many people feel at a lost for what they can do to make the world better. politics seems like an uphill battle, unions seem like an uphill battle, etc etc etc

it's a constant struggle against massive counter forces and you lose ground as often as gain it

i think that's right -- these avenues of change are, more or less, not going anyway and probably never will

but they're not the only avenues of change. there are many that don't require you to actively win people over to your point of view

if nothing else, direct action of various forms. you and your crew who already agree on your political stance can and should act directly without intermediation

but political change is so much more just than that and so much of how change happens goes ignored

some of the most important work to be done in my opinion is stuff that feels extremely un-revolutionary to many

in particular, i think we need to undo the concentration of production in corporations, and thus in distant factories

capitalism is dominant in no small part because the wide scale deployment of industrial production was only really feasible with simultaneous concentration of production into fewer hands

it was cheaper and more efficient to have a few big factories near power sources

and this meant that industrial tools that relies on scale - large, fast, power hungry machines - because the norm. in fact, they because the only real production machines at all

try finding a hobbyist loom, for instance. you can do it, but theyre all manual looms. stoneage tech

pick any core piece of production technology and it's mostly the same with a hand full of exceptions for interesting historical reasons

technological advancement happens not just because it's logically possible but because of social forces, and capitalism is a powerful force

so in my view, the most important priority for the project of abolishing capitalism is developing new, open designs for tools that produce the essentials of life -- food, water, shelter, clothing

some of these are harder than others, but we don't have to try to solve the hardest ones first. that would take an uphill battle

instead we should be solving the low hanging fruit. in doing so, we provide a living demonstration that people can disentangle from capitalism

instead of winning people over in debate, simply prove that it's possible to walk away from capitalist production, and thus dependency on the tools of capitalism

people will see it and if they want liberation, will beg you to teach them how to do it too

eventually the only things remaining will be the hard problems and by that time, people will be so used to running their own lives that they will find it easy to conceive of destroying the roadblocks to progress

the key things to do:

learn about how these things work, how to design new things, etc. and share that knowledge with others

build and use new tools of production

share the tools and designs

share the _product_ of the tools

this last part is especially important because it's the neat way to introduce new people to the movement you're trying to build

if you have new easy to use hobbyist scale tools for making clothing, then you should produce and give away clothing

we're in a pandemic where many people have lost jobs, and many people never had them to begin with. they all still need clothing and now their old stuff might be wearing thin

if you give them clothing, many will want to know how or why you're able to do it, or how to get more

the right thing to do the man is to say "i made them! it was easy! i'd be happy to show you so you can make them too and never have to buy clothing again!"

now do this for everything that is feasible

demonstrate by deed that your way of being is better. let others realize, on their own, without argument, that there is a better way to live and they just have to **choose it**

as writers often say: show, don't tell

in the process, you'll also end up improving a bunch of lives, so even if you fail to start a movement, you've at least helped materially improve a persons life

i feel like i should follow this with a call to join some community for making and designing new micro scale production but i don't know of anything at the moment. perhaps we should start one