Assembly Project

If you’re in despair about the state of the world, the best thing you can do is join a movement for an alternatives — one that can make a real difference. My view is that the current crises are too severe to be answered in the existing mainstream. And while past radical movements like communism and anarchism have things to teach us, we won’t solve the problems by simply repeating them and ignoring their own failings. Finding solutions will require movements that offer new, creative and democratic ways of thinking and organising.

(A protest in Serbia last December. This movement, notable for its use of people’s assemblies, has been simmering so far for about half a year.)

Rev21 is one of many organisations seeking to fill that void. It’s an organisation that seeks to build up a mass revolution to create a far better democracy than the failing type we have now. Maybe it isn’t the one that will provide the answer, and maybe no single organisation will. But if my experience at their online convention today is to be believed, it’s part of a wider stirring movement that includes organisations like Assemble, and it’s doing some crucial things right.

Rev21 is yet another project founded by Roger Hallam and Robin Boardman, two co-founders of Extinction Rebellion (XR). They could draw on its British connections, but they’ve also branched out globally; speakers from the US, Australia and the Continent were also present at the convention. Among the best-known were filmmaker Adam McKay, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges and the gay rights veteran Peter Tatchell. Others included Kate Raworth, Steve Keen, Julia Steinberger and Ann Pettifor, not household names but relatively well-known in the economics world for challenging its orthodoxy.

I missed the opening because I overslept and the closing because of a family event. Roger Hallam had apparently planned to deliver opening remarks, but was barred from it by the prison guards. Worse still, they have apparently confiscated the manuscript of a book he’s writing, presumably this one, and it’s not clear if he’ll get it back. This has only emboldened my own plan to write a book on assembly democracy of my own.

The convention could be heavy going at times. Many shared a grim pessimism about climate change and other problems in the world, far outstripping my own. But there was also much cause for optimism. Hearing about related projects like the work of Assemble and its German counterpart, including a big assembly in Newcastle and the spreading assembly movement in Serbia, there was a real sense that a movement for an alternative was stirring.

It was encouraging in particular that there was widespread support for the idea of using citizens’ assemblies and people’s assemblies to revitalise democracy. There was also an agreement, when it was touched on, that we need to move on from existing left-wing obsessions with ideological purity and identity politics.

The hard sell

One economics seminar discussed degrowth, the idea that we will need to shrink the economy to save the planet. The idea resonated with many of those present. For everyone else, it’s a bit of a hard sell, especially in the developing world.

In her book Not the End of the World, Hannah Ritchie offers a good counterpoint to degrowth, noting that since the ’90s and ’00s, rich countries have managed economic growth even as their carbon emissions have fallen. (This is partly but not mostly because some carbon emissions have been ‘outsourced’ to countries like China.) When I mentioned this counterpoint to one proponent in a Q&A chat, the reply came with a link to this article as a counter-counterpoint.

Despite my own scepticism of degrowth, not just because it will be unpopular, there are a few things to say for it. It is true that we have a “finite planet”, though the possibilities of technology still offer numerous opportunities for growth that don’t destroy nature. There is also evidence that many past societies were content with a lack of change. Many people could get on board with the idea that, while material growth would be nice, they want other things in life too.

Finally, if we are going to have economic growth, it should actually benefit the public and especially the worst off. That’s been missing. For example, in the UK, wages in 2023 were 2.7% lower than in 2008, even though the economy had grown. Or another, in the US, most wages since the 1980s have been stagnant even as the economy has grown and wages at the top have soared. There is no point in politicians and policymakers trying to grow the economy if it only benefits the rich.

Lessons from Frome and Hull

My favourite webinar was about building grassroots democracy. One reason was that Peter Macfadyen was present to talk about Independents for Frome, an alternative political movement that swept to power in the West Country town of that name. I’ve reviewed the first book he wrote about this experience and plan to review the sequel in the next month.

Macfadyen also wins my prize for the best quote of the day. Noting how his movement had been adventurous and down-to-earth compared to previous councils, he likened tradition to “peer pressure from the dead”.

I’ve also respected Macfadyen for being frank about the successes, setbacks and limits about his movement. Despite the astonishing success of Independents for Frome at winning elections and governing, it has only sporadically been replicated in other English towns and villages.

There were also representatives from Assemble and Cooperation Hull. The latter have been organising people’s assemblies and voluntary groups in a city where relative poverty, industrial decline and political cynicism run rife. It was good to hear from Gully Bujak, a former XR activist who moved on to found Cooperation Hull. Her own piece for Positive News last summer inspired my interest in these assemblies. In contrast to that piece’s idealistic outlook, Bujak offered more of a reality check this time, noting that their assembly projects had done good things but not been a panacea.

Vertical or horizontal?

One interesting topic that came up on a later call was leadership. The journalist Rachel Donald made a well-received warning that while Roger Hallam is admired by Rev21, we should be careful that the movement is not controlled by one man. I think that Hallam would agree; he mentioned on his podcast that many leaders he admires such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King made decisions after listening to others.

There was clear enthusiasm for  decentralisation. Mathematically, this can make sense. If people on average make the correct decision more than 50% of the time, you are more likely to make the best decision if more people participate in decision-making.

However, as Vincent Bevins noted in his book If We Burn, many protest movements in the last 15 years have failed because they were disorganised (horizontalism). For all it’s egalitarian appeal, it allowed them to be hijacked by either outsiders or extremists from within. (It was also a problem for some earlier movements such as the May 1968 protests in France.) Movements don’t necessarily need an individual leader, but they need organisation. There’s a lot to be said for Roger Hallam’s suggestion of giving a sortition council ultimate control over your organisation.

But individual leadership may be needed too for situations where:

• The decision-making requires specialist skills.
• It’s not practical to consult widely before a decision, such as when one must be made quickly.
• You need a public face to represent your organisation, because people will connect better with an individual than a faceless group.

The speakers at the webinar were minded to the idea that there should be balance between avoiding pitfalls of centralisation and disorganisation. Hopefully others will agree.

That’s a wrap!

There were some sessions that offered a more interactive experience. In hindsight, I should’ve gone to one, because I was itching to share my ideas and views with whoever would listen. I kept being the most frequent poster on the chat. I hope I was constructive rather than annoying.

Despite the unexpected absence of Roger Hallam for reasons outside of his control, Rev21’s convention seems to have gone well. It certainly did a lot to inspire hope among those who are drawn to pessimism. Whether it will lead to concrete action remains to be seen, but it is encouraging that hundreds of people who want change are forming networks and sharing ideas. I look forward to the next one that’s due in October.