{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc","title":"Crowds and Party","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781781686942","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc","id":"e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc","uuid":"e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc","title":"Crowds and Party","normalized_title":"crowdsandparty","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781781686942","isbns":["9781781686942","9781781686720","9781781687666"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":183,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Crowds%20and%20Party","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc/search"},"page":{"printed_page":109,"pdf_page":108,"physical_index":108,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"35a4e5d126d4e871e44f4f53315c8bc97777c173480fd808a86211cafa695dae"},"chapter":"CROWDS AND PARTY","content":"synthesizing political and economic functions.<sup>29</sup> This “completer organism” is the trade union reconceived as a revolutionary association aimed toward abolishing capitalism and establishing socialism. Syndicalists had been vociferous in their critique of the demagogic tendencies of democracy, whether in the German Social Democratic Party or in the trade union bureaucracy. Nonetheless, Michels argues, they also fall prey to the iron law of oligarchy. Leaders of any group can betray or deceive the rank and file, particularly in actions that involve secrecy and conspiracy. Strikes, whether economic or political, offer “to men with a taste for political life, excellent opportunities for the display of their faculty for organization and their aptitude for command.” The strike, “instead of being a field of activity for the uniform and compact masses,” facilitates the process of differentiation and favors the formation of an elite of leaders.<sup>30</sup> In effect, syndicalists have an even greater technical need for leaders than socialists do.\n\nAnarchism, eschewing any form of stable or enduring political organization, would seemingly be immune from the problem of oligarchy insofar as there is no party hierarchy to climb or electoral office to seek. Not so, according to Michels. Three features of anarchism bring it under the “iron law.” First, like the syndicalists, anarchists favor direct action, which favors the heroic self-assertion of the few. Second, anarchists recognize the necessity of administrative work, “technical guidance of the masses,” in the administrative sphere. Federations of councils and communes, even when comprised of purely voluntary associations, would acquire authority over time, thereby falling into oligarchy. Third, anarchist leaders have their own “means of dominion,” the same means employed by the “apostle and the orator”: “the flaming power of thought, greatness of self-sacrifice, profundity of conviction. Their dominion is exercised, not over the organization, but over minds; it is the outcome, not of technical indispensability, but of intellectual ascendancy and moral superiority.”<sup>31</sup> Michels’s point is not that there is something wrong with this dominion. It’s that anarchism does not escape the iron law of oligarchy. The few are still more authoritative than the many.\n\nThe larger the organization, the more powerful the leaders. For Michels, this is in part a technical tendency toward oligarchy, the challenge of organizing many. But it includes a corresponding psychological tendency as well, the psychic effects on collectivities of the fact of leadership. As we saw in Michels’s “story of the Fall,” a division of labor comes along with “modern civilized society.” In larger organizations, tasks become increasingly differentiated. Integrating them becomes complicated. Seeing the “big picture” becomes harder and harder. At the same time, voluntary organizations like unions and parties encounter constant turnover among their members. Members come and go depending on their stage of life—are they young and more interested in love and adventure? Old, jaded, and burned out? Most people have what feels to them as better things to do than spend their free time in political struggle. But not all: some, for varying reasons, attach themselves to organizational work. Some, particularly those who are paid and have acquired a vested interest in the organization, are more constant in their attentions to the group than are others. Those who are more constant and attached start to function as leaders. More than those whose engagement is temporary or sporadic, they know what the organization has done and is doing. They are the repository of organizational history, practice, and knowledge. Leadership can be less a matter of office than of the influence exercised by the regulars.\n\n109","previous_page":108,"next_page":110}