BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN
Sometimes, tragic though it may be, I wonder how the spirits of great thinkers are reacting to current events. How many times would Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek have facepalmed at Rishi Sunak during the Covid crisis? How would Edmund Gibbon react to statue toppling? What would John Maynard Keynes make of Kwasinomics? Would Antonio Gramsci be turning in his grave at the vulgar economism of Mick Lynch? Would the spirit of Walter Bagehot classify Volodymyr Zelensky as an accomplished man or a rude man? With which phrase would Oscar Wilde dispose of Mermaids?
Such questions help me sleep. They keep the filing cabinets of one’s mind oiled and ordered.
However, one question that I ask myself of late keeps me wide awake…
How could Saul Alinsky, in his (I admit begrudgingly) brilliant Rules for Radicals, be so irresponsible as to encourage his disciples to conduct experiment?
Alinsky’s other rules are basically ingenious – take the chapter about how to break into corporate governance by using proxy voting at shareholder meetings (something the British Left have done very effectively via placers in organisations like the National Trust and the RSPCA for example, if not yet dominating the board of BlackRock). But why then suggest to leftist activists, after so clearly painting the target, that their approach to ‘the rules’ should be so fluid and flexible? That these rules should be used as mere guiding principles?
Mindless.
To create meaningful social change there must be organisation, cohesion and a honed strategy that generates popularity, so why risk success on experiment? Social change has been created successfully in the past by mass protest, so why not build on those successes rather than fish recklessly for innovation and new, untested paths, risking popular momentum?
If he was so sure of his rules then why would Alinsky even suggest experimenting? Perhaps his lack of confidence stemmed from a lack of self-belief; his realisation that he would always fail in wealthy, capitalist America holding the unrealistic communistic principles that he was afflicted with? (Alinsky never dared identify as a Communist or Socialist, preferring to call himself a radical, and a man of the Left). In any case, novelty attracts risk. And it is surely because of his suggestion to experiment that we pay a high price today – our leading street protesters of today are often the bookish, strategist type and these leftists are not leafing through the pages of The Prince as they embark on protest after protest surrounded by their useful idiots.
I wonder what would have been Alinsky’s reaction to the rise of Extinction Rebellion and other irritating experimental protest groups, most notably Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain, and End UK Private Jets? All such groups are founded on Alinsky’s precepts. Would he have embraced, or chuckled at, the writhing nymphs (pictured above)? If he’d been stuck in a traffic jam on the M25 would he have hooted or applauded?
The founders of these groups are selfish, arrogant so-and-sos who make themselves out to be chess players, 21st Century social media manipulators adept in 5G, who think way more than three moves ahead. Yet none of them show any sign of having strategising qualities superior to those of a dice-roller in a game of Ludo. Jon Lansman was by far the most talented of a bad bunch thrown at us over recent decades. One wonders whether the Roger Hallams of this world are government plants, designed to be flawed? Collectors of the names of society’s lost rebels and most malleable drones? Perhaps Alinsky was compromised and secretly working with J. Edgar – forced to write his rules in a porous way?
Would Alinksy have agreed with the twit, Maddie Budd? It was former medical student Budd who last week tipped a load of faeces and urine over the Captain Tom statue in Thistley Meadow in Hatton, Derbyshire, as part of a campaign to end the use of private jets in the UK. What possessed her? All the publicity she has received since has been negative, from all sides. Like the bespectacled ‘soi boy’ who delayed the Everton match last season by tying himself to the goalposts, Budd has been the target of derision and disdain from across the political spectrum. More unpopular than poor Zola.
At least Budd, unlike the soi boy, had what Alinsky would term a winnable demand – ending UK private jet use is far more attainable than stopping oil – but she’s now blown any chance of an end to private jet use, her campaign is literally in the shit, and has likely inspired those who can to fly by private jet just to counter the immoderacy of her idiocy.
The same for Animal Rebellion who drill into the tyres of milk trucks – a novel idea from the communist playbook for dummies – at a time when food shortages and rising prices in supermarkets are causing the public great harm. What a greedy, First World waste! Do they think their controversial protests are worth it? Really? It is more likely to get people to eat beef and buy ice cream, add cream to their tea and scoff ricotta than ever consider a plant-based diet.
On the one hand, rule 10 below, Alinsky is clear:
The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.
Yet on the other, Alinsky destroys any chance of success by risking experiment:
How can you plan even two steps ahead if you are experimenting? ‘Careful, cold reason’ wins change and power, not analytical logic only after you’ve played your card.
It is remarkable how Alinsky-style organisations have been increasingly unable to secure substantive victories since his death in 1972. Thank God, some might say…
No, thank Alinsky.
Perhaps the Internet Age allows us to call out prats that much faster. Perhaps the loopier leftists, like some modern artists and certain DJ’s, lose reason in pursuit of the shock they feel they will never be heard or seen without.
If Rules for Radicals had been that bit cleverer and Alinsky had been more of a chess player then he’d have told his army of activists to have built on the many real-world successes he details in his book, logically and clinically. Instead, he was a bitter Machiavelli-lite – in his rules designed to prompt a reaction from the enemy, he forgot to mention that where there’s a will there’s a way, and mass-admiration matters in democracies. If you can’t win (or, alas, sufficiently scare) the crowd your protest will not result in change.
“A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag” Alinksy wrote.
Expect the likes of Extinction Rebellion and their spin-offs to become redundant in time, any ‘extinction emergency’ warded off by capitalist invention, certainly not by writhing nymphs.
Dominic Wightman is Editor of Country Squire Magazine.
Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals:
1. “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood.
2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.
3. “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defence. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.
6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing and will even suggest better ones.
7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news.
8. “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.
9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.
10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.” It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.
11. “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.
12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.
13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.
14. Vote Conservative. The rest are even more bonkers.