A-Infos (en) Spaine, Regeneracion: The Importance of a Sound Economic Foundation for Revolutionary Organizations By LIZA (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Within the framework of the anarchist revolutionary struggle, the 
economic question cannot remain a footnote. The economy is not a 
"neutral" field nor a technical dimension separate from politics; it is 
one of the terrains where power relations are reproduced. Any political 
strategy that seeks to radically transform society must clearly assume 
that without resources, there is no real possibility of sustaining 
processes of struggle, building popular power, or protecting our 
comrades from state repression or capitalist sabotage. Material means do 
not guarantee emancipation in and of themselves, but their absence can 
condemn it to failure or reduce it to merely symbolic expressions.

We need to provide ourselves with financial resources not only to 
survive, but also to take the initiative. Resources to print pamphlets, 
produce propaganda, maintain local and safe spaces, fund resistance 
funds, send delegates to meetings, support those who fall into the hands 
of (in)justice, organize and sustain long strikes, support political 
training processes, address the basic needs of precarious activists, or 
fund cooperative projects that strengthen autonomy.

Building a robust economic foundation is an urgent necessity: it allows 
our organizations to function autonomously, resist repression, expand 
their influence, and meet the basic needs of their members. This is not 
about falling into a mercantilist logic, but rather about putting into 
practice an ethic of collective care with sufficient resources to 
sustain and scale our struggles.

Politics without the material means to reproduce and expand itself ends 
up retreating into the symbolic; organizations without the capacity to 
sustain strikes, legally support their activists, or simply print 
propaganda are neutralized by the weight of poverty and isolation. This 
essay addresses the urgency of adopting a militant economic praxis, 
inspired by historical examples of anarchism and informed by 
contemporary contributions that combine a critique of capital with 
concrete organizational proposals.

Militancy with a budget: the financial muscle of the movement

From paying fines and court costs to supporting resistance funds, 
political events, awareness campaigns, care networks, or soup kitchens, 
every organization needs stable resources. It is not a luxury or a whim, 
but a vital element that defines the real scope of political action. 
This is not a concession to liberal economicism, but a materialist 
affirmation: our structures must be able to resist, reproduce, and grow 
if they are to have any structural impact. Every revolutionary action 
needs a financial base that allows for continuity and projection. 
Precariousness cannot be the mode of existence for a movement that seeks 
to transform the material conditions of life.

Having regular contributions, charitable donations, or income from the 
sale of political materials (books, fanzines, T-shirts, posters, etc.) 
is essential to sustaining our initiatives without depending on the 
state, NGOs, or grants that impose conditions and limit autonomy. 
Self-management also begins with how we fund our activities. Regular 
contributions, however small, allow us to plan, anticipate, and respond 
to emergencies. Donation campaigns or political fairs can also be 
moments to raise awareness of the project and strengthen ties with 
supporters and allies.

In the history of anarchism, the economy has never been an alien or 
neglected topic. In the 1930s, the CNT not only organized strikes but 
also built a complex network of social structures: athenaeums, 
rationalist schools, consumer cooperatives, care centers, publishing 
houses, cultural groups, and advocacy networks. This economic ecosystem 
made it possible to sustain daily struggles and project a comprehensive 
alternative to capitalist society. Anarchists like Bakunin understood 
this dimension: he himself financed revolutionary expeditions to support 
the organization of libertarian cells in different regions of Europe, 
knowing that the movement requires resources, logistics, and planning to 
expand. A practical case in point is Fanelli's arrival in Spain.

It's not about accumulating wealth or capital, but about building a 
common fund, a popular infrastructure at the service of revolutionary 
ends. Abraham Guillén made it clear: "Self-management without control of 
economic means is a farce." Organizations need not only political 
autonomy, but also economic sovereignty. Otherwise, it implies constant 
dependence on external actors, individual voluntarism, or cycles of 
enthusiasm that don't guarantee continuity. Only with a solid financial 
foundation can we think about long-term processes, territorial 
expansion, internationalism, or the emotional and material support of 
those on the front lines of the struggle.

