From Sabotage: Lawful Business Resistance to Authoritarianism (2026–2028)

By Cliff Potts, CSO, WPS News
Dateline: February 5, 2026

Introduction

The OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) is often remembered for its blunt advice on how ordinary people could quietly disrupt an occupying power. Read today, it’s less a how-to than a warning label: authoritarian systems rely on compliance, routine, and silence. When those inputs change—when people act with conscience instead of habit—power frays.

This essay does not advocate illegal activity, violence, or covert disruption. Instead, it draws ethical, lawful lessons from the ideas behind the manual and translates them into transparent, democratic, and non-violent forms of resistance within the business community between now and November 2028.

The goal is simple: make authoritarianism expensive, unpopular, and unsustainable—without becoming what we oppose.

What the Manual Actually Teaches (Abstracted)

Strip away the wartime context and the manual teaches three enduring truths:

  1. Systems fail when legitimacy erodes. Compliance is not automatic; it’s a choice people make every day.
  2. Friction accumulates. Small, lawful acts—repeated, visible, coordinated—can shift outcomes over time.
  3. Culture beats coercion. Authoritarian projects depend on normalized bad behavior becoming “just how things are done.”

Translated ethically, those ideas point toward collective refusal, transparency, and accountability, not sabotage.

The Anti-Fascist Business Strike: What It Is (and Is Not)

It is:

  • Lawful, public, values-driven resistance.
  • Coordinated pressure using contracts, compliance, capital, labor, and reputation.
  • Focused on defending democracy, pluralism, and the rule of law.

It is not:

  • Property damage or workplace interference.
  • Secret disruption of operations.
  • Harassment, threats, or coercion of individuals.

The strength of a democratic strike is that it stands in the light.

Lawful Pressure Points Inside the Business Community

1. Norm-Setting and Refusal

Authoritarian systems thrive on people doing things they privately know are wrong.

Lawful resistance looks like:

  • Declining contracts that undermine civil rights or democratic norms.
  • Publishing ethical standards and sticking to them even when it costs money.
  • Saying “no” early, clearly, and on the record.

This is not obstruction—it’s professional integrity.

2. Compliance as a Democratic Tool

Authoritarians depend on selective enforcement and casual corner-cutting.

A democratic response:

  • Meticulous compliance with labor, safety, privacy, and environmental laws.
  • Internal audits that prioritize public interest over short-term profit.
  • Whistleblower protections treated as assets, not liabilities.

When rules are followed exactly, abusive systems lose their shortcuts.

3. Capital With Conditions

Money is never neutral.

Ethical leverage includes:

  • Investors demanding governance reforms tied to democratic benchmarks.
  • Pension funds and endowments divesting from anti-democratic enterprises.
  • Lenders conditioning capital on transparency and rights protections.

This isn’t punishment; it’s risk management.

4. Labor Solidarity—Open and Legal

Workers are not tools; they are stakeholders.

Democratic strike methods include:

  • Lawful work stoppages and sick-outs where permitted.
  • Collective bargaining that includes democratic values clauses.
  • Cross-sector solidarity statements that raise reputational costs.

Visibility protects people. Silence isolates them.

5. Information Hygiene

Authoritarianism spreads through confusion and fatigue.

Business resistance means:

  • Refusing to launder disinformation through corporate channels.
  • Labeling political advertising clearly and conservatively.
  • Supporting independent journalism and open data.

Truth doesn’t need theatrics—just oxygen.

Timeline: Now to November 2028

2026:

  • Codify ethics, transparency, and refusal policies.
  • Build cross-industry alliances.
  • Normalize public values statements.

2027:

  • Coordinate lawful economic pressure.
  • Expand labor-management democratic compacts.
  • Make anti-democratic behavior visibly unprofitable.

2028:

  • Sustain pressure without burnout.
  • Protect election integrity through transparency and compliance.
  • Make backsliding politically and economically toxic.

The point is endurance, not spectacle.

The Hard Truth

The original OSS manual assumed people might have to act quietly because speaking openly could get them killed. That is not our situation—and pretending it is only weakens democratic legitimacy.

If we believe in democracy, we must practice it loudly, legally, and collectively.

Authoritarianism doesn’t collapse because of clever tricks. It collapses because enough people decide they won’t cooperate anymore—and are willing to be seen doing so.

That’s not sabotage.

That’s citizenship.

Remember, this is the game they like to play, learn to play it better than they do.

References

Office of Strategic Services. (1944). Simple sabotage field manual. United States Government. https://www.departmentofinformation.org/simple-sabotage-field-manual/

Citizens Aboteur. (n.d.). About simple sabotage. Retrieved January 31, 2026, from https://citizensaboteur.org/about-simple-sabotage/

Small Wars Journal. (2025). Office of Strategic Services OSS manuals: The resistance hub. Retrieved January 31, 2026, from https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/11/09/office-of-strategic-services-oss-manuals-the-resistance-hub/

Discover more from WPS News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.