OK, got it. Coercive political power is identified with organization then. And cooperation is opposed to organization as well.

In my previous replies that wasn't clear to me. I tend to think of cooperation as the same as organization.

The United States has never been a democracy. It's always been a republic with democratic traditions. The logistical 'problems' mentioned in the OP are features of a representative form of government not flaws.

One big problem is monetary corruption. It's legalized bribery now... quite literally. Another is conflicts of interest. Another is when faced with a choice between what's in the best interest of the overwhelming majority or what's in the best interest of the very few, the US government has been erring on the side of the few for around 50 or 60 years. That's the result of the corruption, not the form of government.

Another inept Trumpian apologetic. Michels supported Mussolini, you support Trump. Same difference. One fascist autocrat or another. Rather than the rule of a few, the rule of one. — Fooloso4

:fire: :up:

Imagine defending Trump and corporations to the bitter end, then turning around and clucking about democracy. :lol:

Folks, have a read of this:Why Michels’ ‘iron law of oligarchy’ is not an iron law – and how democratic organisations can stay ‘oligarchy-free’

The danger of oligarchy is always there – but, luckily, it does not always materialise. I therefore think that it is more appropriate to call Michels’ theory not the iron law but the iron threat of oligarchy.

Being such an individualist, may have trouble understanding that folk can work together in order to avoid the outcome he sees as inevitable.

The logistical 'problems' mentioned in the OP are features of a representative form of government not flaws [ ... ] the US government has been erring on the side of the few for around 50 or 60 years. That's the result of the corruption, not the form of government. — creativesoul

:up: :up:

@Banno is a collectivist. Given his inclination he sees hierarchies of power and the structure of a political party as folks working together.

I didn’t mean they favor oligarchy, but that their organization necessarily tends in that direction, no matter what type of organization they prefer. — NOS4A2

When you have a centralized state, oligarchy in some form will evidently happen. Perhaps we should define oligarchy and oligarchs better as let's say the Russian oligarch of the 1990's is different from a Soviet Politbyro member, who obviously would be an oligarch in the broader sense.

In other words, oligarchy and the oligarchs are quite different if you have an plutarchy, corporatocracy or a kleptocracy or then an autocracy / dictatorship. One really has to define just what an oligarch is as there are quite different kinds of oligarchs, especially many who don't see them at all as oligarchs.

Yet I think the Iron Law of Oligarchy comes more from the enlarged powers and abilities of control created by the modern states themselves. Central bureaucracy, the legal system and highly controlled commerce and society simply leads to this "Iron Law", as Michels put it. I think this is quite obvious. Central bureaucracy is always a top down organization, which leads always the few having power, be they elected or promoted to the position.

Ancient Rome might have had emperors that have all the power, yet that power was limited by simply not having the technology and organization and thus not having the ability to control everything. If the Romans would have invented the optical telegraph (perhaps quite possible before the 18th Century), then one big obstacle would have shrunk in size. Add an industrial revolution and an scientific revolution, then you got those abilities.

Did you have a read of the article? The critique of step four struck me as pivotal, since it is structural. the critique of step five highlights the pessimism inherent in Michels’ view.

But, again, the question is not whether or not this can happen (surely it can) but whether it is unavoidable. — p.12

Prefixing "iron" helps hide that it is not a law. Oligarchy is not inevitable.

Oligarchy is not inevitable. — Banno

Yup.

And it's not a conceptual distinction between individualist/collectivist that makes the difference. To be political you must have others. "Collectivist" is a boogeyman word to dissuade people from -- well, coming together. It's something you say to persuade people outside of a collective to stay individual.

I know it'd be nice to all live our individual lives @NOS4A2 -- and I also know that collective organizing requires recognizing individual differences. I've done enough organizing to know that my own individual will didn't mean squat when it came to democratic organization.

I suppose that's why I push against these narratives. We need one another. That's a good thing to recognize. It's also good to recognize that some people use that need for their own ends -- but the solution isn't individualization, because that gives people who are able, who have more power even more power. Masters like being able to spell out the rules to subordinates, and it's much easier to do so when they subordinates are alone.

For some people, individuality is seen as evil. Not sure why. Some would go so far as to claim that individuality is an illusion, that all there is is the collective.

The psyche is a strange land.

