The dream…

Sherwood Forest Collective is meant to be several things, but above all, a living example of a cooperative society. It’s difficult to answer the “what’s this about” question, because this is about so many things. Maybe the best way to put it is to say its about converting a theoretical pipe dream into our present reality — and keeping that for… well, maybe forever.

In any case, it’s difficult to explain what Sherwood Forest Collective is as a monolith. Mostly because it’s not meant to be a monolith. Above all else, it’s an anarchist collective — nothing more, nothing less — but that doesn’t mean much. More accurately, we can break this down into a few different projects:

The Co-op

As a worker-owned-and-operated coop, Sherwood Forest Collective exists to connect its members with the community and the community with resources the members can provide or source without involving capitalism. This might be artisanal products — art, music, etc. — or services (except tech services, which we’ll talk about separately), or essential resources that we can procure… anything really.

The coop is wholly democratized and intended to operate on a Wobbly-shop model (or something similar), and primarily exists to buffer the collective from the influence of capitalism. How this works is more than I feel like typing out right now, but I’ll write another post about that later.

The Tech Syndicate

Adjacent to the coop, an Information Technology syndicate is postulated to fill a more specific purpose: maintaining industrial communications and technology when the state infrastructure collapses. There are a handful of other wonderful collectives out there — shout out to Rise Up, Anarchy Planet, No Gods No Masters, and Kolektiva — operating in niche spaces and offering some collection of web services. We’re going to take this to the next level.

Tech liberation is the process by which you liberate yourself from technical oppression, and this — by means of providing democratized and libre alternatives (which we’re creatively going to call “liberation tech” for now — not to be confused with the process of tech liberation) that reduce individuals’ dependence on corporate tech and IT services. This is a two-fronted effort (at least). One one hand, we need to be teaching users how to avoid corporate dependence and illiberal technology (and why that’s important!) while, on the other, we need to meet them where they are to provide accessible alternatives.

The Community

This is, ironically, where it all started. The idea of an intentional community based on mutualist anarchist philosophy, where we do not settle for “good enough” — we build the world we want to live in, at least locally, and actively live according to our principles.

Essentially, this means buying a large plot of land (together — as a community land trust) and building a community there. Not just a group of ragtag ex-train kids; no, we want doctors and nurses, electricians and firefighters, scientists and philosophers — everything that a community needs, or at least, people willing to learn, and put in the effort to make it persistent.

The land is not selected yet and this is still in the early stages, but there are a few key elements that we need to be mindful of: sustainability, impact of climate change, availability of natural resources are among the most critical. It’s a tall order, but it can be done with enough effort and diligence. The community may even need to be nomadic for some time. That’s okay, too.

The MIT Limits to Growth study from the 70s was pretty pessimistic for the future of humanity, and the 25 year review mostly just confirmed the worst-case scenario. Barring any kind of drastic changes (which, at this point, is a virtual impossibility in the time remaining, anyway), we are set to ride out the “BAU2” model — which predicts societal collapse sometime around 2040.

When that collapse comes, anarchy will be inevitable. How we structure society in that anarchy makes a world of difference. Those communities that are established and stable can take in refugees as they are able, but they can also provide blue prints for others who need to build their communities, still. The world is changing. We cannot cling to the past anymore — continuing on futilely, arguing about theory in dark corners of coffee shops, and doing absolutely nothing to advance the movement so when everything collapses, we get caught with our pants down and before you know it you, you’re being shipped off to work in an Amazon factory town.

No thanks.

I’d rather build the framework and infrastructure of the new world, now, so when that collapse comes, humanity stands half a chance at continuing on as a species. At least until an asteroid wipes us out in 700 years or so.