Samuel Chu and the Lithium Mining Coalition

Samuel Chu’s story in Chapter 5 recalls a workshop he ran in Imperial Valley, California, where a local union-community coalition was wrestling with how to respond to a significant expansion in lithium mining led by Berkshire Hathaway. At first, the company seemed impossibly big: a corporate giant owned by Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the United States. Seen like this, power can feel total. It can make action seem naïve, or even pointless. Samuel challenged the group to see it differently. They began to break Berkshire Hathaway’s power down, looking at how the company worked in their town. They named key players, decision-makers and the people in their group who had relationships with them. What first appeared to be a monolith began to reveal cracks and opportunities where the group could start to engage. The story does not deny that power over is real. The lesson is that by analysing power at different scales, the coalition could begin to see where their own agency might sit. Power with is built when people analyse power together and find openings for action.