Traditional conceptions of leadership inevitably involve the leader as controller of information and resources. All the other levers of power flow out of that. Maybe this is why many people have so much difficulty in conceiving of the leaderless organization.
What we are really talking about is an organization where control of information and resources is not vested in any individual or group. It's available to everyone. I don't think that it's so much a fear of chaos or inertia that is at the heart of the argument against the leaderless org - it's a fear of sharing power and of what others might do if that is allowed to happen. It's also a fear of the individual responsibility that comes from having power. Let's face it, we look to conventional leaders to make the tough decisions, take the blame for bad decisions, grapple with difficult issues. We know from centuries of experience that they often fail us and why this is but we continue to ask, "Who will lead us?" because we've been conditioned to think this way and because, unless we are in truly desparate straits, it spares us from having to think about and do things that may be very challenging.
I don't think however that the leaderless org is a pipe dream as some have suggested. The concept exists in varying forms in many different kinds of organizations. Questions and issues like the ones that weiser raises will propel more of us towards alternate model of organization. It will be a matter of our survival, we're smart enough to do it, our conventional leaders grip on information is weakening. It's just a matter of time as far as I'm concerned.
The Future and Power
We've been talking a lot lately about leaderless structures and the need to prepare for future activism. We've mentioned that as feudalism gave way to industrialism, so it will give way to informationalism (Don't you just hast "isms"?).
Those who control information will have the power--sometimes over life and death on a large scale. For a here-and-now example read this:
quote:
SARS patent battle heating up
Firms in Hong Kong, U.S. and Canada seeking patents for treatments for respiratory disease.
May 5, 2003: 7:17 AM EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Scientists from the United States, Canada and Hong Kong are seeking patents related to the sometimes deadly respiratory infection known as SARS, according to a published report Monday.
The patent applications are believed to claim rights in nearly any diagnostic test, drug or vaccine development to cope with the outbreak and have sparked divisions among researchers over whether discovery of the virus is even worthy of a patent and whether it is appropriate to seek commercial gain from it, the Wall Street Journal reported.
A few gene-based diagnostic tests are already on the market and some major companies, such as Abbott Laboratories Inc. and Roche Holding AG, are moving to manufacture their own versions.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed it filed at least one provisional patent application related to SARS, and Canada's British Columbia Cancer Agency said it has filed an application in the United States claiming commercial rights on the genetic sequence of the virus that causes SARS, the Journal reported.
The University of Hong Kong has filed patents related to SARS, the Journal quoted Hailson Yu, deputy managing director of Versitech Ltd., which handles the university's intellectual property.
U.S. biotech companies are also getting into the SARS patent race, the paper reported, including the CombiMatrix unit of Acacia Research Corp (ACRI: Research, Estimates).
BC Cancer Agency says they have applied for a patent to keep the information in the public domain and out of the hands of those who would hold it for profit.
We accepted that the aristocracy had the God given right to own all the land. We then accepted that the Capitalist elite had the right to own the lion's share of capital. Will we accept the right of "informationalists to own ideas and information?
Do I have the God given right to buy the SARS genetic model and keep the information to protect the value of my ideas?
When ideas become property and are bought and sold, the owner can enlighten me or keep me ignorant at his or her whim. Will all knowledge have to be bought at a price? What will the price be? Who will get first crack at the knowedge?
This sort of stuff will affect the way you work too. Will you be allowed just enough knowledge to do your job? You'll advance according to what you know, and that's a double-edged sword.
Today's unions are geared towards controlling production using an industrial model of unionism. When you look at the stupid statement on the UFCW Local 401 site about it being unlawful for management to visit and read the "information" on their site, you can see just how out of step industrial unions are in the world of information.
There you go again RV. Anybody who objects to your dogma suffers from a "difficulty in conceiving" or resistance due to fear.
A convenient way to ignore anarchism's long history of failure, which is a more plausible explanation of the resistance.
Even Naomi Klein says it's time grow up. Unfortunately, she's probably wrong that there might be a "mature" stage of leaderless globalized direct democracy. Political paralysis and an arrested adolesence may be the best we can hope for. Which I'm all in favor of: a libertarian spin on post-Stalinist Soviet stagnation. No worries! Peace at last...