From the workshop to the barricade: communities that built power

During the Spanish Revolution of 1936, in the territories where the coup 
d'état partially failed and power remained in the hands of workers' 
committees and popular militias, processes of social revolution and 
anti-fascist war developed simultaneously. Among these, large-scale 
agrarian and industrial collectivization stood out, especially in 
regions such as Aragon, Catalonia, and the Valencian Country. In these 
territories, rural communities and urban factories came to be 
collectively managed by their workers, without bosses or state 
bureaucracy. The collectives were promoted primarily by militants of the 
National Confederation of Labor (CNT), which had been developing 
theoretical and practical proposals for self-management since the 
previous decade.

In rural areas, collectivization meant the socialization of land, tools, 
and resources, with the goal of eliminating wage labor and organizing 
production based on social needs. In many areas, regional federations 
were created, allowing for coordination between villages. In urban 
areas, hundreds of factories, workshops, and services were taken over by 
their workforces and reorganized under the principles of workers' 
control. Despite the lack of a centralized plan, production was 
maintained in strategic sectors such as food, transportation, and the 
war industry.

These experiences were exhaustively addressed by Miguel Gómez in his 
work The CNT and the New Economy. From Collectivism to the Planning of 
the Confederal Economy (1936-1939) . It analyzes how the libertarian 
movement, through the CNT, developed economic planning proposals during 
the Second Republic and the Civil War, and how these were articulated 
with the reality of the social revolution. Gómez documents the evolution 
from spontaneous socialization to the creation of structures such as the 
Confederal Economic Council (CEC), which sought to coordinate productive 
efforts from a libertarian perspective.

Gómez also points out that this social revolution was not led by a 
vanguard, but rather by the workers' and peasants' rank and file, who 
responded to the power vacuum left by businessmen and landowners 
implicated in the military coup. He also emphasizes how the CNT's 
participation in organizations such as the Anti-Fascist Militia 
Committee, the Economic Council of the Generalitat (Catalan Government), 
and even the Republican government reflected a complex and contradictory 
strategy: collaborating with the state on a temporary basis to sustain 
the revolution and confront the war, without completely renouncing 
libertarian principles.

The collectives faced numerous challenges: political pressure from 
statist and Stalinist sectors, logistical difficulties arising from the 
war, and internal tensions over the desired degree of centralization. 
Beginning in 1937, following the May Events in Barcelona and the 
dissolution of the Council of Aragon, the collectivization process began 
to be dismantled by counterrevolutionary forces within the Republican 
camp itself.

Despite everything, the collectives demonstrated that it was possible to 
organize the economy on egalitarian, cooperative, and democratic 
foundations, even in a context of total war. The confederal planning 
model promoted by the CNT, although unfinished, constitutes one of the 
most ambitious and advanced experiments in libertarian economic 
construction in contemporary history.

Anarchist Economics - Principles and Practice

From Kropotkin to Michael Albert, through Abraham Guillén, Iain McKay, 
Asimakopoulos, Wayne Price, and even the critical analysis of Marx, the 
anarchist tradition has offered concrete analyses and proposals for an 
economy that breaks with the logic of capital and builds libertarian and 
emancipatory alternatives.

Kropotkin, in The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories, and Workshops 
, argues that the economy must be organized around the direct 
satisfaction of human needs. He proposes radical decentralization, the 
abolition of wages, and production based on cooperation, mutual aid, and 
free association. For him, a free society is not possible while 
resources are under the control of a few: the expropriation of the means 
of production must be accompanied by their communal and horizontal 
management.

Abraham Guillén, a more technically inclined and linked to Iberian and 
Latin American anarchism, proposes a model of democratic planning based 
on economic federations, territorial assemblies, and workers' control. 
In his view, libertarian economics is not spontaneous, but organized, 
scientific, and oriented toward the common good. It provides tools for 
considering how to scale self-management without falling into chaos or 
state centralization, a challenge that every revolutionary organization 
must seriously address.

