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Perhaps an organization that requires such tremendous overhead just to exist should've failed long ago. It's not the anarchist's job to design improvements, bu

Perhaps an organization that requires such tremendous overhead just to exist should've failed long ago. It's not the anarchist's job to design improvements, but to make the evolution of improved systems possible by dismantling what's in the way. If Graeber had wanted to make contributions to management theory, he presumably would've written a different sort of book.

ryuhhnn 3y ago
You must not have read the book because Graeber was pretty clear that he wasn’t making suggestions of what ought to be, he was simply diagnosing the issue and providing a framework to think of something better.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  You're right. It's on my list. My familiarity with Graeber comes from Debt. But is a diagnosis not a declaration of: "there should be less of this in the world"?
  - ryuhhnn 3y ago
    > make the evolution of improved systems possible by dismantling what's in the way. I think you already answered that question for me. I’ll also add that I don’t think this book was meant to be a contribution to management theory at all, I think the broader point is that we as a society have valued jobs more than we value humanity, so we now have hundreds of thousands of people performing meaningless work just for the sake of having a job. This isn’t an issue of management, it’s an issue of values.
kristianc 3y ago
In Britain we've had over a decade of political leaders questioning "Hmm is this political institution / job role / arm of government / publicly funded service really necessary" and most here are of the consensus that it's essentially gutted the place. Easy to be the one in the ivory tower declaring other people's jobs to be worthless...
- Retric 3y ago
  Unpleasant as it is for those who lost their jobs, the country seems better off now. The sheer overwhelming bureaucracy that built up over hundreds of years really did need to be trimmed.
  - bandrami 3y ago
    Isn't the UK now poorer than Croatia?
    - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
      Exactly. I got to uk 12 years ago and it’s been cool at the time, but a steady decline the whole way. The place I left was developing and has now evened or surpassed UK by many quality of life metrics. The trend will probably continue. Now I am wondering why I moved, at great cost to myself. When I tell locals about this, I’d hope they would be as annoyed about decline in living standards as I am, but they sometimes get offended. Apparently comparing Britain to ‘inferior’ countries is offensive.
  - kristianc 3y ago
    I'm curious what metric you're assessing 'better off' there - by many conventional economic measures such as real wage growth, productivity, GDP, the British economy has either flatlined or gone backwards over the last decade. Under the previous 'bloated' administration there were 40 consecutive quarters of economic growth at one point.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - Retric 3y ago
      Complexity, it’s not always about economic growth. Though it’s also clear the UK has been in relative decline compared to the rest of the world long before these reforms started.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
>It's not the anarchist's job to design improvements, but to make the evolution of improved systems possible by dismantling what's in the way Hard disagree. As an Anarchist, it's my job to support the dissolution of any hierarchy that is not democratically operated in a way that supports people attempting to live while also creating communities founded on democratic incentives. You can't be a passive anarchist and yes improvements need to be made. Who else would be doing the evolving here? You prefer to just leave organization to the loudest capitalist leaders?
- baremetal 3y ago
  >As an Anarchist, it's my job to support the dissolution of any hierarchy that is not democratically operated in a way that supports people attempting to live while also creating communities founded on democratic incentives. Can you elaborate on this point? >You prefer to just leave organization to the loudest capitalist leaders? I'm inclined to agree with you that that is a bad idea.
  - toofy 3y ago
    i’m not the person you responded to, and i want to be careful not to put words in their mouth, but if i’m reading them properly and from the many talks i’ve had with Anarchist friends, they would explain that as something like: we should be striving to, when building these systems (building a business/organization/etc…) to try our best to put a bit more emphasis on not discarding the concerns of the people doing the work. an example would be, management often gets disconnected, siloed, or tunnel visioned in their thinking. for example, an executive might not understand why an engineer sitting in meetings 90% of the time might be frustrated and why this might be hampering forward momentum. and then, executives when looking at another metric might question “our code is not up to par, why are engineers not producing?” they may never connect the dots that the executives caused the whole thing from the start. if the business/org had built into its design where engineers/developers doing the work had more of a voice and felt more comfortable using it so their concerns can actually be heard, those kinds of tensions could be more easily addressed and solve entire classes of issues. while i can see both sides here, i tend to agree with the Anarchist position more, both for productivity and for the overall mental health of those doing the more grunt style work. i’ve worked in both large projects and mid/small projects and one of things that i can point to as a constant—if you give people more freedom/ownership of a project: they’re going to feel much better about it, they’re going to work harder to complete it, and they’re going to communicate and figure out clever ways to address underlying issues that may stand in the way. they’re going to feel actual pride in what they helped build. and an opposite constant is: the more alienated someone is, the less ownership they feel over something—the less they give a shit. at this point their work devolves closer to “just a paycheck.” not only is this incredibly unhealthy for the project, but it makes the people doing the actual work feel worse/unfulfilled. i would argue (and Anarchists seem to as well) this alienation manifests in all kinds unhealthy ripple effects in society. tldr, we should be putting more emphasis on the actual engineers/workers overall happiness levels and give them more ownership of their work. also, when i say “ownership” don’t limit your thinking to “capital ownership.” Anarchists, if im misinterpreting, feel free to chime in and correct me.

