Re: -> Dispensing with hierarchy <-

Dear Richard,

        You're basically right about the 99% of history when Homo sapiens
lived in hunter-gatherer tribes.  But that's not history to historians.
It's pre-history.  Marx and Engels (especially Engels) admired it, too.
The trouble is that for the past 5,000 years most of us have been "caged"
in hierarchical civilizations, and never more so than now.  Returning to
that archaic localized, self-sufficient economy and culture is out of the
question for all but a handful of civilized folk.  They don't want to go
there and they won't.  We live in a globalized interdependent world.  I
want my white Burgundy and my Thai noodles for dinner.  Don't you? 
(Answering "no" won't disprove the point.)

        Given the ineluctable facts of globalization and globalized
capitalism, I believe that the only responsible answer to the world
problematique at this juncture in time is a concerted, planet-wide
political movement with structure, fighting force, and ideological
consensus able to match and over-match the immense powers arrayed against
it.  The anarchist model, however it may be suited to a still later and,
one hopes, more beneficent time, does not work for now.

        I will even put my neck in the noose.  I think it was better for
Lenin and Stalin to crush tsarism ruthlessly than to let it live and
continue its age-old parasitical ruin of the Russian people.  They went
far too far and committed far too many atrocities, but they had a great
beast to kill, and at least they did that!

        Now you know.

        Cheers,

        Warren

        

On Fri, 12 Jan 2001, Richard K. Moore wrote:

