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Common Preservation: In a Time of Mutual Destruction
As world leaders eschew cooperation to address climate change, nuclear proliferation, economic meltdown, and other threats to our survival, more and more people experience a pervasive sense of dread and despair. Is there anything we can do? What can put us on the course from mutual destruction to common preservation? In the past, social movements have sometimes made rapid and unexpected changes that countered apparently incurable social problems. In Common Preservation, Brecher shares his experiences and what he has learned that can help ward off mutual destruction, and provides a unique heuristic—a toolkit for thinkers and activists—to understand and create new forms of common preservation.
448 pages, Paperback
Published July 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 19, 2025
Private property rights lie at the heart of climate destruction.
We do not need to abolish all property rights, but they must at least be further transformed to protect everyone and the planet. Just as property rights don't extend upwards into the atmosphere, they do not include authorization and protection to degrade and destroy the environment.
Re-read March 2025: raising the rating one notch, as Brecher's systematic, theory-based approach to understanding protest movements and his appreciation of the role of feedback and collective learning in societal change is more illuminating now, fresh from the anecdotal history and sophomoric interpretation of recent protest movements in If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution. I particularly appreciate Brecher's recount of how he moved past Lenin's elitist What Is to Be Done? to appreciate the critical role of frontline worker trial and error struggle in societal progress. It is after all the common people who do and create basically everything worthwhile and beautiful in this world. Elites of all stripes simply expropriate, extract, monetize, and claim credit for our work.
I'm also more alive to Brecher's recommendations for tactics, which I clearly glossed over on the first read: He cites the (somewhat) successful US lawsuits that argue that new generations have a constitutional right to a healthy environment and acquittals for climate activists based on 'climate necessity.'
They are illegitimate usurpers and it is the law that they be disobeyed and overthrown.
Southern sheriffs broke the law by jailing protestors for civil rights.
War resisters upheld the law.
Police who enforce unjust laws are themselves violent lawless criminals.
2022 notes-
I found this book while browsing at Het Fort van Sjakoo (https://maps.app.goo.gl/hCKPdqafnKQ7s...) while on vacation in the lovely city of Amsterdam.
I’m slowly writing my first book, which is about mutual assurance, using my career as an exec in the corrupt insurance industry as a backdrop, so of course I had to buy and read something titled Common Preservation.
Complaint:
- The book is, ultimately, a Brecher bibliography. You can hardly go two pages without Brecher citing one of his own publications at length. No doubt, Brecher has made important contributions with his histories of the failures and successes of collective political action. He must have been feeling under-appreciated—that is my overriding impression from the relentless references to his own work. Kind of goes against the grain of the rhetoric of equality and collective action to blow one’s own horn so vigorously, however.
Good stuff:
- As dry as it is—and it is often the literary equivalent of 120 grain sandpaper—Brecher does an admirable job of sifting through the literature (not entirely his own) to present a framework and what he calls tools we can all use to bring the masses together to act in our own collective self-interest. For this, the book is worth a read, if the reader can refrain from rolling his or her eyes every time Brecher mentions Strike! (only about 90 times by my count, if you exclude the notes).
We do not need to abolish all property rights, but they must at least be further transformed to protect everyone and the planet. Just as property rights don't extend upwards into the atmosphere, they do not include authorization and protection to degrade and destroy the environment.
Re-read March 2025: raising the rating one notch, as Brecher's systematic, theory-based approach to understanding protest movements and his appreciation of the role of feedback and collective learning in societal change is more illuminating now, fresh from the anecdotal history and sophomoric interpretation of recent protest movements in If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution. I particularly appreciate Brecher's recount of how he moved past Lenin's elitist What Is to Be Done? to appreciate the critical role of frontline worker trial and error struggle in societal progress. It is after all the common people who do and create basically everything worthwhile and beautiful in this world. Elites of all stripes simply expropriate, extract, monetize, and claim credit for our work.
I'm also more alive to Brecher's recommendations for tactics, which I clearly glossed over on the first read: He cites the (somewhat) successful US lawsuits that argue that new generations have a constitutional right to a healthy environment and acquittals for climate activists based on 'climate necessity.'
The public trust principle and the constitutional right to a stable climate defines those to whom we have given authority but have persistently failed in their duty of care to Humanity and the Earth.
They are illegitimate usurpers and it is the law that they be disobeyed and overthrown.
Southern sheriffs broke the law by jailing protestors for civil rights.
War resisters upheld the law.
Police who enforce unjust laws are themselves violent lawless criminals.
2022 notes-
I found this book while browsing at Het Fort van Sjakoo (https://maps.app.goo.gl/hCKPdqafnKQ7s...) while on vacation in the lovely city of Amsterdam.
I’m slowly writing my first book, which is about mutual assurance, using my career as an exec in the corrupt insurance industry as a backdrop, so of course I had to buy and read something titled Common Preservation.
Complaint:
- The book is, ultimately, a Brecher bibliography. You can hardly go two pages without Brecher citing one of his own publications at length. No doubt, Brecher has made important contributions with his histories of the failures and successes of collective political action. He must have been feeling under-appreciated—that is my overriding impression from the relentless references to his own work. Kind of goes against the grain of the rhetoric of equality and collective action to blow one’s own horn so vigorously, however.
Good stuff:
- As dry as it is—and it is often the literary equivalent of 120 grain sandpaper—Brecher does an admirable job of sifting through the literature (not entirely his own) to present a framework and what he calls tools we can all use to bring the masses together to act in our own collective self-interest. For this, the book is worth a read, if the reader can refrain from rolling his or her eyes every time Brecher mentions Strike! (only about 90 times by my count, if you exclude the notes).
April 12, 2021
Meh, this book was not great. Here are my three main complaints.
1. He spends a far too big chunk of the book talking about the book. Most sections begin with a lengthy description of what's to follow and end with an even lengthier recap of what was just read. If you take away that, plus all the times he references his other books, this would be barely more than a pamphlet.
2. He gives a history of the climate change resistance movement and doesn't once mention Earth First!. In fact, he basically gives Bill McKibben credit for introducing the movement to direct action. I think this has more to do with the author being a liberal than a lack of knowledge or research.
3. After talking a bunch about a climate insurgency and how the only reason governments and corporations have power over the people is because we let them, he offers more government regulations and corporate generosity as solutions to the mess we're in. Hey, Jeremy, the government isn't going to end climate change, wars, poverty, etc.
1. He spends a far too big chunk of the book talking about the book. Most sections begin with a lengthy description of what's to follow and end with an even lengthier recap of what was just read. If you take away that, plus all the times he references his other books, this would be barely more than a pamphlet.
2. He gives a history of the climate change resistance movement and doesn't once mention Earth First!. In fact, he basically gives Bill McKibben credit for introducing the movement to direct action. I think this has more to do with the author being a liberal than a lack of knowledge or research.
3. After talking a bunch about a climate insurgency and how the only reason governments and corporations have power over the people is because we let them, he offers more government regulations and corporate generosity as solutions to the mess we're in. Hey, Jeremy, the government isn't going to end climate change, wars, poverty, etc.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews