There is much criticism about capitalism and the patriarchy, but little discussion about the alternatives. Democracy is no alternative because we already have that. With the exception of a few regulations, nearly all decisions are made by capitalists. Think about that. The buildings that get constructed, the news reported, the movies filmed, the airports serviced, the clothes sold, most of modern life — all decided non-democratically. There is a reason capitalists do not use democracy to organize themselves and the reason is that they insist on being effective.
Capitalists use alliances. These alliances have specific purposes, like passing or thwarting certain laws. An ally in one domain may be an adversary in another, such as publishers who are competitors in the domain of selling books, but allies in extending copyright beyond its original limits.
This obviously works, so there is no point in arguing against it. To argue against it is to submit to it.
In fact, alliances are nothing new to popular movements. Unions are the most notable example. There are many more opportunities to use them, but we lack the reflex, the vocabulary, and intuition about them. This article is about sharpening up the intuitions.
Common Goals
The first thing to note is that an alliance is based on common goals, not common philosophy. The US had an alliance with the USSR during WWII, for the specific purpose of defeating Germany, although the two countries were quite philosophically disjoint. Immediately upon the end of war in Europe, the USSR and the US became enemies. It shows that their alliance was simply about defeating a common enemy, and nothing more. Alliances are therefore impermanent, and ought to be accepted as such. When a goal changes or disappears, so does the alliance.
An alliance is not necessarily a partnership. Partners commit themselves to be allies in all matters regarding the partnership. Allies work on specific goals or projects as long as it suits them.
Who can be an ally? Again, not necessarily someone with similar views or philosophy. It is someone who is already actively working on your common goal and is seeking an alliance only to augment effectiveness. Why? There are any number of reasons why a person might express an interest in a common goal, but be inactive, including laziness, craziness, and disorganization. A proper ally seeks to be attractive as an ally by doing. Allies are peers, at least regarding the goal. It is possible to recruit an inactive person to be a helper, but until that person proves him/herself in action, there is no real alliance. It is something else, be it fealty, an apprenticeship, or a partnership.
Transparency
Hierarchies can easily afford to be sneaky. Generals must use secrecy and deception when battling an enemy, and the same is true for corporations. However, they needn’t use it internally — that is, for coordinating subordinates. There are already a control end enforcement mechanisms in a hierarchy.
Alliances might also be sneaky in dealing with external adversaries. For example, an environmental group might act surreptitiously to obtain sensitive documents or to launch a blockading action. However, but here there are no restrictions on internal use. In particular, allies are not necessarily forthcoming with each other. Actors can work in multiple alliances. An ally might change priorities without telling you. For example, if your ally is facing a crisis in another alliance, he might not inform you of the depth of the crisis, for fear of scaring you off as an ally. In other words, he might try to put you in the refrigerator for later use. You always have to worry about if this is happening to you. This is, in fact, how alliances typically evolve or dissolve.
An ally might be thinking about switching camps. An example of this would be the alliances and betrayals among medieval dukes and barons. While this is extremely uncommon among activist groups, it is a stronger possibility between individuals.
If you want to know whom to trust, forget about it. You can never be 100% sure in an alliance. The problem is moot if you bear in mind the precondition for being an ally: someone who is already working on your common goal.
There is no way out of this quandary. Once you have over-come the uncertainty of disloyalty, you’re in a hierarchy.
The disadvantage of a hierarchy is that you don’t control how the goals and methods are chosen. You simply take orders. The disadvantage of an alliance is that you have to keep track of people, but the trade-off is that you don’t get ordered and you are not responsible for giving orders. You chose your own goals and methods.
Alliances are not weird. Life is weird only when people are not in alliances. When people have no clear goals, they tend to look toward institutions that are self-justifying, like religion, democracy, or market logic, even though these institutions have pernicious side-effects. We must stay focused on effects. We must stay focused on reality. The core idea is to have priorities and goals, and to ditch anything and everything that interferes with them.
When people can see your goals and methods, then morality, principles, and righteousness are unnecessary. Principles are often used as a smokescreen for mischief, like “we value your privacy.” For the purpose of societal evolution, transparency is much better.