I suppose that's why I push against these narratives. We need one another. That's a good thing to recognize. It's also good to recognize that some people use that need for their own ends -- but the solution isn't individualization, because that gives people who are able, who have more power even more power. Masters like being able to spell out the rules to subordinates, and it's much easier to do so when they subordinates are alone. — Moliere

:up:

If politics become a polarized caricature of reality by either just being individuals or either just being one big collective, then so is the ideologies that follow. To recognize that both the individual and the group are equally important is to simply accept reality based on facts. It is basic psychology, we do not exist in a vacuum, our mind is a combination of the self and the social sphere.

So politics should reflect those facts, politics should always reflect facts. Otherwise it becomes opinions from egospheres trying to manipulate society for their own gains and wealth. The purpose of politics is to organize society. If politics become tools for a few to reign power, it is no longer politics for society but instead abuse against society.

We can quibble about how ferrous his law is. It just seems to me that if oligarchy wasn’t inevitable, and the law not so iron, that we’d see some solid examples proving otherwise. Maybe someone can provide one and we can weigh it to the countless examples supporting Michels theory, but I don't even know if that's necessary.

Michels' thesis that "with the advance of organization, democracy tends to decline", and "where organization is stronger, we find that there is a lesser degree of applied democracy", stands more solid than the gaseous notion that the state is potentially democratic. If oligarchy is not inevitable, how long do we have to wait for its opposite?

I don’t get why people push back against it because everyone we organize with is an individual. If you only see them as a means to some collective end, then it is their subordination rather than their cooperation you require. I fear that holding abstractions over and above actual flesh-and-blood individuals justifies the worst of humanity, and is egotism of the highest order.

we’d see some solid examples proving otherwise — NOS4A2

Trouble is, as is explained in the article cited, the notion of "oligarchy" is so loose that it might be applied to any form of specialisation or leadership. It's not a thesis that can be empirically tested.

I think, if we are willing to be somewhat charitable, and not dismiss his thesis out of hand because it doesn't fit our ideology, there's something there.

I've said this before in another thread, it doesn't need to be a law, and strictly inevitable, to be something we should probably take into account if we want to have a political philosophy that is effective.

His point is precisely that specialisation and leadership tend to oligarchy over time because of very common human tendencies to want to maintain power, seek and conspire with likeminded people, bend and corrupt the rules because they are in a position to do so etc etc... Demanding this very precise definition of oligarchy so we can go measure it in the world is kind of weak argument it seems to me... if we see this process happening all the time. This is not the kind of thing we can test and verify with perfect accuracy like say a law in physics anyway.

And one doesn't need to subscribe to conservatism, fascism or any far right ideology like that because of this insight, but we probably should take seriously the notion that organisation and hierarchy are in some way tied to each other, and that we therefor should probably take that into account to determine the kind of equality we want to aim for (if we want organisation at all). But you know, this is a non-starter for a lot of lefties.

the critique of step five highlights the pessimism inherent in Michels’ view. — Banno

Let's take just this part of the paper into debate.

Thomas Diefenbach here uses frequently conditinionals (might) and simply makes quite a weak case here.

But, again, the question is not whether or not this can happen (surely it can) but whether it is unavoidable. There is quite some empirical evidence supporting the theoretical argument that it can be avoided. For example, Lipset (1952/2010, p. 17), presenting the first findings and analysis of his famous case on ‘The internal politics of the International Typographical Union’ (Lipset, Trow, & Coleman, 1956), showed that ‘the rank and file’ can indeed ‘keep very much on the alert’; they stayed suspicious of their officials and rejected outright some of their proposals to change policies.

Let's think this out: being suspicious about the higher ups and rejecting some proposals simply cannot be a refutation of the main idea here at stake. Saying "no" is easy. The bigger more difficult issue is then to find just what policy is used.

Diefenbach continues with another quote:

Jaumier (2017) found that members of a French co-operative sheet-metal factory regularly criticised members of the executive board, mainly as one of several means to limit the board’s power and to show its members that they should not go beyond their mandate.

I think that even in other enterprises than co-operatives employees can criticize the executive board, especially if they go beyond their mandate. Again this isn't a refutation at all. Diefenbach sums up the following:

Thus, there is a good chance in democratic organisations that discipline and strict observance of hierarchical rules might not become the prevailing behaviour of, or even a necessity for, subordinates. Most members can, and probably will, show a non-obedient mindset (free and sovereign personality; critical mind; distrust of leaders but loyalty to institutions; open challenges of policies and disagreement with others;

There certainly is a "good chance" that organizations work this way. I can notice such behavior even my own military (!) as the organization promotes independent thinking and people taking the initiative. Orders aren't slavishly followed: if you are given an order that goes against the law, it's your job not to follow it. And above all: slavishly just following orders from above and doing nothing else can be extremely deadly if (or when) that command link is broken on the battlefield. Hence simply urging people to a) think with their own head and b) take the initiative when required, will disrupt a hierarchial organization and create the "good chance" what Diefenbach is talking about. Also in organizations that cannot be defined to be 'democratic'.

