Digital Mind 🧠

🪵 The Threshold

Leaders and hierarchies inevitably emerge in large groups regardless of horizontalist ideals

Properties2
tagsja-picks, xref, causal_relationships, trade, singleton, recurring, category/causal-relationships
aliases@bevins_if_2023, loc. 901

2 min read

Leaders and hierarchies inevitably emerge in large groups regardless of horizontalist ideals

Evidence

Organizations are effective, and representation is important. Collective action has a proven record of success and works best when it is truly collective. There is a reason that the powerful have sought to “divide and conquer” since before the birth of Jesus. All else being equal, individualization tends to re-enforce existing power structures. That is why unionization—something that undoubtedly worked for achieving certain goals—consists primarily of a kind of de-horizontalization. Leaders, vertical structures, and hierarchies tend to emerge in large groups of people. One must either be prepared for this, or—the classic solution—construct a self-consciously democratic organization that ensures this happens in the most legitimate and transparent ways possible. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 901

Categorization

  • XREF: Pays off the earlier claims about leaderless movements developing unaccountable informal leaders and horizontal structures that fail to integrate new members. — connects to: Hierarchical organization correlates with protest movement success — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 847; Fear of organizational abuse paralyzed the left into ceding power to enemies — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 905; Leaderless movements still develop unaccountable informal leaders — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 100 (+6 more)
  • recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

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