I'd love readers' eagle eyes over the next couple of months. As paid subscribers know from the "Red Mole Preview' each month, we have a long line of 'evergreen' articles in our queue which get pushed further back by topical events. The telltale for the older posts is that the footer of the banner says redmole.substack.com rather than our new address at redmole.org -- like this week's post on The Tyranny of Structurelessness. It contained an outdated count of the number of councils with Green majority control, which our reader Colin helpfully pointed out. Please let me know if you see similar slips in articles, and especially the ones with telltake substack link.
That's an excellent point. I drafted this article before the May local elections when Mid Suffolk was the only Green majority council. Since May, Green control has expanded to Hastings, Lewisham, Norwich and Waltham Forest. The other places you mention have hung councils or no overall control, but with Greens in administration.
Also, I missed that the Forest of Dean has had Greens in the administration since 2021, and so has Hastings, Lancaster, Lewes and Stroud since 2023/2024.
The best and most refreshing analysis on the left-leaning movements I have read for ages. This all is too true. Then the question arises, why do these movements do the same mistakes again and again. And we come to the conclusion, or rather an observation: because they have no clue. And they will never have a clue because, although the intellectual resources to learn and understand the dynamics described here, are there, people in general do not operate at that level, studying things to understand them, looking for the best analysis available.
Our dear species is impatient, easily bored, and has a short attention span. Exceptions do exist, but they are a small percentage of the population, and the small percentage is almost never, only by accident, given a leadership in political movements, mostly because only very few of these ideologically informed people are also charismatic in the publicity-and-fame-oriented way and power-hungry. "Movements" are almost by definition manned by impulsjve me-needs-to-do-something people who are herded by the stars, and who will not change their basic character and become rational thinkers.
Also, as long as the “organization” remains diffuse, it can accommodate much more people because they can have widely differing views of what the whole organization is about. When the structures become better defined, lots of people notice that this is not really what they came for, and drop out. Diffuse organizations are good for one-time jobs, like revolutions, but they are not good for tasks that demand longer perspectives.
As things are, the idea that a democratic system of steering and accountability should be built into an organization for it to become a real surviving force, is true, but it does not cure the basic problem of all parties. All the political parties that I have ever known, have the same problems of e.g. where the real power is. A small elite leads the party anyway what ever the structure, and the party is just as wise or stupid as the small elite happens to be. Real changes are very hard to produce from below.
Thanks for writing this comrade.
I'd love readers' eagle eyes over the next couple of months. As paid subscribers know from the "Red Mole Preview' each month, we have a long line of 'evergreen' articles in our queue which get pushed further back by topical events. The telltale for the older posts is that the footer of the banner says redmole.substack.com rather than our new address at redmole.org -- like this week's post on The Tyranny of Structurelessness. It contained an outdated count of the number of councils with Green majority control, which our reader Colin helpfully pointed out. Please let me know if you see similar slips in articles, and especially the ones with telltake substack link.
"The Greens here do not yet run councils at scale, Mid Suffolk aside..."
To clarify, the Green Party either runs, or is a major party in a join administration in:
- Lambeth
- Lewisham,
- Southwark
- Hackney
- Haringey
- Waltham Forest
- Birmingham
- Sheffield
- Forest of Dean
- Hastings
- Lancaster
- Lewes
- Norwich
- Stroud
That's an excellent point. I drafted this article before the May local elections when Mid Suffolk was the only Green majority council. Since May, Green control has expanded to Hastings, Lewisham, Norwich and Waltham Forest. The other places you mention have hung councils or no overall control, but with Greens in administration.
Also, I missed that the Forest of Dean has had Greens in the administration since 2021, and so has Hastings, Lancaster, Lewes and Stroud since 2023/2024.
Bristol?
Yes, another example of No Overall Control with Greens represented in the administration.
Bristol!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_City_Council
The best and most refreshing analysis on the left-leaning movements I have read for ages. This all is too true. Then the question arises, why do these movements do the same mistakes again and again. And we come to the conclusion, or rather an observation: because they have no clue. And they will never have a clue because, although the intellectual resources to learn and understand the dynamics described here, are there, people in general do not operate at that level, studying things to understand them, looking for the best analysis available.
Our dear species is impatient, easily bored, and has a short attention span. Exceptions do exist, but they are a small percentage of the population, and the small percentage is almost never, only by accident, given a leadership in political movements, mostly because only very few of these ideologically informed people are also charismatic in the publicity-and-fame-oriented way and power-hungry. "Movements" are almost by definition manned by impulsjve me-needs-to-do-something people who are herded by the stars, and who will not change their basic character and become rational thinkers.
Also, as long as the “organization” remains diffuse, it can accommodate much more people because they can have widely differing views of what the whole organization is about. When the structures become better defined, lots of people notice that this is not really what they came for, and drop out. Diffuse organizations are good for one-time jobs, like revolutions, but they are not good for tasks that demand longer perspectives.
As things are, the idea that a democratic system of steering and accountability should be built into an organization for it to become a real surviving force, is true, but it does not cure the basic problem of all parties. All the political parties that I have ever known, have the same problems of e.g. where the real power is. A small elite leads the party anyway what ever the structure, and the party is just as wise or stupid as the small elite happens to be. Real changes are very hard to produce from below.
Some organizations are dysfunctional. But other organisations that run badly are really functioning as unavoidable consequences of choices.