Diefenbach does give credit Michels and understands that his conclusions have importance. He also makes quite astute observations. So what is the problem here? The answer is: ideology overriding rationality and logic. This ideology is shown well in Diefenbach's conclusion:

The danger of oligarchy is always there – but, luckily, it does not always materialise. I therefore think that it is more appropriate to call Michels’ theory not the iron law but the iron threat of oligarchy.

By talking about the 'danger' and 'threat' of oligarchy that "luckily will not materialize", Diefenbach clearly shows what he thinks about oligarchy. And this is the trap many fall into: they see the structures of organizations as ideological or ideologically constructed and morally good or bad, and spend little if any thought on the logical and rational grounds on just why organizations have evolved to what they are now.

Perhaps "The Iron Law of oligarchy" is the wrong way to look at this phenomenon. Perhaps it would be better to call it "The fundamental limitations of collective decision making". Collective decision making takes time, people think inherently differently, will disagree and will make different choices. The only answer to this is to try to seek some sort of consensus. Also, specialization of roles in an organization is natural in creating efficiency. Hence the outcome and the effect will be that some people will have pivotal roles in the function of an organization. And hence, you will have "the oligarchy" in some way or another. That "oligarch" might then be the secretary of the council, an employee of the firm like a CEO or an wealthy financier of various enterprises. At this general level, there isn't so much use for this law. That few people will have power over others in any organization should be obvious and insisting that you can eradicate "oligarchy" at this general level is just a thought that hasn't much to do with reality.

Hence the mistake is think about the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" from an ideological viewpoint. Or to give too much ideological value to what basically is a logical or rational outcome of a complex issue.

I don’t get why people push back against it because everyone we organize with is an individual. If you only see them as a means to some collective end, then it is their subordination rather than their cooperation you require. — NOS4A2

Isn't that what the Iron Law of Oligarchy would require?

But it, too, is an abstraction. Along with "individual".

From the perspective of organizing, then everyone is both an individual and in relationship with others. I am not a monad perfectly willing myself, but a human being who is attached to his family, to friends, to coworkers and neighbors, to mild nuisances and to outright enemies -- I am not just myself, but my relationship with others.

In this conversation, though, that too is an abstraction. We are you and I in a conversation. This form of organization is not an oligarchy. And it's certainly not inevitable that it will become one. And depending on how we count organizations -- well, the conversational dyads outnumber the hierarchical organizations, just by sheer numbers. Insofar that you accept our conversational dyad as a counter-example to the iron law of oligarchy regarding organizations, then surely you could count some of the other dyads out there too -- but the conversational ones in particular seem to resist oligarchic tendencies, because as soon as either participant is done they can just walk away. And so when the organization ceases to fulfill either participants desires it ceases to be, rather than lives on like the abstractions.

At base we can say you are yourself and I am myself and we're on a forum thinking about ideas and their limitations, and that conversation is not oligarchic nor does it need to become oligarchic.

Diefenbach does give credit Michels and understands that his conclusions have importance. He also makes quite astute observations. So what is the problem here? The answer is: ideology overriding rationality and logic. This ideology is shown well in Diefenbach's conclusion:

The danger of oligarchy is always there – but, luckily, it does not always materialise. I therefore think that it is more appropriate to call Michels’ theory not the iron law but the iron threat of oligarchy.


By talking about the 'danger' and 'threat' of oligarchy that "luckily will not materialize", Diefenbach clearly shows what he thinks about oligarchy. And this is the trap many fall into: they see the structures of organizations as ideological or ideologically constructed and morally good or bad, and spend little if any thought on the logical and rational grounds on just why organizations have evolved to what they are now.

Perhaps "The Iron Law of oligarchy" is the wrong way to look at this phenomenon. Perhaps it would be better to call it "The fundamental limitations of collective decision making". Collective decision making takes time, people think inherently differently, will disagree and will make different choices. The only answer to this is to try to seek some sort of consensus. Also, specialization of roles in an organization is natural in creating efficiency. Hence the outcome and the effect will be that some people will have pivotal roles in the function of an organization. And hence, you will have "the oligarchy" in some way or another. That "oligarch" might then be the secretary of the council, an employee of the firm like a CEO or an wealthy financier of various enterprises. At this general level, there isn't so much use for this law. That few people will have power over others in any organization should be obvious and insisting that you can eradicate "oligarchy" at this general level is just a thought that hasn't much to do with reality.

