Abstract
Scholar Michael Hardt has recently published a collection of Thomas Jefferson's writings. He suggests that Jefferson's political views often work in favor of local people's movements. The challenge is to recover the best of Jefferson so that the Left might avoid a top-down organizing approach that frequently disarms workers and ordinary citizens, despite the best intentions. Historian and labor lawyer Staughton Lynd long ago argued for local, alternative institutions as a means by which workers' movements could gain the rights they desire based on an American revolutionary tradition. This article examines Lynd's political philosophy and the potential of decentralization to empower people's movements. It explores the meaning of unemployment councils in the 1930s to the more recent Zapatista movement. While the article takes a theoretical approach to organizing, it holds practical implications for those concerned with worker empowerment.