May the 4th be with you: the Empire vs the Commons Rebel Alliance

There’s a global corporate / state machine (let’s call it ‘the Empire’) that destroys nature, democracy and community, and prevents peace. None of this is planned – it’s systemic, even though Empires are always founded and led by the worst among us.

The Empire

The Empire isn’t national – it’s not ‘American’ or ‘Western’. It sits mainly in North America and Western Europe (with a Middle-Eastern branch in Israel), although that could change in future. It doesn’t see borders – it sees markets, pools of cheap labour, mineral resources, agricultural land, low-tax zones and routes for cargo ships.

The Empire can’t stop extracting wealth from communities all over the world and concentrating it, because that’s its business model. Concentrated wealth will inevitably enter politics and make true democracy impossible. We can’t have the levels of wealth concentration we have now, and democracy. We can only have Empire, which doesn’t care who forms governments – all electable parties are pro-Empire.

The Empire prevents peace simply because war is profitable. The Empire has no principles or ideology. It believes nothing, apart from that it should maintain power.

The Empire can’t stop destroying nature, because it has to grow forever, perpetually increasing consumption and waste. And so of course, unsurprisingly, nature is being destroyed, and will continue to be destroyed as long as the Empire exists.

Destroying nature is the stupidest thing any species could do. But it’s not our species that’s the problem, and it’s not individuals either. Most people are reasonable, kind and honest, if not threatened. ‘We’ didn’t build the Empire. Only a tiny number of people built the Empire, which then rewards ruthlessness and greed, and so, unsurprisingly, ruthless, greedy people climb to the top. The Empire retains its power by providing things people need, cheaply and conveniently. But because it’s an Empire, it does it in ways that concentrate wealth and power, which gives the steering wheel, for the whole of humanity, to the wrong people – people who would have us colonise other planets while destroying the biosphere of the only planet we’re sure has one.

Capitalism and liberal democracy are the Empire’s economic and governance systems.

The Rebel Alliance

The commons is the Alliance’s economic and governance system, and the Alliance is losing heavily. But, like the football team you used to support when you were young and they were good, but are now utterly shit, you can’t change your allegiance, and support the Empire just because it’s winning. Not if you’re a decent human being. The Commons is the only realistic alternative to the Empire. Nothing else will be enough.

There are many strands to the Rebel Alliance, some new, some (very) old, and some based on models that have been around for a while, but need a boost to really challenge the Empire (including co-ops, mutual societies, community land trusts, CSAs, credit unions, FOSS, and people just doing things for themselves rather than buying from corporations). There are so many moving parts, that a huge portion of the world’s population can claim something that they’re doing is commons – and now there are tools to connect it all together, in ways that can’t be taken away from us, and that don’t need capitalist institutions. It’s time to transcend.

How the Empire operates

The Romans perfected the business plan of Empire. Small farmers were driven off the land, which was given to returning army officers as ‘latifundia’, with slaves from conquest actually working the land.

In Europe, during the enclosures, commoners and peasant farmers were driven off the land, turned into factory workers and replaced by sheep.

In America, native Americans and then small farmers were driven off the land and replaced with plantations and African slaves.

In India and other colonised countries, small farmers were driven off the land, turned into slum dwellers and replaced by colonial plantations and tax slaves.

And it continued in the West, with the few small farmers left driven off the land and replaced by agribusiness, employing ‘illegal’ immigrants.

But land no longer represents power, as it did under feudalism (although billionaires might attempt a neo-feudal land grab). The 21st century requires a different kind of power acquisition. It works like this:

1. Corporations and billionaires fund think tanks, and tell them what they want (many think tanks confirm this, but most don’t disclose their funding sources).
2. Think tanks take billionaires’ desires and turn them into voter-friendly policies (for money, not ideology – people who work at think tanks don’t have to agree with those policies any more than an Arsenal player has to be an Arsenal fan).
3. Political parties adopt those policies (because they know that think tanks know how to produce policies that will get them votes – again, they don’t need to agree with the policies, just to understand that they will get them votes).
4. Because the policies have been tested to be voter-friendly, the parties that adopt them get elected.
5. Those parties form governments and implement the policies.
6. The policies benefit corporations and billionaires, who make more money, and can pay think tanks even more.
7. and so on.

Of course, there’s also the corporate ownership of most media, and SuperPac legislation that allows unlimited amounts of money to be funnelled into politics anonymously, but I don’t think most people appreciate the power of think tanks.

Previous attempts to defeat the Empire

There have been certain times in history when the Empire was scared – the beginnings of unions in the 18th century, the co-op movement in 1844, anarchism in the late 19th century, communism in 1917, nationalisation after 1945 – but they’ve managed to constrain, corrupt, co-opt and move past all of those challenges. Nothing else has bothered them – they’re not at all scared of protest, petitions or crypto, and they’re certainly not concerned about anything that doesn’t involve the working-class (i.e. every environmental or social change movement of the past 50 years).