Michael Albert, with his proposal for parecon or participatory 
economics, proposes concrete institutional mechanisms to overcome both 
capitalism and authoritarian socialism: workers' and consumers' 
councils, remuneration based on effort and sacrifice, balanced work 
complexes, and participatory planning without a market or state. His 
model allows us to imagine a functioning economy without economic 
hierarchies, propertied classes, or planning bureaucrats.

Iain McKay, author of An Anarchist FAQ and various studies on 
libertarian economics, emphasizes the importance of linking theory and 
practice: anarchist economics is not a utopian abstraction, but a living 
tradition that has been practiced in numerous historical experiences. 
McKay also emphasizes that, although the abolition of capitalism is 
fundamental, the process must be guided by principles such as mutual 
aid, equity, decentralization, and economic direct action.

Wayne Price, for his part, defends the need for a libertarian economics 
that critically incorporates Marxist tools, without falling into 
authoritarianism, but without abandoning class analysis. He recognizes 
in Marx a powerful critique of capitalism-especially in his analysis of 
value, accumulation, and exploitation-which can be harnessed from a 
libertarian perspective if the path of statism and centralism is 
avoided. Bakunin had already anticipated this in his critiques of Marx: 
the problem was not economic analysis, but its translation into 
authoritarian structures. In this sense, an anarchist economics does not 
deny the usefulness of certain Marxist categories, but redirects them 
toward a horizon of emancipation without the State or dominant classes.

The case of the evangelical churches: Solidarity or submission?

In many working-class, migrant, and marginalized territories, where the 
state is absent and the market only guarantees exploitation, evangelical 
churches have managed to build a strong social presence. They have 
inserted themselves into communities plagued by unemployment, violence, 
and precariousness, offering what the system denies: food, listening, 
companionship, activities for children, connections, and meaning. They 
have understood, with disturbing effectiveness, that hegemony is not won 
solely from the pulpit, but from the material base.

But this insertion is neither innocent nor emancipatory. These churches 
act as buffers for social conflict, channeling rage into resignation and 
proposing individual salvation as a substitute for collective 
transformation. The story of these churches' arrival in Latin America 
would provide an essay in itself, given that they were part of a CIA 
psyop 1 (simply put, they saw Catholicism as influenced by Bolshevism 
and were fearful of the revolutions that might come). From an anarchist 
and class perspective, they constitute a particularly insidious form of 
social control. They promote deeply conservative values: obedience to 
authority, personal guilt for poverty, female submission, rejection of 
critical thinking, and punitive moralism. The central message is clear: 
if you suffer, it's because you don't have enough faith, not because the 
system is rotten.

One of the economic pillars of these churches is the mandatory tithe: a 
minimum contribution-usually 10% of personal income-that each believer 
must make as a sign of their spiritual commitment. In practice, the 
tithe becomes a systematic form of resource extraction from the working 
classes, who often give money under moral coercion, even when they live 
in conditions of need. These structures operate as authentic businesses, 
with business models based on loyalty, guilt, and obedience. In 
countries like Brazil, Mexico, and the Philippines, some evangelical 
churches (and specifically, neo-Pentecostals) accumulate real estate 
capital, media outlets, political parties, and patronage networks that 
are more reminiscent of corporate conglomerates than spiritual communities.

It is no coincidence that in Latin America, the United States, and 
Europe, various evangelical churches have been implicated in scandals 
that reveal their reactionary and exploitative nature. In Brazil, 
figures linked to prosperity theology have been tried for money 
laundering, fraud, and emotional manipulation of the faithful. In the 
United States, megachurches have enriched themselves at the expense of 
impoverished communities, defending anti-abortion, racist, and 
homophobic agendas. In Europe, some evangelical organizations have been 
questioned for coercive and sectarian practices and for receiving public 
funds supposedly intended for social work. These are not exceptions, but 
rather a structural logic: these churches present themselves as 
spiritual salvation while consolidating networks of conservative power 
at the service of the status quo .

For anarchists, the challenge is not to compete for religious discourse, 
but to contest its place in the social fabric. What we must learn is not 
its theology, but its capacity to build a sustained material presence. 
We must build networks of mutual support, spaces of accompaniment and 
solidarity, soup kitchens, self-managed educational projects, health 
brigades, play and cultural spaces for children. Because if we don't 
fill these gaps from a libertarian practice, others will. And when they 
do so from reactionary positions, they divert popular power toward 
obedience and guilt.

