An organization’s value includes preparing successors for its own defeat

Evidence

The criteria by which the second element should be judged are to be sought; 1. in what it actually does; 2. in what provision it makes for the eventuality of its own destruction. It is difficult to say which of these two facts is the more important. Since defeat in the struggle must always be envisaged, the preparation of one’s own successors is as important as what one does for victory. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 681

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Gramscian strategy of position vs war of maneuver that later postcolonial and Islamophobia critiques adopt; also echoes the ‘ferment’ concept the reader is building toward in organizing theory. — connects to: Organizations survive by abandoning goals that threaten their existence — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 66