Commons is different in that it doesn’t try to wrest power from Empire, but rather it stops Empire from getting power in the first place (‘predistribution’ rather than redistribution). That’s attractive right across the political spectrum, and it doesn’t just work against the dominant corporate Empire, but also against any growing Empires that might supercede it.

Why the Alliance has to be broad and united

Commons can unite left and right. And it has to, to challenge the Empire, which has a vested interest in keeping communities divided. For some background, here’s a series of articles I wrote about the roots of the left v right battle, and how it helps the Empire.

The world is changing fast, and (inshallah) attitudes are becoming more anti-corporate. Lots of what’s happening is pretty wild – I wouldn’t have believed 10 years ago that anti-corporate sentiment could be as strong on the right as on the left.

The word ‘fascist’ is used as an insult by both sides, but idiocy and nastiness is not fascism. Real fascists would be a hindrance to the Empire, because they actually believe in something (regardless of how heinous or stupid). The Empire believes in nothing – it just wants to keep power.

To achieve power, real fascism requires a very strong left. In Europe in the early 20th century, wealthy elites were scared of communism – they’d seen what had happened in Russia. So when a fascist hard man turned up with lots of followers and promised to kill commies, wealthy capitalists, aristocrats and monarchs helped them into power. Victor Emmanuel helped Mussolini, Hindenberg appointed Hitler – and both Hitler and Mussolini kept their promise to kill communists and leave moneyed elites alone. But there’s no strong left now – in fact there’s no left at all. No commies, no unions, no left political parties. So real fascism can’t get a foothold, whereas the Empire is a clear and present danger right now. The current US secretary of defence is a warmongering lunatic, and the Democrats’ secretary of defence was an arms dealer (Raytheon), so what chance is there for peace?

Plus the Empire doesn’t want to stop immigration, because it suppresses wages, so they’re never going to let the racists / plastic fascists get any real power. The Empire, on the other hand, is the existential threat right now.

There are conversations to be had with people on the right. They don’t trust the state, and they’re right not to. But alternatives to the state need to be built in communities, and that can’t happen unless we’re united. The commons is for everyone regardless of identity. The commons isn’t a ‘left’ thing – it’s not about any kind of state control. If they believe that global warming isn’t real, so what? Believe what you like – scientific illiteracy shouldn’t exclude anyone from the commons.

Violent white nationalism is another thing altogether – but we still have a police force that will put them in jail. And – this is something for another article, soon – we have tools to neutralise loony right-wing groups, to analyse their messaging and to produce counter-messages that work for their target audiences. Stifling their recruitment, rather than confronting, will be more effective in the long-run.

Ostrom’s principles mean that we don’t exclude people unless they’re a danger to other commoners. Sanctions yes, exclusion no. Where would they go? We’d be pushing them into real fascism. Humans are basically good, and the ‘bad’ ones are damaged by this system, not born. But power corrupts, so the Alliance will keep it distributed – in communities.

There are conversations to be had with the left too. The state isn’t a counterbalance to the Empire – it’s firmly part of it. It’s not possible to tame the Empire – to make it more sustainable, democratic and better for people and communities. To do that it would need to stop having to constantly grow, and to stop extracting wealth from communities and concentrating it. And that’s not possible for Empire, any more than it’s possible for a tiger to stop being stripey. There are no mechanisms to stop Empire growing, extracting and concentrating – apart from the commons (and nature of course, which will put a hard stop to it – but take humanity down too, if we don’t get it right – and soon).

How the Empire will attack the Alliance

Any dissent against empire will be branded extremism in the corporate media. Behaviour will be more and more surveilled. Welfare and access to government services, maybe even payment systems, will be removed from rebels (as payment services were removed from Wikileaks – which backfired, as they took payments in Bitcoin instead, which subsequently increased in value by 50,000%).

The next problematic wave will be billionaires buying up all the housing stock before we can get it into the commons. Buying large amounts of housing stock is much more fiddly than buying shares, but now asset-management companies like Blackstone are offering packages of thousands of houses for the super-wealthy. And of course they already have all the other essential infrastructure – all the things that should all be owned by communities. We have to build commons asap – it’s our last chance, to prevent corporate elites from taking everything. They already have almost everything, but not everything, yet.

The Empire will also attack the Alliance by making its ownership and governance models illegal. Co-ops have often been seen as a challenge to established economic interests, and this has been the case under capitalist, socialist and fascist regimes. Governments can make things difficult for co-ops, and can ultimately close them down. Legal recognition didn’t come easily at first, and still today in some countries it’s much more difficult to form co-ops than in others.

Why the Rebel Alliance will win

I’m not saying that defeating the Empire will be easy. It will be hard (and maybe impossible). The Empire is organised hierarchically, but the the Alliance is organised horizontally, in a network. The Empire hierarchy is directed from the top in command-and-control style, and brooks no dissent – dissenters lose their jobs. The ‘rebel network’ is uncoordinated, so doesn’t present a strong challenge to the Empire, yet.

The Empire owns our media (including social media), and so they’re able to distract people from the fact that there’s an Empire, or to accept it as inevitable. In fact all our essentials are controlled by the Empire – our financial system, our political system, most of our food, energy, land and housing, and very importantly, jobs. In fact, most of the mainstream has been persuaded that the only way to provide jobs and all our essentials, is via the Empire.

The Empire owns the arms industry, and control governments who in turn control the military. Ultimately, they have the means to retain power with force if necessary. And the Empire is consuming co-operative enterprises (like the Co-op Bank) – although we now have the tools to prevent this.

But the Alliance will win, and change the course of history, because:

1. commons works for both the right and the left – in other words, the entire population, not half of it. Very few people (in fact, really, only those at the top) are really committed to the Empire. Because of this lack of commitment, the lower ranks of the Empire, including (and very importantly) police and soldiers, can be recruited.
2. commons provides useful things for the working class (the vast majority of humanity), rather than alienating them – jobs, affordability, security of tenure etc.
3. we won’t endlessly bleat about Brexit, Trump, voting or identity politics. Hyper-focus on those things legitimises empire and takes energy from the commons.
4. we have new and better tools (for asset locking, avoiding debt, banks and money, and federating), and better people (and there are more of us).
5. we’ll use the most basic , ‘vanilla’ organisation forms – which the Empire itself depends upon – and use them (Aikido-style), against it to avoid co-option or being closed down.
6. we can’t afford to lose.

We’ll build new institutions in communities to grow a new system and make the old system obsolete (you all know the Buckminster Fuller quote). We won’t overthrow or tame the Empire, we’ll take its rotting carcass and compost it, to grow commons in.

How you can help the Alliance

This is a tricky one. When we put the first house into the housing commons in Stroud, and mentioned (whispered in fact) locally that we were looking for tenants, we had 49 applicants, and a real headache when it came to choosing. When we’re providing affordability, security and jobs in all sectors, plus reasonable returns for investors (without having to fund the Empire), we won’t have to explain or persuade – people will bite our arms off at the elbow.

But we’re not there yet. So what do we need? People are contacting us all the time, asking what they can do. We’re not really looking for ‘volunteers’ – it’s not a voluneer-y sort of thing. Volunteers need specific tasks, which they complete and get a dopamine hit. We don’t have that. It’s harder work – we need co-designers, to work with specialists to bring in investment so that we can pay stewards. Then we’ll produce playbooks and offer franchises, and work with people in other towns who want to build themselves a steward job, or who want to use the new tools to develop what they’re already doing to the point that they can federate with other towns in their area, and eventually nationally and even globally.

It’s a movement, in other words. We’ve talked with people in probably 30-40 towns – all keen, but who want to see what happens in Stroud first. So we have to build successful models using a package of new tools here.

I recently bumped into a young activist in a pub in Stroud. He said that he wants revolutionary change, to provide affordable housing and employment so that young activists can stay in the town. He explained that he wasn’t talking about violence – that revolution is about outcomes. After the revolution, there’s a new system in place, however that’s achieved. The term ‘system change’ doesn’t work, because change can mean a lot of things – like reform, or tinkering around the edges. Every incoming government promises ‘change’ and delivers the same old capitalist economy plus liberal democracy that’s crushing us. We’re not talking about a communist planned economy, but a commons one, with a commons governance system to support it – whatever that might be. But at the very least, it must be one that repels corporate money and influence, and can’t be derailed by corporate media and think tanks. Personally, I’m not too concerned about the word revolutionary, but if it scares the horses, then let’s use ‘new system’ instead.

So we need to find ‘new system’ types who are looking for a vehicle to deliver real change. We might have paid roles for you, we might not (yet). Contact us if you’re up for it. Depending on your skills, we’ll fit you in somewhere.

But first, read and understand the range of new tools for reducing and eventually removing the need for debt, banks, interest and money; asset locking; governance; community cohesion; and federation – and see if they excite you as much as they excited me.

If you’re working in co-ops, community land trusts, CSA etc. these new models can help you avoid entanglement with and protect your assets from the Empire, and connect with other towns and sectors to federate and build the base of a new system.

But first we need to get them working in Stroud and Liverpool, and produce toolkits / playbooks for building commons in other towns, in ways that can federate. You can help us do that, whether you live in Stroud, Liverpool or Tierra del Fuego.

We’d be particularly interested in talking with ‘new system’ people who have experience in fundraising, strategic thinking, writing, podcasts, social media, comms generally, plus law and finance. But don’t worry if you don’t have any of those skills – we still want to talk strategically with you about how we build the movement. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, and I’ve managed to bring in some good people this way, including people now running the groups in Liverpool and Stroud. So it’s worth a shot. Contact me for a zoom chat if you think you fit the bill.

Even if you don’t consider yourself a ‘new system’ person at all, sign up to our newsletter (see footer) to be kept up to speed with what’s happening. We’ll soon be looking for investors, customers, employees and franchisees. Plus there are plenty of things to do to help build community and prepare for the shit that’s coming our way.

There are many ways to help defeat the Empire. But we have to start winning. At the moment, they (complacently) believe that they have no opposition. Let’s prove them wrong.