> 
> Dear Warren,
> 
> I'd like first to say that when my investigation began, I
> presumed that 'representative hierarchical authority' would
> necessarily characterize any possible solution to achieving
> meaningful popular sovereignty.
> 
> Since then I've learned two things.
> 
> The first is that there can be no hierarchical solution.  I
> learned that it is the inherent nature of hierarchies to
> self-aggrandize and to become increasingly centralized. 
> When a hierarchy is in charge of society, then it leads
> inevitably to indirect but effective rule by one elite or
> another.   Like capitalism, hierarchy is a carnivore. 
> Capitalism is in fact a manifestation of hierarchy - it is
> the economic system which most efficiently motivates
> everyone to serve the interests of the wealthy elite who
> control our political hierarchy.
> 
> The second thing I learned is that there is a considerable
> and encouraging historical record of non-hierarchical
> societies, and that there are other relevant social
> examples, from other domains, which offer additional
> encouragement.  I saw enough diverse examples to convince me
> that human nature is not inherently incompatible with
> non-hierarchy.
> 
> Given this new information, I decided to look into the
> feasibilty of a non-hierarchical approach, and to find out
> which circumstances facilitate it and which undermine it. 
> I've engaged in research of various kinds, including some
> work with facilitators and group processes.  I'm now
> convinced there is a strong case to be made, and Section 2.d
> will be my attempt at that, enlightened by our current dialog.
> 
> 
> 1/10/2001, wwagar@binghamton.edu wrote to WSN:
>     > It is an evergreenly seductive philosophy, one in which we
>     might all wish to invest our hopes, but which, in my
>     fallible judgment, has no foundation in human history or
>     human behavior. Its basic premise, that people are good and
>     society is good and that everybody can or will work together
>     for the common welfare, is contradicted by every page of
>     human history.
> 
> The premise is not that 'people are good', but that people
> are _capable of behaving well, _if the society facilitates
> such behavior.  Not that 'society is good', but that a
> society _can function well, _if it is set up in an
> appropriate manner.
> 
> Now let's look at human history.  The development of
> hierarchies has dominated the last mere 10,000 years or so,
> but for 99% of human history we all lived in relatively
> small, hunter-gatherer societies.  If we want to investigate
> 'human nature', to the extent there is such a thing, we
> learn more by looking at the conditions under which we
> evolved, than we do by investigating our behavior during our
> recent confinement in hierarchical cages.  Today we may pace
> back and forth in a confined space, or run a treadmill all
> day, but that is not our nature, that is our cage.
> 
> We have an immense amount of information about
> hunter-gatherer societies, and some of the most useful is
> about the Native American societies, because they were
> studied extensively and documented while they were still
> functioning on a large scale. The Aztec and Inca empires are
> of no interest in this investigation, nor are any other
> societies based on agriculture.  What we're interested in
> are the examples that match 99% of our history.
> 
> There was a striking degree of diversity among these
> pre-agricultural societies, even among ones which interacted
> with one another regularly.  There were warrior tribes,
> peaceful nomadic tribes, and even settled communities, when
> fish were plentiful enough.  A considerable number of these
> tribes had egalitarian, non-hierarchical structures of
> non-trivial complexity.  The one I've looked at most closely
> was the Oglala Sioux.
> 
> There were elders, and there were chiefs, but they had no
> authority to command.  They were looked to for leadership,
> but they were only followed when their suggestions met with
> general approval.  When a tribal decision was to be made, it
> was made by consensus, and the chief didn't have more weight
> than others, unless through persuasion or wisdom.  Perhaps
> women were left out, and this would indeed be a
> micro-hierarchy within the society.  But the
> macro-architecture of the tribe was nonetheless
> non-hierarchical, and it was stable.
> 
> Perhaps more interesting, since we must deal with the
> problem of scale, is the manner in which the Sioux Nation of
> tribes reached decisions for collective action.  The
> invasion of the colonists forced the Sioux to make frequent
> use of this collective mechanism, but it was already in
> place - the result of millennia of societal evolution.
> 
> A tribal council would be called by one of the tribes.  Each
> tribe would then hold its own consensus session to decide
> its position regarding the issue at hand.  A contingent from
> each tribe, led by the chief, would then go to the tribal
> council -  where another consensus session would be held.  A
> chief had no authority to agree to anything contrary to what
> had been established locally.  If he exceeded that
> authority, his tribe would simply not back him up.  On the
> other hand, if the tribe had committed to something, then
> the chief knew he could promise the tribe's cooperation and
> that they would follow through.
> 
> In this way, collective action could be effectively planned
> and coordinated, without there being any central authority
> with the power to pursue an agenda of its own. What was
> delegated to the chief was not 'decision-making power', but
> rather the 'authorization to say on our behalf that which we
> have decided'.
> 
> The Sioux were not an isolated example, by the way.  The
> pattern was a common one, and the interaction between
> unrelated tribes also exhibited the success of various kinds
> of consensual relationships.  One tribal nation was studied
> by some of the Constitutional framers, and they allegedly
> borrowed quite a few ideas.
> 
> These kinds of non-hierarchical, non-federated tribal
> nations persisted stably for long periods of time.  They
> were able to function collectively as a nation with
> considerable effectivenes and coherence when the need arose,
> without the need for hierarchical government of any kind. 
> Rather than being contrary to human nature, and
> 'contradicted by every page of human history', I submit that
> non-hierarchy may be at the very heart of human nature, and
> that it appears prominently on every page of human history,
> except for that most recent page which began only an
> evolutionary instant ago, and which is called 'civilization'
> (and which might be better called 'domestication of the
> species').
> 
> Once stored surpluses came into existence, with agriculture
> and herding, then it became possible to maintain
> professional soldiers, and so the tools of conquest and
> empire building became available.  It required only one
> society to pursue this path, and then all the rest were
> doomed - sooner or later - to either abdicate or emulate. 
> Once the infection of hierarchical domination begins, the
> dyamics of its spread are all too apparent.
> 
> But people have not forgotten how to cooperate, despite
> every attempt of our culture to inculcate competitiveness
> and selfishness, both in education and in the societal
> reward system.  There are all sorts of organizations and
> associations that are entirely voluntary and for mutual
> benefit.  Some are hierarchical, and others are not.  The
