Drawing insight and inspiration from our comrade Aziz Choudry, in this paper, we explore the role of political education and knowledge making in social movement struggles to contest the state and capital around access to water and other public services. Drawing on a decade of organising work in the city of Cape Town and at wider scales, we highlight the importance of learning and knowledge generation in social movements and the everyday strategies of organising movements use to overcome divisions based on 'race', gender, class and nationality, and to confront those obstacles presented or exacerbated by exclusionary governance arrangements, commodified service delivery and the coercive apparatus of the state. Rejecting elite led organising in favour of working-class self-organisation, these strategies seek to build individual and organisational solidarity across the diverse and fragmented experiences of those living on the margins of capitalist society.