Seth Godin: The Big-O conundrum

Seth Godin discusses The Big-O conundrum

There are Big-O problems in marketing, in sales, in customer service, in finance, in production and in compliance. There’s nothing wrong with winging it–until there is.

Emphasis Mine

The main difference between Anarchists and Leninists is the amount of centralism that is needed for a Communist society to operate. The problem is that a Communist society needs an advanced industrial base to suceed. That base was built by Capitalism.

A Capitalist system operates as an aristocracy of managers for large organisations, and as a monarchy for smaller organisations. As organisations grow, they have to migrate from a monarchy into an aristocracy. The primary driver for this transition is the span of control that a person is capable of managing effectively. One could view an aristocracy as a confederation of local lords—in other words, feudalism.

The Capitalist state oversees the Capitalist organisations through a bureaucracy. The state has the necessary force to ensure compliance. In reality, the state is a battleground among Capitalists to advance their own interests. The state is not a neutral actor in a Capitalist society.

Anarchists believe that a loose confederation of communities can function for an advanced industrial civilisation. Maybe the samller organisations could transition to direct worker democracy without much problems as the workers are all known to each other, and have been exposed to the overall operation of the business. This model will fail for larger organisations as specialist functions need to be coordinated.

The Leninist model of Democratic Centralism is the best model for a post-Capitalist society in managing the large organisations. Instead of decomposing the large organisations into a confederation of direct worker democracies, the structure and efficiencies of the large organisations need to be preserved but brought under worker control through an executive committee that answers to the workers on a regular basis.