From: "Andy" <as-AT-spelthorne.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 10:25:42 +0000
Subject: Re: Here is a question for yous all!



> I have a question. I'm working on section J.4 of the FAQ
> (J.3 will be on-line in a couple of weeks, btw) and its
> about anarchistic trends in todays society (if anyone
> can find of any, please let me know, but thats not
> the question).

Heresy thought it may be, I think it's worth a dip into management 
'theory' here. A constant theme here is the Weberian notion of 
bureaucracy and rationality in business decision making, and this is 
still generally held to be something organisations should strive for. 
But there are some influential writers who think otherwise. Cohen and 
March [1974] Excerpts from Leadership and Ambiguity: The American 
College President, in Bush, T. [1992 reprint] Managing Education: 
Theory and Practice, OU Press: they write of situations of ambiguity 
[they don't mention that these are deliberately inflicted by 
capitalist structures] and unclear goals in the public sector, and 
also talk of how decisions in organisations get made: the notion of 
the 'garbage can' process of decision making whereby decisions are 
rarely actually made. What you have are loads of problems and 
eventually a solution appears which the problems attach themselves 
to.

 This gives scope for behaviour within organisations which can  only 
nominally controlled by the hierarchies,  particularly the case 
with the public and parts of the service sector, where there is not 
the clarity of the bottom line [profit] that exists in the private 
sector. Individuals and groups adopt their own ways of working, and 
will often successfully promote goals which are certainly not those 
of the State. I believe this tendency can be seen in the education 
system and is anarchistic in that, although many of the practitioners 
are card-carrying conservatives, new lab, etc etc and wouldn't see 
themselves as anti-hierarchy, they have become politicised and 
[though perhaps it is merely cynical] flout rules in a way that 
wouldn't have happened 20 years ago. I know that the strikes don't 
happen now, but day to day working consists not merely of ritualism 
but also some quite creative undermining of the rules and deceipt.

Organisations are after all, at least partly, social inventions and 
the aims of the workers may totally be out of synch with the bosses, 
and yet the organisation manages to exist. The State recognises this 
trend and in the UK, by rabid and rapid centralisation of curriculum 
in education, semi- privatisation and budget devolving tries to exert 
increasing control, surely because it is in a struggle to re-assert 
its hegemony [they're having a go at your Scottish education system 
now]

So, although the tendency is un-recognised or merely trivialised as 
office politics, I reckon there is far less acceptance of hierarchies 
now than when I started. Part of the thanks for this I suppose has to 
go to the libertarian free-marketeers, who gave people the idea they 
could have stuff and be entrepreneurial. At the moment this is far 
from socialism, but the individuals' expectations may not result 
merely in competitiveness - collaboration gets people further 
ultimately. IN the 19th century, literacy was intended to give the 
workers improving texts to read and civilise them. Then the buggers 
started to write pamphlets. Who knows what the unintended 
consequences of free-market economics might be?

PS as an example I always ask my students to supply an organisational 
chart for any company they work for. They then devise the 'real' 
working organisational chart as a sort of mini-project. You'd be 
surprised at the number of variations between different branches of 
Tesco's which are ostensibly the same. Of course the board is 
sovereign, but the tendencies are there - it is though ways of 
behaving not outright revolution.


 I've just done a section on why social
> struggle is a key anarchistic trend in society.
> 
> However, I'm now working on a section called "does
> social struggle do more harm than good?" -- given
> that the net result of social struggle is sometimes
> very bad repression, unemployment, even fascism,
> does this mean that it can only make things worse?
> I have my own viewpoint on this, but I was
> wondering what others thought about it.

Capitalism needs the unemployed pool of labour. Turning the argument 
round from a Marxist perspective, couldn't you argue that the 
unemployment was often on the way in any case eg the recessions of 
the early 80s were as much structural as Thatcher's vindictiveness?

Also, the fascists tend not to last, in spite of the West's best 
efforts. The underground always remains. I guess you have to look at 
the long or medium term, though that's no comfort for the 
participants who are stuck in the short term, if my understanding of 
time and space holds true.

>From a personal point of view, after years as a union rep in 
education, plus prior experience of being sacked for trying to 
unionise a workplace [snitched on by a fearful single parent who 
worried about feeding her kids if there was trouble], I think the 
social struggle does a lot of harm to those actively involved - you 
see burn-out on the list from time to time. I certainly think social 
stuggle is a baton to be passed round from time to time in order for 
it to remain effective. It requires a lot of energy to stay 
committed.
>AS