How to Transform Society

The world is in a state of crisis. Warfare, epidemic, economic disaster, and impending climate catastrophe pose existential threats to societies around the globe. Something must be done. For too long, the people of this planet have waited for our political leaders to solve our problems for us. Now is the time for us to take matters into our own hands, to empower ourselves to make the necessary changes. 

To ask an age old question: what is to be done?

First, we must create alternative instituions in order to recreate society. Banks must be replaced by credit unions, supermarkets by farmers' markets. Workers' and consumers' cooperatives must replace the corporate model. Neighborhood and tenants' associations must be established. Political parties that represent our interests, not those of the corporate oligarchy, must be built. Students' unions must be created in schools to raise the voices of our young people. Creating these institutions will empower us to take further, more fundamentally transformative actions.

Among these would be to take control of existing institutions through the democratic process. I do not mean the US Congress or the White House, at least in the near-term. More immediately, we must win back those bodies closest to the people: school boards, city councils, town boards, and eventually state legislatures. From here we can enact direct changes in our own communities, instead of operating according to the directives of corporate party officials. Processes like participatory budgeting would empower people and encourage them to partake in the new civic process. We must break the cycle of cynicism that has justifiably gripped the people.

The ultimate step would be to overtake the entirety of the government of our country. This would allow for us to finally dismantle those institutions that serve only the corporate interest. From there we can implement policies both domestically and internationally to redistribute power back to the people. This, however, is a very final step, and can only be achieved once popular institutions have been established and lower entities controlled. This is governing from below, a nonviolent revolution that must realize the limitations as well as the values of the ballot box. In essence, we must "overgrow the government", not overthrow it. Only then can a truly participatory economic and political democracy be established.