Coercion as Fragility

When we think about the systems shaping our lives—whether in work, governance, healthcare, or resourcedistribution—one uncomfortable truth stands out: they don’t trust us. These systems are built on coercion, notcollaboration. Punitive laws, surveillance, and exclusionary policies are framed as necessary safeguards for stability, masking harmas efficiency.

Could it be, though, that coercion fractures more than itfortifies? Systems built on domination erode trust, alienate individuals, and perpetuate harm. Consider the coercive practices of thepast: lobotomies presented as “therapeutic” solutions for mental illness or sterilization programs justified as publichealth measures. These actions disproportionately targeted marginalized populations and embedded harm into institutional norms.

Coercion is not as inevitable as they'd like you to think it is. Across history, care-based systems have offeredtransformative alternatives rooted in equity, trust, and repair. From worker cooperatives in Spain to agroecological movements inIndia and mutual aid networks during COVID-19, these models demonstrate that mutuality, abundance, and shared accountability are notjust possible—they are necessary.

This essay critiques coercion’s failures and explores care’s potential totransform our systems. By embedding care into labor, governance, healthcare, and resource management, we can build frameworks wheredignity, equity, and flourishing are collective rights—not exceptions.

Care is not just analternative—due to its unique effect on coercion, it is a revolutionary praxis for liberation.

Part I: The Fragility of Coercion

Coercive systems may appear strong, but their reliance ondomination makes them brittle. By prioritizing control over trust, they undermine adaptability and resilience. This fragility isevident across four key domains: labor, governance, mental healthcare, and resource management.

1. Labor: Extractionas Ontological Violence

Modern labor systems commodify time, autonomy, and relationships, embedding extraction intodaily life. Workers are treated as disposable tools of productivity, stripped of creativity and dignity.

• Historical Context: The Enclosure Movement In 16th-century England, the enclosure movement privatized communal lands, displacing farmers and severingcommunities from mutual aid systems. Forced into exploitative labor markets, this marked the beginning of extraction as a systemicnorm. Colonial powers replicated this model globally, expropriating Indigenous lands to fuel imperial economies.
• The Highland Clearances In Scotland, forced evictions of tenant farmers to make way for sheep grazing mirroredthe enclosures’ effects. These clearances devastated community cohesion and entrenched economic inequality.
• Contemporary Example: Amazon Warehouses Amazon epitomizes modern coercive labor practices. AI-driven surveillancepenalizes inefficiencies as minor as bathroom breaks. Injury rates are double the industry average, and turnover exceeds 150%annually. Globally, garment workers endure similar exploitation, laboring in hazardous conditions for subsistence wages.
• Radical Alternatives: Worker Cooperatives and Agroecology Worker cooperatives like Spain’s Mondragon Corporation redistribute profits and decision-making poweramong employees, demonstrating that businesses can thrive without exploitation. Agroecological movements in India and Brazilintegrate labor with ecological restoration, prioritizing sustainability and dignity over profit.

Howmight workplaces transform if they centered autonomy, creativity, and mutual flourishing?

2. Governance:Punishment as Sovereignty

Governance systems rooted in coercion conflate accountability with punishment, isolating

harm as individual failure while ignoring systemic roots. This punitive logic destabilizes communities and perpetuates cycles ofviolence.

• Historical Insight: The Bengal Famine During the 1943 Bengal Famine, British authorities prioritized grain exports overfeeding local populations. Millions starved—not from scarcity, but because governance prioritized control over care. The faminerevealed the violence inherent in imperial policies of extraction and punishment.
• Mass Incarceration andOffshore Detention The United States incarcerates over 2.3million people, disproportionately targeting Black and Indigenous communities. Similarly, Australia’s offshore detentioncenters isolate and dehumanize migrants, perpetuating harm instead of repair.
• Algorithmic Governance andCoercion In modern governance, algorithms increasingly enforce punitive logics. Predictive policing and automateddecision-making systems disproportionately target marginalized communities, embedding coercion invisibly.
• Radical Alternatives: Transformative Justice and Participatory Models Transformative justice frameworksprioritize repair over punishment. Oakland’s Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY) focuses on dialogue and systemicrepair. Rojava’s participatory governance models emphasize care-based accountability.

