That’s fair pushback on categorizing decentralized organization as loose. I do think my point that some level of verticality helps with coordinating that which is under them still stands, but I didn’t explicitly make that point clear.
That’s an interesting point, bringing up the adoption of verticality into anarchist organization as a factor in their downfall. I do think the Zapatistas provide an example of the positive effects, however. Anarchist organizations never seem to want to do so, but instead adopt verticality as a response to their conditions. Those conditions do not go away immediately upon adopting these new techniques, so I do not see the connection.
For example, the CNT-FAI adopted more centralized structures as they began to be pushed back and beaten. This, in my opinion, points to the effectiveness of some level of verticality, and means they ought to have pivoted to some degree of verticality earlier. I don’t see the verticality as accelerating their downfall, but too little too late, so to speak.
Mind you, verticality is not a goal, in my opinion, it’s just something neutral that can either help or hinder depending on implementation. I see class as the primary problem, not hierarchy, and therefore intra-class hierarchy as not inherently an issue. That doesn’t mean polytechnical education, advanced political education, and more to bring people up to higher levels of participation and flexibility within a future communist system won’t be critically important, and that these measures won’t reduce unnecessary hierarchies. It does, however, mean that I don’t view hierarchy itself as bad.
The point I’m getting at is that anarchist groups don’t necessarily form hierarchies by accident, but as a concession out of necessity. I give them a bit more credit, that these were conscious, pragmatic decisions to boost effectiveness. I think this is further cemented by the fact that, whether you believe them to be genuinely liberating or only partially so, it has generally been the groups more open to vertical elements to organizing that have lasted at scale, in the face of coordinated imperialists.
I suppose, in the end, that’s always going to be the uncrossable bridge between Marxism and anarchism, the question of class vs. hierarchy.
That’s fair pushback on categorizing decentralized organization as loose. I do think my point that some level of verticality helps with coordinating that which is under them still stands, but I didn’t explicitly make that point clear.
That’s an interesting point, bringing up the adoption of verticality into anarchist organization as a factor in their downfall. I do think the Zapatistas provide an example of the positive effects, however. Anarchist organizations never seem to want to do so, but instead adopt verticality as a response to their conditions. Those conditions do not go away immediately upon adopting these new techniques, so I do not see the connection.
For example, the CNT-FAI adopted more centralized structures as they began to be pushed back and beaten. This, in my opinion, points to the effectiveness of some level of verticality, and means they ought to have pivoted to some degree of verticality earlier. I don’t see the verticality as accelerating their downfall, but too little too late, so to speak.
Mind you, verticality is not a goal, in my opinion, it’s just something neutral that can either help or hinder depending on implementation. I see class as the primary problem, not hierarchy, and therefore intra-class hierarchy as not inherently an issue. That doesn’t mean polytechnical education, advanced political education, and more to bring people up to higher levels of participation and flexibility within a future communist system won’t be critically important, and that these measures won’t reduce unnecessary hierarchies. It does, however, mean that I don’t view hierarchy itself as bad.
The point I’m getting at is that anarchist groups don’t necessarily form hierarchies by accident, but as a concession out of necessity. I give them a bit more credit, that these were conscious, pragmatic decisions to boost effectiveness. I think this is further cemented by the fact that, whether you believe them to be genuinely liberating or only partially so, it has generally been the groups more open to vertical elements to organizing that have lasted at scale, in the face of coordinated imperialists.
I suppose, in the end, that’s always going to be the uncrossable bridge between Marxism and anarchism, the question of class vs. hierarchy.
Either way, thanks for the insight!