[thaumasiotes]

This isn't exactly a new idea. Private clubs were banned in the Roman empire specifically because of the risk of collective action (they didn't want clubs to be the seed of a rebellion). We have correspondence from a governor to the emperor where the governor says (paraphrased, obviously), "a bunch of the men locally have put together a firefighting group, so if a building catches fire everyone shows up and helps put it out. This seems like a decent idea to me, is it OK?" The response is "absolutely not".