Are progressive organizations exempt from the usual processes and struggles that are part of relatively formal organizations? Aside from members' values that might militate against hierarchy, rigid rules and job duties, and all that goes with bureaucracy, why shouldn't progressive organizations succumb to the pressures separate the ideals from the real daily firefights within and between organizations? Seems like Michels is more than a little relevant here, no?
I would agree with Doug Henwood - it doesn't take rocket science to figure out that the dull compulsion to labor within organizations diverts energy and attention to the daily struggles of politicking within organizations. Politicking is a lot about bargaining, brokering, placating, and posturing
- some for the good ol big fight, some to save one's ass and hold onto power, some to show off for the little folks, some to fix things between orgs. and so on. Ultimately, getting power, which is getting $$$, takes center stage.
Routinization, cooptation, incorporation, these all have their indepedent effects. Constructing organizations that resist these and other temptations require a lot of effort and special circumstances. Don't know that many have survive outside the lab. For me, at least, the measure is in the long haul. Then again, perhaps our expectations should be set accordingly.
> At the latest AFT-Oregon convention, we elected a good, progressive slate
> of activists, a real victory for working people. But it wouldn't have
> happened without years and years of trench fighting, struggle, vicious
> conflicts, etc. Somehow we global Leftists have to square the magic
> circle, and think with the power and acuity of an Adorno, while acting
> with the decisiveness of a Brecht. It's a damnably tough contradiction,
> the kind which tears hunks of flesh out of you, but also the kind which
> can detonate political earthquakes. Postmodernism will have its
> revolutions, just you wait.
>
> -- Dennis
Sometimes it must be like waiting for Godot?
Another Dennis