Prefigurative Politics: Building Tomorrow Today

by Paul Raekstad, Sofa Saio Gradin

Many of us wonder what we could possibly do to end oppression, exploitation, and injustice. People have studied revolutions and protest movements for centuries, but few have focused on prefigurative politics, the idea of 'building the new society within the shell of the old'.

Fed up with capitalism? Get organised and build the institutions of the future in radical unions and local communities. Tired of politicians stalling on climate change? Set up an alternative energy collective. Ready to smash racism and the patriarchy? Root them out in all areas of our lives, not just in 'high politics'.

This is the first book dedicated to prefigurative politics, explaining its history and examining the various debates surrounding it. How can collective decision-making be inclusive? In what ways are movements intersectional? Can prefigurative organisations scale up? It is a must-read for students of radical politics, anarchism, and social movements, as well as activists and concerned citizens everywhere.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Society, Theory, History

180 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Maris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read. The book describes the main ways to make societal change - either via normal routes through civic action and politics, and then in a prefigurative way - you start to live the way you want politics to end up looking like. The author brings several examples from different communities and how they have solved this, but doesn't exactly give a blueprint for "these are the steps you should take now" - the book mostly establishes the concept of prefigurative politics.
My main takeaway for myself was when he argues that if the society you're looking to build lacks hierarchies and the current structures, you cannot get to that future by going through the established routes of institutions and hierarchies. What this means downstream is for example - if we mandate that eg 50% of government officials to be women (or any kind of mandate like this that looks like identity politics - distribute the seats in government based on the representative % of people from specific groups), then we don't necessarily fix the fundamental issue where the current government as well as the institutions were built without women in the room, so putting them suddenly in the room results in failure modes, eg women are still listened to less in board rooms etc. This is just one example - same goes for any kind of "let's make it right and put the people in the room" type movements in politics.
But as I said before - the book makes the reader excited for this cool new way of thinking of politics - what type of shape should my organisation with which I want to change the world look like? But it doesn't give you the answer - you'll have to prefigure that yourself :)
[This book was read via the practice of Breaking Books in discussion with friends]

[Scott Would · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think of this book as a metatheory of change, and the thinking that underlies anarchism. At a fundamental level, the theory distinguishes Marxism and anarchism. Not because Marxists can't adopt prefigurative politics, but because historically anarchists adopted the idea of prefiguration more thoroughly and consistently than Marxists. So socialists will get a lot out of it by engaging with the book, whatever their politics, and anarchists will understand themselves and their historical tradition better by reading it. Two of the better chapters, other than those discussing the fundamentals, are those that explain why the personal is political and why anarchists are against the state. Yes, prefigurative political theory explains both!

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really cool book about, well, prefigurative politics and anarchist theory.

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

*part of the series where "Jenni reads a bunch to pull quotes for the final chapter of her thesis"*

I should not be as surprised as I am that this was so academic, but here we are. Definitely provided some helpful grounding in theory and history for this concept (and the concept itself is really valuable), but I definitely want more case studies/examples (but then again that was part of their argument is that there are not many examples of this being successful...)

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good overview of the theory but quite repetitive and lacking in in-depth examples

[Jesper · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The only way for people to sufficiently develop their powers for new forms of free, equal, and democratic organization is by practicing doing so."

I'm not sure if I would call myself a true anarchist, but I do certainly believe that anarchism has a lot of very interesting ideas that get misrepresented and maligned for no reason. One of these misrepresentations is that anarchists only want to tear down existing institutions and hierarchies without providing a realistic alternative. So when I saw a recommendation for this book on the Youtube channel of Andrewism, my interest was piqued.

Basically, prefigurative politics is an alternative path towards achieving political change that does not rely on either working within the existing systems nor on protests and activism. Instead, it proposes that in order to change society, we can simply create the alternative forms of collaboration and community we want within the structures of our current society. This has three main benefits, namely that (1) it lets us test and refine these alternative organisation forms on a small scale and find out what works and what doesn't, (2) it provides the people participating in them with the experience and skills they need to later scale up to more ambitious goals, and (3) it demonstrates to the rest of society that these alternatives are in fact possible and can work equally well or better without all the harms of our current systems.

The book itself is a short read but is densely packed with both theoretical arguments and practical examples from history and current times. It was especially interesting for me to learn about the First International in the second half of the 19th century in which Belgian union members played a major role. I also found that the book gives a balanced view by acknowledging the weaknesses (both real and perceived) of prefigurative politics along its strengths. In the end, it will take many ideas to achieve meaningful and lasting change towards a more balanced and compassionate society, but this one feels like it will be pretty essential.