysis that is rooted in people's everyday struggles to end oppression. At a time when the criminal failures of capitalism endager the entire planet, Organizing for Autonomy is rich with revolutionary possibility."" —Barbara Smith, cofounder of the Combahee River Collective and Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press “The old world is collapsing all around us, and communism is in the air. Organizing for Autonomy asks us to breathe deeply of that air, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our comrades, and to plot the way forward together. Its cohesive analysis and ambitious vision point toward the North Star and offer a militant strategy for how to get going. It is not a roadmap to the new world, but no matter. After all, communism is not the destination, it is the path itself.” —Geo Maher (George Ciccariello-Maher), author of Building the Commune and Decolonizing Dialectics ""Capitalism got us into this mess. Organizing for Autonomy advances the conversation about how we can achieve a different—and better—way of living, in a world without bosses."" —Steve Wright, author of Storming Heaven ""In the new phase of history, and of struggles, which is opening up now, it's essential to keep alive the link with the history of the :eft, and to sum this up critically as a guide for future practice. Organizing for Autonomy is a great contribution to that task."" —Robert Biel, author of The New Imperialism and The Entropy of Capitalism Praise for CounterPower  “Whenever I meet someone who is radicalizing, who is looking for a way to understand the world we live in and inspire hope that we can live in a fundamentally different and liberating society, [CounterPower’s] writing are some of the first pieces I share along with Wretched of the Earth, Sister Outsider, This Bridge Called My Back, and models of change from Mexico to Spain.” —Uruj Sheikh, Campaign Manager, The Real News Network “[A]n organization of organizers, a revolutionary organization involved in mass struggles…serious, smart…[with] no qualms about calling itself revolutionary” —Todd Gitlin, author of Occupy Nation and a founding member of SDS. “Sounds benign and non threatening; however a closer look reveals an organization that is bent on the destruction of America…Their beautifully written mission statement and other language on their web site, boiled down to basics, shows that the organization wants to replace our capitalist system with socialism at best.” —Milton Reid, Retired Corporate Executive"

Author Information

CounterPoweris a revolutionary organization committed to building the power of working and oppressed people, from below and to the left. Drawing lessons from past and present movements, they offer an analysis, vision, and strategy to build for social revolution in the heart of empire. They organize to dismantle the imperialist world-system: a system based on the fusion of capitalism, heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, and the state. With branches throughout the United States, CounterPower has more than a decade of experience helping to build the collective power and autonomy of workers and the oppressed.

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