
The Tyranny of Structurelessness - orph
http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
======
acjohnson55
Pretty similar to this is Robert Michels' Iron Law of Oligarchy [1], which I
understand to be a reaction to the trend of Marx-inspired leftist groups
supposedly devoted to egalitarianism developing rigid hierarchies and power
dynamics.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy)

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amirmc
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7409611](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7409611)

~~~
dang
Thanks. Burying as dupe.

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stared
At least at small scale, lack of formal structure may work very well. And
often better way is no to use _democracy_ , but _do-ocracy_. Usually some
people have higher of lower position, but it is a feature, not - bug.
Formalizing power, while gives information to outsiders, also (or: primarily)
entrenches it.

See:
[http://www.communitywiki.org/cw/DoOcracy](http://www.communitywiki.org/cw/DoOcracy),
[https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Do-
ocracy](https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Do-ocracy)

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mercurial
Very good article, and pretty true. It also shows that you don't need to
invent global conspiracies of world domination: the rich and the powerful
naturally mingle, and will often do what is in each other's interest, not
necessarily out of malice. Of course, the end result will not be necessarily
different for those negatively affected by the policies created in this
context.

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webmaven
Needs a [1970] (or perhaps a [1973]) in the title.

This is an incredibly valuable essay on just how hard it is to eliminate
hierarchical power relationships within groups of people, and how it pops back
up in hidden (and thus unaccountable) ways. I've often wondered whether
similar issues occur in flatter open-allocation style organizations.

~~~
dalke
I learned about the essay, and read it, because of one of the previous times
it came up here at HN. (A search find 7 other matches; the one with the most
comments is
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7555013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7555013)
.)

It's definitely influence my way of thinking about "open-allocation style
organizations", if I understand your meaning correctly. Eg, one group I'm
loosely associated with strongly asserts that it's unstructured, and declares
that anyone can do anything. As a result, it doesn't seem to actually do
anything except act as a boasting point for one of the original founders.

While another, which I used to be closely associated with, has an
organizational structure, yearly meetings, GSOC participation, etc.

~~~
webmaven
This is what I meant:
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_allocation](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_allocation)

BTW, are you Andrew Dalke?

~~~
dalke
Thanks for the link. And yes, I am.

