Over the last 50 years, too many of the decisions coming out of Washington have stripped everyday people of their collective agency and power. These choices have gutted local economies and turned self-conscious and self-directing communities into places controlled by far-off boardrooms. With each step, we’ve watched the institutions that bring us together, help us see one another as equals, and safeguard our freedoms and democracy itself — locally owned businesses, public libraries, union halls, local news outlets — weakened and destroyed. Meanwhile, a tiny set of billionaires and large corporations dominate our lives at every turn.
We have failed to nurture democracy’s basic building blocks, so it is no surprise that we now find our democratic institutions so weakened that they are at risk of collapse.
ILSR was founded at another precarious time — a moment when there was little faith in either major political party to do what was best for people and their communities. The country was navigating the second term of a notoriously insecure and egomaniacal Republican president (who would later resign), while the Democrats had lost public faith for prosecuting an inhumane and unjustifiable war abroad while beginning their abandonment of New Deal economic policies at home.
We met that moment with a belief in community power. We saw an opportunity to bring people together — across geographies and regions, races and economic statuses, abilities and educational attainment — around a shared belief in the capacity of local communities to build their own dreams and create their own futures. Together with many of you, we have fought and blocked the spread of destructive forces, from trash incinerators to chain dollar stores, to unaccountable Tech giants.
But we have also spent much of our time building. Working alongside grassroots allies, we have laid the cornerstones of self-reliant communities by launching community-owned solar initiatives and neighborhood composting projects, building municipal broadband networks, nurturing a revival of local small businesses, and much more. These projects are both ends and means. They are solutions in their own right and paths for organizing and mending democracy’s fabric.
This focus on building from the bottom up is needed now more than ever, and cannot come fast enough. Only by relying on one another, cultivating a spirit of togetherness, and taking big, collective action in our communities can we defeat attempts by politicians and billionaire elites to divide us by race, geography, class, and gender. These divisions are designed to pit us against one another so they can tighten their grip on power. Our freedom is at stake unless we reject this tired playbook.
Since our founding, we’ve offered a clear vision for building community and local power, along with a blueprint for returning agency and control to the people. We’ve seen the success of this approach in rural towns and urban areas, in places like North Tulsa and Brooklyn, and on Tribal lands. We witnessed it embraced at the White House, where, for the first time in 50 years, an administration took bold action on an antimonopoly agenda to confront the threat posed by concentrated corporate power to our economic security and freedoms.
This moment is a setback, but we’ve been here before — and we know where to go next. We invite you to join us as we continue this journey. Because together is the only way to win the future we all deserve.
In solidarity,
Stacy and John
ILSR Co-Executive Directors
Stacy Mitchell's rousing address to the 2024 Bioneers Conference arguing that the growing antimonopoly movement is our best hope at outrunning the forces of authoritarianism.
In a presentation to ILSR staff, Christopher Mitchell shared key takeaways from six recent books on monopoly power in the United States.
ILSR co-founder David Morris offers a history lesson on the self-reliance framework that underpins ILSR’s work, and how that framework has evolved over the years.
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