2026-03-12.4_The Peoples Want - after the state-empire or, autonomy

“In this new phase of open armed conflict, aggressive power strategies and nationalist revival, we are faced with the contradiction between our desire for a cooperative world in which people can organise for subsistence, and the reality of permanent threats posed by inter-imperialist conflicts. Wouldn’t a ‘liberated’ [autonomous] area, or state, which voluntarily abandoned policies of accumulation and monopolisation immediately be swallowed up by rival powers?

In many parts of the world, behind the façade of order imposed by the sovereign state, community or religious militias, mafias, territorial gangs and transnational corporations exist, to whom the repression of our movements and control of our communities are delegated. So, invoking the end of the state as the only horizon for revolution is not enough. The idea seems completely alien to those of us who, living under failed states, are left at the mercy of gang leaders and war lords, with no recourse in the face of poverty, disease, famine or natural disasters. Destroying or fragmenting the states that crush people.

The world unified by Empire, whatever language it speaks, whatever god it prays to, whatever currency it uses – Dollar, Euro, Yuan or any other – is not compatible with any other. It’s only outcome will be the extermination of life on earth. All it knows is hegemony, the world as one; counted, mapped, developed and made uninhabitable by a macabre rush towards the end. If nothing is done, our end will come before theirs. There is no going back, just as there is no maintaining the status quo. There is only a forward march, sometimes resolute, sometimes hazardous, only knowing where we’ve come from. We must break out of our national prism and think of a policy which is internationalist from the outset – reconstructing a world made up of a multitude of worlds. Worlds that are compatible and in the process of becoming so, and that are themselves riven by struggles and contradictions. There’s a need to build a common plan between these worlds. A plan that will enable us to circumvent Empire, hasten its fall and imagine the aftermath.”

• The Peoples Want Manifesto, pg. 76-77

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