Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Radical Routes and the Shell of the Old

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, November 24, 2014

Radical Routes and the Shell of the Old

Click here to access article by Milan Rai from TeleSur.

This radical housing organization in Britain provides an excellent example of a radical experiment that needs to be studied by all serious revolutionaries.

Radical Routes has achieved amazing things. It’s enabled groups of mostly young, mostly poor people (generally voluntarily-downwardly-mobile) to take well over £4 million-worth of property out of private hands and into co-operative ownership. It’s provided stable bases for some of the most important British direct action campaigning of the last 30 years. It’s been a beacon of democratic decision-making and anarchist financing.

At the same time, it’s not clear what the effect on the organization will be as the demand for individual and co-op autonomy overcomes the need for boundary-setting principles.

Radical Routes has, in many ways, been an example of the future desired society being set up in miniature within the shell of the old society. It’s possible that over the last few years, key elements preserving its radical identity have themselves been hollowed out, leaving a fragile shell. There may be lessons here for others.