Helping the Pirate Party to vanish

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

I've been watching this discussion, and think it might be useful to 
raise some Free Association/Delegable Proxy concepts.

First of all, we should be aware of the Iron Law of Oligarchy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy

The Iron Law is a result of the centralization of power. Where power 
is centralized, there are gate-keepers, and in spite of theory, for a 
functional organization, there must be privileged access. 
Organizations without privileged access rapidly are overwhelmed by 
noise, and power then devolves to those with special skills at 
manipulating opinion in the presence of noise.

The goal of eliminating oligarchy is probably equivalent to a goal of 
eliminating the coordinating power of large organizations. In other 
words, oligarchy is not "bad." In many organizations, the Iron Law 
arises through the Dictatorship of the Involved. I.e., some people 
are more involved than others, and become more conversant with the 
organization's "language" and how to function within it.

The problem is that a gap can appear between the interests of these 
people and the overall interests of the organization's general 
membership. This becomes visible, often, when a proposal is made that 
would spreak out or decentralize responsibility or power. Those whose 
effective power would be reduced by this will very naturally see it 
as harmful, as turning over the organizational purpose to the less 
informed. They might even be right. By the conditions of the problem, 
they have a power advantage, and will typically, then, resist the 
change. They may not see any difference between what advantages them 
and what advantages the organization. In their own view, they *are* 
the organization. And, again, they may even be right.

So ... what we know is that genuine consensus is powerful. The 
consensus of the oligarchs may, to some degree, represent the 
consensus of the whole, but it can rapidly become isolated, and the 
organization will then bleed members ( who think of the existing 
oligarchy as "them" rather than as "us."

We invented delegable proxy, also known as liquid democracy and by 
various other names, more than a decade ago to allow the formation of 
consensus in large groups, efficiently. DP, however, will not reverse 
or disable the Iron Law. However, it does provide a means of watching 
it and limiting the damage from it. In my work, and because DP was 
untested in large organizations, I always combined DP with a Free 
Association concept.

Free Associations were modelled on the structure set up for 
Alchoholics Anonymous, beginning in the 1930s. There are really two 
"AA"s. Bill Wilson, who became the theoretician behind AA structure, 
wrote the Twelve Traditions, covering the essentials (and wrote 
another book later, Twelve Concepts for World Service, with 
additional details.) Basically, one of the traditions is, "AA as such 
ought never be organized, but we may create service boards or 
committees directly responsible to those they serve." So there is AA 
itself, which is a ground-up organization, the individual groups are 
autonomous, "excepting in matters affecting other groups or AA as a 
whole." Nobody tells the groups how to run their meetings, or what 
must be conveyed there. There is broad consensus on many matters, 
which should not be confused with central control.

The most prominent "special board" is AA World Services, Inc, the 
legal structure with headquarters in New York. They publish the 
material and hold the copyrights. However, the publishing operation 
-- which is huge -- is generally operated to be self-supporting. The 
intention was, very specifically, to make AAWS, Inc., dependent on a 
continual flow of small donations. They don't accept bequests beyond, 
I think it's now about $3,000. They don't accumulate assets beyond 
what is directly and short-term necessary. The *real* AA, which is 
not organized, is out there in the field, in the millions of members 
who make it work, and who support their own work. The central office 
never sends money out to members in the field. There is no dependence 
on the central office, in fact, it could disappear and local groups 
would simply print their own literature, or form a new "service 
board" to do this on a large scale.

Free Associations, then, don't collect power. However, a Free 
Association may facilitate the formation of an ordinary organization 
"directly responsible to those it serves." Free Associations are 
formed around an "interest group." They generally have no 
requirements for membership other than self-declaration. They don't 
charge dues or fees for membership. And ... they don't collect major 
funding to distribute by majority vote or similar process. They only 
collect what they need for immediate expenses, such as meeting room 
rent and, of course, coffee. Perhaps they buy some literature to give 
away. And when they have some money left over, they give it to the 
local intergroup for its expenses.

AA Clubs have formed and incorporated. They are legally independent 
from AA. Political action groups have formed, Alcoholism Councils 
become politically active. AA itself stays *entirely out of politics* 
or any unnecessary controversy. The goal is to maintain AA as a 
totally universal interest group for alcoholics who have a "desire to 
remain sober." The rest of what happens is what happens when people 
are brought together under those conditions, which, it turns out, can 
be amazingly effective.

For many years, as I studied -- and used -- the AA structure (I'm not 
an alcoholic, but there are other programs using the same structure), 
I encountered people who would say how wonderful it could be if 
everything worked how it works in AA.

Hence the Free Association concept, which is a generalization of the 
AA principles. There is an "interest group" which defines the 
Association. It could be very broad, or it could be relatively 
narrow. The FA will operate, then, within the Association definition 
-- and may refuse to be involved with organization on any other basis.