> recent conditioning has not unlearned the lessons ingrained
> by millions of years of evolution.  We may have forgotten
> the social structures we invented formerly, because those
> can only be passed on culturally, but our ability to
> function in freedom within such structures remains
> unaffected.
> 
>     
>     > Let's not kid ourselves.  There is no real "movement" out
>     there. The vast (99%) majority of the human race today has
>     no commitment to revolutionary transformation, either out of
>     ignorance and abject poverty, or misguided hopes of joining
>     the microscopic elite that runs everything. You or I are not
>     going to play messiah.  It is our solitary task to witness
>     to the promise of better times, keep flickering flames
>     burning, and never let the dream die.
> 
> No, there isn't a real movement yet, and I find disturbing
> the naivetee of those who claim that globalization has been
> significantly stalled by recent protests.  And there is
> certainly little support for any kind of 'anti-capitalist
> movement' among your 99%.
> 
> And yet, the 'objective conditions' are clearly that a
> majority of the world's people are not being well-served by
> the current regime.  In particular, the Western middle
> classes - which had always enjoyed a visibly privileged
> position by world standards - has now in effect been
> abandoned to market forces.
> 
> Those 99%, with 'no commitment to revolutionary
> transformation' are, as you bluntly put it, ignorant of
> their circumstances.  This ignorance needs to be overcome. 
> That will be difficult, but the problem is not
> insurmountable, and diverse efforts are now underway from
> many quarters.  Many of us are talking about the movement in
> a systematic way, and looking for ways to help it evolve to
> the next level.  I do not believe that the difficulty of
> 'arousing the masses', given all the ammunition capitalism
> is giving us, will prove to be an insurmountable barrier.
> 
> I believe much greater barriers are presented by the
> problems of movement organization and platform.  If we do
> not get those together pronto, then the inevitable societal
> discontent will be channeled toward fascism, and we can
> already see those seeds sprouting at home and abroad, and
> even in the new White House.
> 
> We know that we need a post-capitalist system, and we know
> that will require, eventually, a complete restructuring of
> how everything is done in our Western societies.  No one in
> their right mind is going to sign up for such a
> restructuring (ie, join the movement) unless they can see a
> very strong light at the end of the tunnel.  No one will
> throw everything away for an unknown, as long as they have
> any way at all to survive as is.
> 
> Without an effective movement organization, there can be no
> movement.  And without an appropriate manifesto / platform,
> there can be no mass recruitment.  If these problems can be
> satisfactorily addressed, then I submit to you that
> perceived mass apathy will vanish like a mist.  It needs
> only a few degrees of hope and excitement before it
> vaporizes.  I saw a film of a Santiago crowd on the day of
> Allende's inauguration.  I'll never forget the tears of
> exhuberant joy and empowerment on the people's faces,
> particularly the women.  That is a powerful energy.
> 
> The appropriate organizing paradigm, I have suggested, is
> something one might call 'inclusive harmonization', or
> 'networked consensus circles', but I would be loathe to give
> it a fixed name or to start a 'harmonization movement'.  The
> process itself is the thing, in whatever diverse evolving
> manifestation.  It is a non-hierachical process, and
> requires no institution to function.  It can work with
> hierarchical organizations quite easily, as long their
> representatives keep their word - with both the movement and
> their constituents. The process builds community, develops
> bonds of trust, and erodes factional disputes.  More about
> this in Chapter 3.
> 
> In some sense the manifesto / platform arises naturally out
> of the networking process of the movement - some
> deliberations are about platform, and some are about
> coordination of efforts.  But in another sense there needs
> to be an ideological kick-start.  Someone, or some group,
> needs to do the basic analysis of what is possible and what
> is necessary, from an overall systems perspective.   Marx &
> Engels, in 1848, rose to that challenge and evidently did a
> creditable and servicable job of it, within the context of
> industrial, nation-based capitalism, in class-based
> societies. There have been socialist success stories.
> 
> He, fortunately, was engaged in more than keeping the embers
> burning.  He was both preparing the kindling and pointing
> out where plentiful logs could be found.  Why is it
> inconceivable that anyone could again 'play messiah' in that
> way?  Is that not what we need?   Does humanity now lack the
> analytic or creative ability, in any of its members, to rise
> to the challenge?
> 
> What I'm doing, while waiting for my betters to solve the
> problem, is trying to work out a solution that at least
> makes sense to me.  Fortunately, there are a considerable
> number of people, such as yourself, who have been willing to
> step up to debate at critical times, and thereby focus the
> development of the ideas where most needed, while
> shedding new light into the process.
> 
> From a systems perspective, as I see it, both hierarchy and
> capitalism are incompatible with a world that I would call
> in any meaningful sense 'livable' - not if we want a decent
> balance of liberty, participation, stability, peace, and
> economic well being in our societies.
> 
> Also from a systems perspective, it is clear that there have
> been a number of stable societal models that have proven
> their vitality in our long history.  Among those are
> non-hierarchical models which are capable of scaling upwards
> without introducing layers of power.  This is an
> architectural observation, not an engineering prescription. 
> There is work to be done, but I think the architectural
> space does exist in which to do that work successfully.
> 
> It _is possible for humanity to live in harmony, based on
> trust and mutual benefit.  But not if hierarchical forms are
> allowed to crystallize in any aspect of human affairs. 
> Hierarchy needs to be contained the way plague is contained
> - as a similar threat to public health.  Once we rid
> ourselves of it, we'll realize what a nuisance it has been
> all along.  
> 
> It is difficult for us to imagine now what freedom would
> feel like - as it would be for a man born in prison.  That
> difficulty is what Neo's awakening scene in "The Matrix" was
> trying to express.  And fortunately, the freedom to which
> _we will awake does not yet have scorched skies.  There is
> still time, barely.
> 
> From this perspective, I suggest that THE movement is made
> up of those who believe that humanity can learn to harmonize
> itself, and who believe that building the movement is the
> best way to creatively develop that concept in practice.  
> If their efforts bear fruit in microcosm, then our
> globalized world is likely to facilitate exponential
> infection by this  counter-hierarchical vaccination.  The
> vision, fortunately, is "evergreenly seductive", and when
> people see it in practice they will begin to perceive its
> objectives and potential in a new way.
> 
> Don't give up hope.  It's always darkest before the dawn.
> 
> best regards,
> rkm
> http://cyberjournal.org
>