The struggle against these forms of spiritual and economic domination is 
not only waged in the traditional political or union sphere: it is 
also-and often primarily-played out in neighborhoods, in popular 
communities, in the spaces where everyday life is organized. When 
evangelical churches convince the working class to hand over part of 
their already meager income in exchange for a place in heaven, we are 
facing a concrete defeat in the struggle for meaning, connections, and 
redistribution. If we do not occupy these territories with libertarian, 
supportive, and combative projects, those who occupy them divert the 
need for justice toward blind faith and individual sacrifice. We cannot 
allow class enemies to disguise themselves as aid while reproducing 
structures of obedience, guilt, and submission.

Resources for the revolt

A revolutionary economy begins with solid principles and clear 
practices. It's not just about resisting: it's about building, from now 
on, ways of life and organization that embody the values we defend. The 
way we manage resources reveals our political ethics. In this sense, it 
is essential to reject individual gain within collective structures: 
those who enrich themselves at the expense of the organization break the 
principle of trust and corrode the common fabric. The private 
appropriation of collective resources is a betrayal of any libertarian 
horizon.

All income must be returned to the struggle. Every donation, every 
membership fee, every euro generated through self-organized activities 
must be reinvested in strengthening our capacities: supporting local 
communities, publishing materials, ensuring care networks, and offering 
direct aid to those in need. There is no such thing as "spare" money 
when the revolution is at stake. Every resource counts and must be 
directed toward the common good.

For this reason, it is essential to build economic reserves, whether in 
physical or digital format, to respond quickly to unforeseen situations: 
repression, health emergencies, sabotage, urgent displacement. Failure 
to plan condemns oneself to improvisation, and constant improvisation 
exhausts and disarms.

Investing politically wisely means prioritizing those expenses that 
strengthen our autonomy, cohesion, and outreach. Propaganda, safe 
spaces, training and outreach tools, mutual support networks: these 
aren't expenses, they're investments in people's power.

A libertarian economic structure must also be based on fair 
contributions. It's not about imposing unattainable quotas, but rather 
about designing supportive and proportional forms of economic 
participation. Everyone contributes according to their means, but we all 
share a common commitment.

Finally, we need to generate sustained returns: fairs, cooperatives, 
workshops, publications. Activities that not only finance us, but also 
connect us to our communities, expand our ideas, and strengthen real 
ties. This generation of resources must avoid falling into the logic of 
business. We don't compete with the market: we confront it. Nor do we 
beg the State, which is part of the problem. Our economic autonomy is 
not a technical detail: it is a condition that makes it possible for our 
struggles to be lasting, coherent, and transformative.

Because without bread there is no freedom

The revolution will not be financed by philanthropists or sponsors. If 
we want to build popular power, we must also build our own popular 
economy. Not to reproduce capitalist logic, but to dismantle it. Not to 
compete, but to live with dignity and fight better.

An organization that doesn't consider how to sustain itself materially 
is doomed to fragility. A political strategy that doesn't consider the 
economic dimension is incomplete. And an emancipatory project that 
doesn't meet the needs of its members is doomed to decline.

Every revolutionary organization needs an economic base. Not as an end, 
but as a means. To sustain strikes, open spaces, feed comrades, free 
prisoners, care for children, and spread the seed of libertarianism to 
every corner of the country.

Because without bread there is no freedom. And without economic 
strategy, there is no lasting revolution.

Don Diego de la Vega, member of Liza , Anarchist Platform of Madrid

*If you have read this text and there are economic concepts that you do 
not understand and would like to learn, such as central planning , 
parecon , libertarian economics, etc., we recommend that you listen to 
the sessions of our course with Solidaridad Obrera on Introduction to 
Libertarian Socialist Political Economy .

1. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerra_psicol%C3%B3gica

https://regeneracionlibertaria.org/2025/09/10/la-importancia-de-una-buena-base-economica-para-organizaciones-revolucionarias/
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