Should anarchists be agents of change?

Should anarchists be agents of change?
What strategies actually shift power?

Hello friends!

Please join our discussion-led session on “being an agent of change” today. We’ll use the lens of especifismo—specific organisation, shared strategy/program, and social insertion (patient, long-term work inside tenants’, workplace, student and neighbourhood struggles)—alongside critiques of “dual power-as-program.” The focus is practical: how to build popular power outside the state, tie projects to live conflicts (rent, wages, services), and avoid common traps like co-optation or drifting into service provision.

In short, the pamphlet argues that real agency doesn’t come from lone activism but from a collective organisation with a shared program that can coordinate effort over time. It urges us to build where people already have everyday leverage—in tenants’ unions, workplaces, campuses and neighbourhoods—and to tie any project to a concrete dispute rather than running it in parallel to struggle. And it suggests we judge progress by capacity, not vibes: how many people are active, what actions we can reliably pull off, and which disputes we’re actually winning.

Here are some questions to consider:

Where could social insertion create the most leverage right now—and why?

What’s the biggest strength of a specific organisation with a shared program?

What risk worries you when groups try to be “agents of change,” and how might it be avoided?

If applied locally, what would count as a real win in three months?

Let’s come together for an insightful and engaging session—we look forward to exploring whether anarchists can be agents of change, and which strategies actually shift power, together.