T34

@T34@lemmygrad.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Thoughts on r/antiwork drama and implications for Lemmy⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago⁩:

  I see what happened as a flaw in anarchism itself that reminded me of the essay Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman:

  This means that to strive for a structureless group is as useful, and as deceptive, as to aim at an "objective" news story, "value-free" social science, or a "free" economy. A "laissez faire" group is about as realistic as a "laissez faire" society; the idea becomes a smokescreen for the strong or the lucky to establish unquestioned hegemony over others. This hegemony can be so easily established because the idea of "structurelessness" does not prevent the formation of informal structures, only formal ones. Similarly "laissez faire" philosophy did not prevent the economically powerful from establishing control over wages, prices, and distribution of goods; it only prevented the government from doing so. Thus structurelessness becomes a way of masking power, and within the women's movement is usually most strongly advocated by those who are the most powerful (whether they are conscious of their power or not). As long as the structure of the group is informal, the rules of how decisions are made are known only to a few and awareness of power is limited to those who know the rules. Those who do not know the rules and are not chosen for initiation must remain in confusion, or suffer from paranoid delusions that something is happening of which they are not quite aware.

  r/antiwork users saw it as not just a place to chat but a movement, though a structureless one. It turns out that there was structure all along, dictated not by the users but the corporation, enabling whoever created the subreddit to ban users, censor speech, and act as spokesperson.

  The solution is to have an actual IRL party with a formal structure and democratic centralism. If the party wants a web site with user comments, it can make one and appoint moderators who can be recalled by party members. The key is that a real movement must be led by a party, not a structureless crowd on a web site.

  One idea could be to have an option to provide members of a community with the ability to hold elections or initiate recalls.

  The problem is there's no IRL party. The "community" is whoever posts here. If lemmy ever takes off, what's to keep cops, marketers, right-wing trolls, etc. from voting in the election?