> On Dec 3, 2025, at 13:30, Marv Gandall via groups.io > <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Tue, Dec 2, 2025 at 09:40 PM, Mark Baugher wrote: > In many, if not most, left groups, the members don't run things but instead > get to elect the people who do. > On Wed, Dec 3, 2025 at 08:09 AM, Benjamin Morgan wrote: > To me these issues of division of labor are insurmountable. Based on these > organizational failures I personally am discouraged by both Leninism and > participatory models that centralize decision making power into the hands of > a small cadre of representatives. > Most people bring different levels of commitment to an organization. Not all > want to lead. Many are too busy at work and with family, prioritize more > compelling outside interests, lack the necessary self-confidence, or don’t > want the responsibility for some other reason.
No small organization engaged in class struggle can afford to have many members who want someone else to make decisions for them. And all left organizations in the US are small, except for one. A revolutionary group needs to develop leaders who can do political work in various types of workplaces, trade unions, united fronts, schools, and other arenas where members must lead. Also, leaders get arrested or worse and need to have competent replacement. This is particularly true before an organization becomes massive. A mass organization will by necessity have many more people who don't aspire to leadership or devote much time to the organization. A truly mass organization will have more parents of small children, for example, who prioritize the well-being of their children over all else - unlike, say, Marx or Trotsky. Not all want to lead, but the actual leadership in a revolutionary-socialist organization needs to be far larger than the number of functionaries. A healthy organization needs to have more leaders than can fit into the small subset who participate leadership bodies or positions. Instead of electing people to the available functionary positions, we might instead elect a slate of people who represent the group's leaders irrespective of the functionary positions to be filled. One criterion would be that an elected leader could serve in a functionary position. From that slate, randomly select people to the leadership body. This would sever the notion that leaders are people who control the resources of the organization; instead leaders are people who can lead from the meeting-room floor, which is where all major, political decisions should be made. Mark -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39598): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39598 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116549413/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