Hence the mistake is think about the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" from an ideological viewpoint. Or to give too much ideological value to what basically is a logical or rational outcome of a complex issue. — ssu

:up:

It's true that human beings and other primates are gregarious. But you are a single object. The last dyad you or I have ever experienced ended when the umbilical cord was severed. Any and all attachments are strictly metaphorical. To me it's patently false to treat aggregates of any number of human beings as single objects, so I'm a strict nominalist in that regard. I can't get around it and I can't help but fashion my politics around what I see as brute facts.

For these reasons I believe any effort to give a group priority over the individuals in it—collectivism—is to prioritize ideas over actuality, and worse, one's own ideas and nothing more. It is never about the collective qua collective, nor could it be.

I don't see social interactions, conversations, and natural groupings as organizations because they are not arranged systematically and artificially. They are not organized.

It's true that human beings and other primates are gregarious. But you are a single object. The last dyad you or I have ever experienced ended when the umbilical cord was severed. Any and all attachments are strictly metaphorical. To me it's patently false to treat aggregates of any number of human beings as single objects, so I'm a strict nominalist in that regard. I can't get around it and I can't help but fashion my politics around what I see as brute facts.

For these reasons I believe any effort to give a group priority over the individuals in it—collectivism—is to prioritize ideas over actuality, and worse, one's own ideas and nothing more. It is never about the collective qua collective, nor could it be. — NOS4A2

Good thing I recognized both, then. The group is composed of individuals, which themselves are not isolated monads, but multiplicities connected to others. Does our relationship to our mother become a metaphor when the doctor cuts the umbilical cord? Why?

If I am an object, which object am I? If I lose my leg, do I lose my objectivity? If I lose my boyhood, do I become a new object -- a man?

If I am a ship of theseus then I am certainly not a monad disconnected from the physical world, but rather am a machine for processing the world from sugar to shit.

But surely none of that even matters when it comes to politics. So why focus on such brute facts? Why call yourself an object?

I don't treat aggregates as objects. I treat objects as objects. And we are a dyad, in this conversation, rather than an object. There is both give and take, a listening and a speaking.

So when you say:

I don't see social interactions, conversations, and natural groupings as organizations because they are not arranged systematically and artificially. They are not organized.

It sounds to me that you have poised the well in proving the Iron Law of Oligarchy, then -- you'll only accept human organizations which are prone to verifying the Iron Law, and calling organizations which do not something renamed which is natural rather than artificial.

Or, at least, it seems less Law like if there are human organizations which don't tend towards Oligarchy, like natural organizations.

Perhaps it's this artificiality that's more at issue, than collectivism?

I certainly understand that a group can sacrifice an individual for collective reasons -- what else is war other than the old sacrificing the young to keep the state in order? I think those things are bad. I think individuals are important. Important enough that we, collectively, need to preserve individuals by actively fighting oligarchy.

But that takes collective action, you see?

There's a theory that the queen of an ant colony is the colony's sex organ. The colony is a single individual with semi-autonomous parts.

Your body has only one citizen who can move on its on: macrophages. But it's still a diverse population of entities.

So you actually are an aggregate. That's pretty common on earth.

"Relationship" is a metaphor because there is no actual, physical connection between mother and child, save for the umbilical cord. "Connection" is also metaphorical, I believe. Rather, to relate is an action performed by things. Turning the verb "relate" into a noun by adding the suffix "ship" does not signify some other thing, but is used in abstracto to describe mother and child relating to one another.

I call myself an object because I fit the definition, at least according to the hard sciences. I have a boundary; I move as one; I occupy a position in space and time; and so on.

The brute facts are important for politics because one requires a political unit or subject to value. The fascist, for instance, would value the State and give it primacy in all matters political, and is willing to sacrifice flesh-and-blood individuals for its sake. The Marxist would do the same for the Proletariat. The liberal or republican would do it for the People or the Res publica. The National Socialist would do it for the Race. Collectivism is a tried-and-true method for justifying atrocity and injustice. Worse, their demand for the subordination of the individual to some notion of the collective proves that it is not about the collective at all, but about subordinating certain segments and individuals of the collective to others.