But, in politics, how would this fit with an exercise power in a 
system that expects organizations with centralized control?

AA did it. Where property was involved, centralized control was 
necessary. Someone must be responsible for it. A treatment center 
may, in fact, end up with many millions of dollars in property, 
staff, etc. AA does not create these, but AA *members* do, working 
with others as well. AA is not going to give an opinion on 
legislative or legal issues involving alchoholics, but AA *members* 
-- through Alcholism Councils -- do.

In an FA/DP organization, what we call "natural caucuses" will form. 
A natural caucus is a proxy together with all the clients, direct and 
indirect, oof that proxy. A proxy can be, then, considered as the 
natural leader of a "political party," consisting of all those who 
chose that person, directly or indirectly. A collection of proxies 
who are members of a political party could, in fact, fully represent 
that party in the FA -- or close.

What is the FA going to do? Is it going to recommend candidates for 
office, collect donations for them, etc.? No. Not as the FA. But 
natural caucuses are free to do this. The FA sets up a communication 
structure that would make it simple for a collection of like-minded 
individuals to rapidly negotiate an internal consensus toward such 
matters as whom a political part -- technically independent but with 
overlapping membership -- should nominate, and can rapidly determine 
how to coordinate toward that goal.

The FA provides the communication structure and *the same structure 
can be used by competing parties.*

However, the existing system generally assumes that parties compete, 
and often ignores the possibility of cooperation. DP technology can 
make it possible to estimate the breadth of support for some 
position, and consensus is powerful. If what people want to do is 
fight and win, they may accomplish something, but necessarily at a 
cost and with the reduced efficiency of dealing with opposition.

FA/DP -- like AA -- is about *communication*, the FA itself has no 
power to fight over. AA deliberately avoided property for this 
reason. Don't like a meeting? Start another. The saying in AA is, 
"All you need to start a meeting is a resentment and a coffee pot." 
And so AA harness the natural differences that appear in people to 
multiply meetings like rabbits. The more meetings, the more available 
meetings are when people need them....

But everyone stays connected, through "AA." Local intergroups 
maintain meeting lists. And the understanding of the traditions is 
widespread, efforts to control those meeting lists to exclude the 
"wrong kind of meetings" are generally resisted. Members know how 
important AA unity is, and the know that meetings which ignore the 
general consensus usually don't last long.

So, take-home:

1. A metapolitical structure can be designed to *advise.* Advise 
whom? Its own members and anyone else who wishes to be advised. 
Advice is not control.
2. Within that structure, "caucuses" -- special interest groups -- 
may exist, and these groups may separately organize or be affiliated 
with political parties. A political party may be represented within 
the FA structure by as few as one person, or an FA can be organized 
to specifically be an interest group for a political party.
3. FAs can easily merge, so, for the U.S., members of a Democratic FA 
and a Republican FA could form a meta Citizen's FA, say. And then the 
ability of *party members* to nevertheless organize to find consensus 
across party lines is developed. If there is a large Citizen's FA, 
consensus within it, I'd predict, *would* become party policy in the 
political parties. Consensus is powerful.
4. The key is the network formed, through proxy/client relationships, 
where the central characteristic of that relationship is not a 
designation in some software structure, but an actual linkage of 
direct communication and relative trust.
5. So, if necessary, FAs can also split. The only reason for this, 
that seems at all likely, would be that someone takes over the 
central FA communications mechanism and attempts to dominate the FA, 
violating the Traditions. Instead of fighting over it, members simply 
walk, but because of the DP structure, they *already have the basic 
organizational structure.* The "dominators" end up only advising themselves.

(For the same reason, we are not terribly worried about "sock 
puppets" in FA structures. It is possible to analyze votes by much 
more sophisticated means than just doing a straight proxy expansion; 
the exactly analytical tools used can depend on the needs of the one 
seeking to be advised by a vote. The vote itself isn't going to 
exercise power, because the FA doesn't collect power. For this 
reason, while centralized software for amalgamation of positions can 
be useful, the raw member/proxy assignments and raw votes should be 
accessible to anyone. "Secret ballot" may see proper usage in 
accessory organizations (like political parties).

This system harnesses the Iron Law, in fact. People who might 
dominate in a classical organization may dominate in an FA, but only 
to the extent that they are able to maintain their own positions, 
continuously, as serving their clients. In standard organizations, 
the gap between a major leader and the common member can be far too 
great, i.e., it can be impractical for the common member to actually 
have a conversation with the leader. In an FA, I expect, people will 
generally assign their proxy to someone *not far from them*, in any 
of several different ways. The bottom line for a proxy/client 
relationship is an agreement to accept communication, in both 
directions. Personally, I'd want a phone number as well as an email address....

The structure will self-adjust to maintain optimal average client/proxy ratios.