What mightjustice achieve if it prioritized healing relationships rather than severing them?

3. Mental Healthcare:Coercion Disguised as Care

Mental healthcare systems institutionalize coercion through forced hospitalization,compulsory medication, and compliance-driven therapies, prioritizing control over trust and healing.

• HistoricalContext: Psychiatric Institutions The 19th-century asylum model framed patients as societal threats, justifying coerciveinterventions like forced lobotomies and sterilizations. These disproportionately targeted marginalizedpopulations, embedding social control into mental healthcare.
• Contemporary Example: Forced Treatment Coercive practices remain entrenched in mental healthcare globally. Neurodivergent and economically disadvantaged individualsface disproportionate rates of involuntary hospitalization, eroding trust and worsening outcomes.
• RadicalAlternatives: Rights-Based Mental Healthcare Norway’s prohibition of forced treatment and Finland’s Open Dialogue therapy emphasize trust and collaboration. Italy’s TriesteModel integrates mental healthcare with housing and employment, rejecting institutionalization in favor of holistic care.

How might mental healthcare evolve if trust and collaboration replaced coercion?

4.Resources: Scarcity as Manufactured Control

Scarcity is often deliberately engineered to justify exclusion,commodification, and inequality.

• Historical Context: The Irish Potato Famine During the 19th-century famine, British authorities exported grain while millionsstarved. Scarcity was not natural but engineered to sustain imperial profits.
• Contemporary Example: GlobalFood Systems While 40% of global food is wasted annually, nearly 800million people face hunger. Corporate monopolies perpetuate scarcity narratives to prioritize profits over human needs.
• Radical Alternatives: Agroecology and Water Sovereignty Agroecological movements like La Via Campesina reclaim land for regenerative agriculture. Kerala’scommunity-led water governance ensures equitable access, dismantling privatized scarcity.

What systemsmight emerge if abundance, not scarcity, became the organizing principle?

Part II: Care asa Radical Praxis

Care dismantles coercion by embedding equity, adaptability, and mutuality into systems. It reframespower as relational, fostering trust and resilience.

1. Accountability as Collective Repair

Coerciveaccountability isolates harm and assigns blame. Care reframes accountability as relational, focusing on repair and systemictransformation.

• Oakland’s Transformative Justice Network centers survivors and fosters trust through restorativedialogue.
• Indigenous land-back movements integrate ecological restoration with reparative justice.

2. Abundance Through Reciprocity

Care-based systems treat abundance as regenerative, emphasizing reciprocityand shared stewardship.

• Agroecology in Cuba transformed scarcity into sustainable abundance during its Special Period.
• Mutual aid networks during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic mobilized resources faster and more equitably thanmany governments.

3. Joy as Resistance

Care extends beyond survival to joy. Systems ofdomination thrive on alienation, making joy a radical act of defiance.

At Standing Rock, art, music, and ceremony sustainedresistance, fostering solidarity and resilience.

Scaling care without neoliberal co-optation requires balancingexpansion with relational integrity. Federated, decentralized models offer blueprints for preserving care’s transformativeessence.

Porto Alegre’s Participatory Budgeting empowers communities to allocate resources equitably. Italy’s Trieste Model integrates mental healthcare with housing, education,and employment.

Liberation Through Care

Coercion thrives on the myth of inevitability.Care dismantles this myth, offering connection over alienation, abundance over scarcity, and repair over punishment. By embeddingcare into our institutions, we can create systems that heal rather than harm.

Care is not just an alternative—itis the foundation for a just and abundant future.

From Systemic to Personal

1. Support Mutual Aid Networks and Worker Cooperatives Contribute to organizations like Mutual Aid Disaster Relief.
2. Advocate for Rights-Based MentalHealthcare and Transformative Justice Policies Push for consent-driven, dignity-focused mental healthcare systems andrestorative justice frameworks.
3. Invest in Agroecological and Regenerative Systems Back movementslike La Via Campesina.
4. Center Joy and Creativity in Activism andGovernance Celebrate art, music, and community-building to foster resilience and solidarity.

What systems will you create when you choose care over coercion?