I don't think I have poisoned the well with the Law of Oligarchy because Michels' is concerned with systematic organizations and not the spontaneous familial relationships and other aggregates of human beings. His book is called Political Parties, after all. But I guess its an interesting question if any aggregate of human beings can be considered an organization. if you want to get into it, it's clear that the relationship of mother and child, or the bourgeois family, are not democracies by any stretch of the imagination.

But I guess its an interesting question if any aggregate of human beings can be considered an organization. if you want to get into it, it's clear that the relationship of mother and child, or the bourgeois family, are not democracies by any stretch of the imagination. — NOS4A2

Yup, I agree.

I begin with these personal relationships because I can relate to your expressed suspicion of abstractions. I'd only push further and note that a physical object, a boundary -- these are abstractions too.

With respect to this conversation the only non-abstract is our relationship, the relationship between NOS4A2 and Moliere on The Philosophy Forum.

The state? The Marxist? The Liberal? The Republican? The National Socialist? Collectivism? Individualism? These are all abstractions we are discussing in the context of a philosophy forum. The only non-abstract referent here would be what's happening within the conversation, and who we are to one another. The position you occupy in space, in this conversation, is on a forum rather than wherever you're at while reading this. At least, that's the space I tend to respond to since that's the space I have access to and am sensitive to. In abstract you'd represent something, but in concrete you're just you and I'm just me talking about ideas.

One of the things I also tend to push against is the notion that political parties get to define what's political. So I'd naturally push against the idea that political parties define organization. Being organized is a good thing -- political parties in the United States? not so much.

I also push against individualism because I know it's an ideology spread by the already organized. I wouldn't use artificial/natural as a distinction, because I know that human beings like hierarchies. I don't think ossification, even, is unnatural, which is roughly what I'd equate to "The Iron Law of Oligarchy" -- and I think that the Iron Law formulation of ossification overlooks too much in search of an idea. Even in the context of political parties, how have the various third parties in the United States faired in terms of the law? Do they have a core of oligarchs controlling the pedestal below them, or are they just a bunch of sad sacks and hopefuls doing their best in a first past the post democracy*? Or is the point that they aren't oligarchs, but will become oligarchs once they.... are oligarchs?

You see?


*has-been democracy, if you ask me

With respect to ossification, though -- I think it makes sense to treat what is organized like an organism, and apoptosis, like extinction, is a natural process. Hence why I pointed out the toppling of pedestals.

When a cell is ready for death, then death comes. So goes it with social organizations, though we don't know how it works -- but inequality sometimes features in topplings.

EDIT: Other times, in a conversation for instance, the random blatherings of someone does the trick ;)

Which organizations push the ideology of individualism? If I believed the fascist and socialist literature from the French Revolution onward I’d think you were right, but during my lifetime I cannot say I’ve heard much of it. I have to read the likes of Wilhelm Von Humboldt, Herbert Spencer, Henry Thoreau, John Locke, JS Mill to find any trace of it. I know Hoover once mention “rugged individualism” a long time ago and it has become sort of a meme, but not much else. Maybe I’m naive.

The biggest organization which pushes individualism is the United States government and the laws it enforces. Every individual is held accountable for themself as a legal entity, so individualism is deeply enforced by the legal system.

But even debates we have are about individual choices. One of the regular points people would bring up against universal health care would be that some people take better care of themselves than others, and that general thrust is why Obamacare is this bizzarro private-public partnership law that costs way too much. To make sure that the bad individuals didn't get what the good individuals deserved.

First, thank you for addressing the article. Much appreciated.

Thomas Diefenbach here uses frequently conditinionals — ssu

Indeed, but I read this as a result of ambiguities in the formulation of the supposed "iron rule". The objection is methodological; it is that the notion of oligarchy is insufficiently clear to enable an empirical investigation. The supposed law is an example of Popper's poor historicism, and falls subject to tht criticism - as is pointed out very clearly in the introduction.

So those conditionals are not down to Diefenbach's criticism, but the inevitable result of equivocation in Michels’ thesis.

But I will go one strep further and point out that Michels’ work is inherently ideological. This article is part of the ideological foundations of Italian Fascism. To leave it to be so grounded and yet ask that critics not adopt ideological stances is to adopt an asymmetrical position.

Since the view espoused is not amenable to empirical test, it can only to be understood ideologically.

So what I'm getting from this thread is that few have read The Poverty of Historicism.

It's a worry.

I am not just myself, but my relationship with others. — Moliere

Brilliantly put!

Cheers.