Top down

[peaccenicked]

This phrase top down is basically referring to vertical structures of organisation.
Do anarchist papers have editors?
Do you have top down spell checkers?

Greens use this phrase a lot too. My complaint is no different same questions.

[Morpheus]

Playing word games again, I see. Division of labor does not equal hierarchy.

[redstar2000]

I wish there was a spell-checker integrated into this board...there are quite a few members who need one very badly.

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The RedStar2000 Papers (http://www.anarchist-action.org/marxists/redstar2000/)
A site about communist ideas

[peaccenicked]

I dont think the division of labour equals hierarchy just that glossing over the division of labour sanctifies hierarchy.

[SonofRage]

A top-down organization is one which runs with decisions being made by a centralized body at the top and carried out by those at the bottom. A bottom-up organization runs with decisions being made democratically (either by majority or consensus) by the general membership and being executed by the officials at the top or the organization. I don't see what's so difficult to understand about that.

[peaccenicked]

I can see the difference in angle. There is democracy in one. Centralism in the other. Top down is so easy. It all comes down to taking orders.
How is this for top down ness. "Exit the building the place is on fire"
"orders" are either sensible or not.
Democracy is generally favoured but I prefer the term undemocratic, or bureaucratic to top down. There is verticality in all organisations.
The trouble is that people deny that this is so.

[SonofRage]

Your example seems like a matter of common sense and seems to be missing the point. In a top-down organization all policy is decided by the central leadership. It has nothing to do with bureaucracy or inefficiency.

[redstar2000]

How is this for top-down-ness? "Exit the building; the place is on fire." "Orders" are either sensible or not.

Matters are a bit more "complicated" than that, are they not?

When I was in a Leninist party and complained of the lack of internal democracy, I was told "if the decisions are correct, then it does not matter how they were arrived at".

It does matter, and quite a bit.

A society composed of a few "order-givers" and a multitude of "order-takers" is one in which despotism and corruption are obviously inevitable. One need only look at the armed forces of any country to see this.

And since despots are not omniscient, they will, sooner or later, make a bad decision...and it will be one that cannot be challenged, much less changed in time to avoid catastrophe.

Not that anyone is likely to challenge it anyway; a despotic society creates a "climate" of passivity among the "order-takers". What most people actually do is as little as possible...since they have no emotional or intellectual stake in the outcome.

I read of an interview once with a former collective farmer in the old USSR. He pointed to a pile of grain next to a railroad station and said, with disgust, "The railroad workers just let it sit there and rot because no one told them to pick it up".

Or, as every intelligent soldier will tell you, the first rule of military survival is never volunteer for anything.

There are certainly situations in which we voluntarily offer a limited surrender of our autonomy for a specific purpose. We do not look over the surgeon's shoulder while s/he is operating on us...though, if we're sensible, we thoroughly investigate the alternatives to surgery before deciding to have it done.

Studies of commercial air crashes suggest that one reason for the fatal outcomes may be the unwillingness of co-pilots to question even the most dubious of the pilot's decisions...and some airlines have, I think, begun training programs to teach co-pilots to "speak up" and "challenge" a pilot's mistake.

"Orders" may not be "sensible"...even from an "expert".


There is verticality in all organisations.

That may be an "accurate" observation--but what is the communist attitude towards that?

Should we accept that or even "enthrone" that?

Or should we struggle against it and "squeeze" it to the minimum?

It depends on what kind of society you really want.

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The RedStar2000 Papers (http://www.anarchist-action.org/marxists/redstar2000/)
A site about communist ideas

[Pete]

The green party of ontario supports Parecon. Here is a good description for you: Revolution Based on Reason Not Faith or Fantasy by Michael Albert (Z-Net) (http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=41&ItemID=4710). It tries to explain the differences. I do not know enough about Parecon to speak for my self, but this is one of the more praticle articles onit I have read.

[peaccenicked]

Being in an organisation that calls itself 'Leninist' is bit like being at an atheist in the moonies. Most 'Leninist' organisations do not practice democratic centralism and are so isolated from the working class that they are little more than cults.



''That may be an "accurate" observation--but what is the communist attitude towards that?

Should we accept that or even "enthrone" that?

Or should we struggle against it and "squeeze" it to the minimum?

It depends on what kind of society you really want.''


What I have been trying to get at is that organisations on the left which oppose hierarchy in words are so full of themselves that they forget about their own hierarchical deeds. I am just saying it is better to be honest about that, people respect honesty.

Verticality is very much a product of history after all it is essential to modern parenthood, no matter how much I try to treat my son as an equal to him and he gets his own way almost all of the time. It is still my decision when and is my judgement call when I think he may be harming himself or behaving in an anti social manner.

I dare say that in a communist society the isolation of families will be broken down and children's frustration may be very well channelled positively and true equality between children and parents will be established, if not with only a few blemishes innate to the trial and error of growing up. I believe in a Stateless world self reliance will become a natural part of organisational work. Education will be of real benefit to the people and not to the State or any class. Verticality will wither away as freedom now unknown is eventually established, although there might be minute traces of it in community/ child relations.


Presently, I am for political honesty in all organisations.
My experience tells me that in organisations with a strong working class base, dishonesty is more quickly detected. The 'street' wisdom of surviving poverty makes it so. I find if organisations promote a new lifestyle rooted in abstract ideas and not the experience of the poorest members of the group then solidarity breaks down. Trust in leaders or top tables is at a minimum. It is a bit too much like school.
When someone tells them that they are the boss and shows them however unconsciously that they have better social skills, suspicion creeps in. I think it is better to be very plain about these things initually. ie expose the verticality in each relationship.
However that means one has to identify oneself as an educator, vanguardist, leader............It must be a damned nuisance to anarchists
and it is ultimately the reason outside Spain for reasons I have not researched but I suspect it has been the poorest who have grasped the ideas and anti authority traditions more readily, that anarchism has anything near a base of support.

It might be bland but I believe that honesty is the best policy and a condition for operative democratic centralism, which I discuss more fully, in the ''Marx the vanguardist'' thread

[peaccenicked]

All policy from above. That does sound like a cult. The british government regulary holds conultation excercise to rubber stamp their policy. I beginning to see why top down is a useful term but I think it should be used discriminately.
Some very bureaucratic organisations have some democracy, even the right to change bureaucrat occaisionally. A vote of no confidence usually works.
Undemocratic refers to the spirit of an organisation, it might even mean incoherent.