You must log in or register to comment.
This is kind of how I feel joining so many member owned groups. I will say I do feel some voter fatigue sometimes, but that can be remedied with selective participation across the groups.
I think wider discussion of micro-bureaucracies would be valuable. During the November meta, a member requested some kind of vote on our descision to defederate nazi instances, which I think was adequately discussed and concluded. It stood out to me that the member objected to my description of voting in this manner as ‘bureaucratic’ – a word I felt I was using descriptively, but was interpreted as pejorative. I think it’s interesting that different people have different definitions of bureaucracy.
What is bureaucracy?
I think there are a number of definitions in use. The term often implies hierarchy (through, that’s not how it’s being used here). Here it’s being used to describe an entity that systematically manages resources (including knowing). I probably could have continued with the microservice metaphor, but I felt like that would alienate folks who aren’t familiar with tech.
There’s definitely a negative connotation. I feel like I need to read “Utopia of Rules” to have a better understanding of his critique. I am sort of referencing the “forms of domination” from Dawn of Everything, in that a large bureaucracy can be leveraged into power over people. That is, if you manage a resource for someone you can end up with power over them. Thus making it smaller reduces the impact in case the system must be abandoned or replaced.
Really, we’re talking about various forms of commons management (folks should refer to Elinor Ostrom’s work). Everything we do or share together is a type of commons, and the term here is referring to the machinery of management.
I would probably go on to say that slrpnk.net is itself a commons managed by this type of micro-bureaucracy. I mean this in a good way. In saying this, I also mean that the VSM would be a good tool for auditing the health of the organization (it’s always good to keep in mind and keep healthy). Graeber was an amazing anthropologist and thinker, but I don’t think his critique was informed by cybernetics or organizational theory. I think that I have a more positive connotation for the word than the negative one I get from his writing.
I agree and I’m aware it has negative connotations – it is inseparable from modern methods of administering power. Without records, how can you demonstrate you’re distributing resources equitably? I recognize that my role as admin is basically an anarchist bureaucrat – approving applications, responding to reports, writing reports on progress for the community each month; it’s done digitally now, but it’s the stuff that would otherwise be the paperwork for which bureaucracy was made famous.
Bureaucracy was invented in France during the reign of kings, in hopes that it might quell the frequent revolutionary uprisings. It used to be that the only way you could get a license to do anything was through an audience with the king, or access via one of his courtiers – a role similar to modern lobbyists. This exclusivity of access meant the richest and most well connected were granted corporate charters, business licenses, or land titles, creating extremely stark class division between the bourgeoisie and even the petit bourgeoisie.
The role of bureaucracy (named after the drawers where they kept the mountains of paper this activity generated) was to ‘democratize’ distribution of licensing and grants to everyone based on meeting the same requirements and paying the same fees. It was popular enough to get grafted into the organs of the new republic once one of the uprisings hit the mark.
It was ‘democratic’ in the same sense that electoral ‘democracy’ is democratic - that is, it is closer to the ideal of freedom than autocratic rule. But citizens are still vulnerable to the whims of tyrannical bureaucrats. Even at the local level and at small scale, a bureaucrat can do a lot of damage if there isn’t popular power prepared to resist him.
For example in Chennai, the Zero Rupee was invented to build popular power against a culture of compulsive bribery that is endemic to all levels of the state bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is a burden that’s accepted because the alternative is clearly worse, like the French kings of old. But all bureaucracies are not the same, and merely making them smaller or ‘distributed’ does not solve the problems that can arise when they are not open to public challenge.
The primary purpose of distribution centers is to serve capital, and there are plenty of private libraries. In the case of a library or dispensary, a bureaucracy can definitely increase the equanimity of the distribution of wealth in a society, but that relies on both the bureaucrats and the public they are supposed to serve to be willing to fight for that ideal.
I talked about it in a previous chapter, but basically the antidote to all of these is immediately revocable authority (basically, free association). This is what makes the mastodon a good model vs centralized social media. By being federated, you can leave without (necessarily) losing your connections and (with account transfer) you can even move the rest of the data.
Any bureaucracy can be exactly as corrupt as it is able to keep people under it’s control. If it can be dissolved or those under it’s control can leave at will, things can only get so bad.
To make this all concrete (using slrpnk.net as an example), I could imagine an affinity group (as described here) recognizing the value of this site. A services committee meeting may then agree that a couple of members of the affinity group should support administration. So then these folks would ask to join the admin team. The works committee could determine that they should use general funds to donate to hosting on a regular basis.
Perhaps members of the existing admin team here might start their own affinity group. Their works committee provides labor and funds to support the site. At some point the two affinity groups discover each other and federate into a collective. Via some collective agreements the second affinity group agrees to take some portion of the hosting cost on occasion in acorn bread and mead made by the first affinity group. The second affinity group transfers the money they would have spent on food and booze to hosting and spends a bit less over all, the first spends a little bit less since they’re making things themselves, both get to support the project.
The micro-bureaucracy of slrpnk.net becomes the responsibility of the collective to support, but that doesn’t mean it’s then taken over by the collective. It remains an open public good. This becomes an example of the especifismo concept of “social insertion” (at least as best as I understand it).
Intriguing👍
