On Organisation

It may be tautologous, or if you like nonsensical, but our future on this planet depends on not getting organized.  Or maybe on becoming unorganized.

My argument goes as follows:

Whenever men or man or humans collectively recognize that something needs to be done then an organisation is put in place to realize that shared goal.

I don't think it matters what the shared goal is, as long as a goal is deemed a worthy thing to strive for.  Thus the building of the pyramids, or of Stonehenge required a group recognition that the "thing" should be done, and an organisation had to be put in place, planning had to be done.  Similarly when planning a grape harvest and producing wine; when prosecuting the second world war; when creating the mafia; when introducing a new widget to the market; when running the Boy Scouts, an organisation has to be put into place to achieve the stated goals.

And boy have we been successful!  Without organisation we would not have the global civilization we have today.  Nor would we be about to destroy what we have by the wasteful proliferation of our species with its thirst and hunger for material things.

Implicit in an organisation is structure, and hierarchy.  There is a division of labour perhaps fairly according to those best suited to each of the different tasks needed to succeed; though also perhaps by fiat according to some elected or privileged director, or directrice.

For the organisation to succeed in meeting its goals, it then develops infrastructure.  In order to get together to discuss plans and progress meeting spaces are needed; in order to pay the bills counting houses with counting machines are needed; in order to communicate within the organisation, networks of communication paths need to be established.

And these places and things and networks need access to materials to build them.  Houses need bricks or timbers.  Communication networks, if roads, need stones, and if telephonic need wires and computers.  And all of them need labour.  And cooperative societies.

Once a structure or hierarchy is established, it tends to become ossified, and to resist change.  The privileges that are accorded to each level in the structure become expected by and of the people in those positions.  Without a continuing input of materials and labour an organisation cannot sustain itself.

Organisations then enable our progress, but become self-perpetuating and resistant to change.  The larger an organisation the more resistant typically they become.  A large organisation has difficulty in facing a new small competitor: it has difficulty adapting to the new challenge.  The same is true of large societies: we have difficulty adapting to new circumstances.

But it is the organisation that consumes resources.  Its size directs the need for more consumption in order to keep it running.  Its existence requires the continued input of resources to keep it alive.  this happens, and will continue to happen independent of the people running things.  They become the dupes and slaves of the organisation.  Often their jobs and livelihoods are dependent on the continued running of the organisations of which they are part.

Yet, it is this very consumption that has to end.  There is insufficient space or material on this globe to sustain a continued growth in consumption.  There is some considerable concern that even a zero-growth civilisation will continue to need additional raw materials that will be unavailable.

So if consumption has to come to an end, so too do the organisations that depend on that consumption.  We either need to create organisations that do not consume, quite likely an impossibility, or we need to dismantle our organisations, also well nigh impossible, if not highly undesirable.

Whither goeth us?  I'm not arguing for an anarchic future.  We see in the Congo what unlawlessness means.  I could not do what I am doing now without considerable hidden and very desirable organisation.  The computer I am using for which parts were assembled from places throughout the world.  The power supply that is needed to keep it running, which has come from all points of North America, though mainly Ontario.  The food that keeps me with a quasi normal heart beat.  Without many organisations, societal and corporate, none of this would be possible.

And I think it is desirable that I continue to be able to do what I am doing, among many other things, and for you to continue to do what you do, whatever that is.

Unless our organisations find a way to become unorganised, to be become radically different, a-consumptive organisations we will not be able.

(I don't feel that I have captured the essence of the idea I had on the greed of organisations and their immortality.  Maybe you my dear reader can add to or refute my simplistic incoherence.  I look forward to your comments.)