ryuhhnn 3y ago

You must not have read the book because Graeber was pretty clear that he wasn’t making suggestions of what ought to be, he was simply diagnosing the issue and providing a framework to think of something better.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
You're right. It's on my list. My familiarity with Graeber comes from Debt. But is a diagnosis not a declaration of: "there should be less of this in the world"?
- ryuhhnn 3y ago
  > make the evolution of improved systems possible by dismantling what's in the way. I think you already answered that question for me. I’ll also add that I don’t think this book was meant to be a contribution to management theory at all, I think the broader point is that we as a society have valued jobs more than we value humanity, so we now have hundreds of thousands of people performing meaningless work just for the sake of having a job. This isn’t an issue of management, it’s an issue of values.

kristianc 3y ago

In Britain we've had over a decade of political leaders questioning "Hmm is this political institution / job role / arm of government / publicly funded service really necessary" and most here are of the consensus that it's essentially gutted the place. Easy to be the one in the ivory tower declaring other people's jobs to be worthless...

Retric 3y ago
Unpleasant as it is for those who lost their jobs, the country seems better off now. The sheer overwhelming bureaucracy that built up over hundreds of years really did need to be trimmed.
- bandrami 3y ago
  Isn't the UK now poorer than Croatia?
  - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    Exactly. I got to uk 12 years ago and it’s been cool at the time, but a steady decline the whole way. The place I left was developing and has now evened or surpassed UK by many quality of life metrics. The trend will probably continue. Now I am wondering why I moved, at great cost to myself. When I tell locals about this, I’d hope they would be as annoyed about decline in living standards as I am, but they sometimes get offended. Apparently comparing Britain to ‘inferior’ countries is offensive.
- kristianc 3y ago
  I'm curious what metric you're assessing 'better off' there - by many conventional economic measures such as real wage growth, productivity, GDP, the British economy has either flatlined or gone backwards over the last decade. Under the previous 'bloated' administration there were 40 consecutive quarters of economic growth at one point.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retric 3y ago
    Complexity, it’s not always about economic growth. Though it’s also clear the UK has been in relative decline compared to the rest of the world long before these reforms started.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

>It's not the anarchist's job to design improvements, but to make the evolution of improved systems possible by dismantling what's in the way Hard disagree. As an Anarchist, it's my job to support the dissolution of any hierarchy that is not democratically operated in a way that supports people attempting to live while also creating communities founded on democratic incentives. You can't be a passive anarchist and yes improvements need to be made. Who else would be doing the evolving here? You prefer to just leave organization to the loudest capitalist leaders?

baremetal 3y ago
>As an Anarchist, it's my job to support the dissolution of any hierarchy that is not democratically operated in a way that supports people attempting to live while also creating communities founded on democratic incentives. Can you elaborate on this point? >You prefer to just leave organization to the loudest capitalist leaders? I'm inclined to agree with you that that is a bad idea.
- toofy 3y ago
  i’m not the person you responded to, and i want to be careful not to put words in their mouth, but if i’m reading them properly and from the many talks i’ve had with Anarchist friends, they would explain that as something like: we should be striving to, when building these systems (building a business/organization/etc…) to try our best to put a bit more emphasis on not discarding the concerns of the people doing the work. an example would be, management often gets disconnected, siloed, or tunnel visioned in their thinking. for example, an executive might not understand why an engineer sitting in meetings 90% of the time might be frustrated and why this might be hampering forward momentum. and then, executives when looking at another metric might question “our code is not up to par, why are engineers not producing?” they may never connect the dots that the executives caused the whole thing from the start. if the business/org had built into its design where engineers/developers doing the work had more of a voice and felt more comfortable using it so their concerns can actually be heard, those kinds of tensions could be more easily addressed and solve entire classes of issues. while i can see both sides here, i tend to agree with the Anarchist position more, both for productivity and for the overall mental health of those doing the more grunt style work. i’ve worked in both large projects and mid/small projects and one of things that i can point to as a constant—if you give people more freedom/ownership of a project: they’re going to feel much better about it, they’re going to work harder to complete it, and they’re going to communicate and figure out clever ways to address underlying issues that may stand in the way. they’re going to feel actual pride in what they helped build. and an opposite constant is: the more alienated someone is, the less ownership they feel over something—the less they give a shit. at this point their work devolves closer to “just a paycheck.” not only is this incredibly unhealthy for the project, but it makes the people doing the actual work feel worse/unfulfilled. i would argue (and Anarchists seem to as well) this alienation manifests in all kinds unhealthy ripple effects in society. tldr, we should be putting more emphasis on the actual engineers/workers overall happiness levels and give them more ownership of their work. also, when i say “ownership” don’t limit your thinking to “capital ownership.” Anarchists, if im misinterpreting, feel free to chime in and correct me.