Groundwork Collective: Who are we?

Groundwork is not just one of the only progressive bookstores in San Diego County -- we're a political collective working toward the social change needed to give people more control over their own lives. It may not seem that a collective running a bookstore would be a very important place to try to change society, but it is an ideal place to work on some critical problems that would be difficult to tackle in a large organization. For us, the most important of these problems is how to organize people in such a way that they'll have real control over the decisions that affect them -- for example, working together without a boss to give orders.

In thinking about how to avoid hierarchical relationships we tend to think that the least amount of structure is the best -- if you say that everyone will make decisions at a big meeting, that makes everybody equally powerful. What often happens in meetings is that the most articulate, motivated and/or aggressive people dominate, or, if nobody takes control, nothing seems to get done. At Groundwork we use our structure to allow equal access to power. With feedback from other Groundworkers, each person takes responsibility for making decisions in some area of our work.

As we develop the structure to make power available to people, we have to deal with the problem of getting them to take it. What keeps people from doing this automatically is mostly a simple lack of skill. Exercising control over our own lives in a way that doesn't oppress other people is a skill that must be learned, and learning it in this society is like trying to learn German by going to Mexico -- experience is hard to come by. One necessary skill is the ability to solve problems jointly with another person, with the attitude of looking for a solution both people can be happy with. Another needed skill is the ability to give and take constructive criticism freely and in a spirit of caring and respect. In this society we are taught that friends don't criticize, so feedback happens only when a problem is completely out of hand and neither person can stand the other.

So our aim is to set up a liberated zone where people of different backgrounds and cultures can learn to work together in a non-hierarchical environment. We've made a lot of progress: we have an idea what the skills are that we need to learn, we've developed some theory to describe what we're working toward, we've developed a solid structure, and every day we learn new skills. But it's a mighty long road and we have so far to go, so won't you join us?

• Want to learn more? See:

  • Ways to use Groundwork

  • Ways to support Groundwork

• Thinking of joining us? See:

  • Getting started!

• Have a glance at our Groundwork starter's manual: the ``Long March''

  • Introduction

  • First week

  • Second & third weeks

  • Fourth week on to the end of the march

  • Beyond the Long March

  • Appendix

• For the truly committed: ``Red Docs'' Groundwork collective political theory

  • Groundwork Purpose

  • Groundwork Concepts

  • Groundwork Politics

  • Work

  • Structure

  • Criticism / Self-Criticism & Praise

  • Clearness

  • Appendices

return to Groundwork home page