The Tyranny Of Structurelessness

If the movement is to grow beyond these elementary stages of development, it will have to disabuse itself of some of its prejudices about organization and structure. There is nothing inherently bad about either of these. They can be and often are misused, but to reject them out of hand because they are misused is to deny ourselves the necessary tools to further development. We need to understand why “structurelessness” does not work. http://www.bopsecrets.org/CF/structurelessness.htm

Principles of Democratic Structuring

  1. Delegation of specific authority to specific individuals for specific tasks by democratic procedures.
  2. Requiring all those to whom authority has been delegated to be responsible to those who selected them.
  3. Distribution of authority among as many people as is reasonably possible.
  4. Rotation of tasks among individuals.
  5. Allocation of tasks along rational criteria.
  6. Diffusion of information to everyone as frequently as possible.
  7. Equal access to resources needed by the group.

The Tyranny of Tyranny

“An article entitled 'The Tyranny of Structurelessness' which has received wide attention around the women's movement, (in MS, Second Wave etc) assails the trend towards 'leaderless', 'structureless' groups, as the main - if not sole - organisational form of the movement, as a dead-end. While written and received in good faith, as an aid to the movement, the article is destructive in its distortion and maligning of a valid, conscious strategy for building a revolutionary movement. It is high time that we recognise the direction these tendencies are pointing in, as a real political alternative to hierarchical organisation, rather than trying to nip it in the bud.”

http://libcom.org/library/tyranny-of-tyranny-cathy-levine