Book Review: Rules for Radicals- A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals by Saul Alinsky

My good friend Suw alerted me to this venerable book by repeatedly ranting "What is your theory of change???" online.

If ever there was a moment to yell "WHAT IS YOUR THEORY OF CHANGE???" that moment is now and we should all be yelling it at Just Stop Oil.It seems to me their theory of change is to make enough people pissed of with them that... er, um... Step 2: ???Step 3: Profit!! Wait, that's not right.

— Suw (@suw.bsky.social) 2024-06-20T08:44:13.991Z

Saul Alinsky's book is part instruction manual, part memoir, and part howl of despair. Why is The Left™ so shit at organising and utterly incapable of effecting lasting change?

In part, I think, is that we (over) rely on volunteers. Who wants to stand outside on a rainy day handing out leaflets to the public? Only a few die-hards committed to the cause. But a billionaire can simply pay people to promote their ideology.

The other issue is that we have comprehensively failed to educate the next generation. All of our experience is either trapped within incomprehensible books, or jealously guarded by true-keepers-of-the-flame. Or we've been locked up, shunned, or killed.

My fellow radicals who were supposed to pass on the torch of experience and insights to a new generation just were not there.

The book is originally from the early 1970s, but it remains depressingly relevant.

The establishment in many ways is as suicidal as some of the far left, except that they are infinitely more destructive than the far left can ever be.

It is refreshingly practical. It all hinges on one thing - what's your theory of change? How do you think your actions will lead to change? If you don't have a realistic model of human behaviour, you are dead in the water.

These rules make the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one who uses the tired old words and slogans, calls the police “pig” or “white fascist racist” or “motherfucker” and has so stereotyped himself that others react by saying, “Oh, he’s one of those,” and then promptly turn off. […] If the real radical finds that having long hair sets up psychological barriers to communication and organization, he cuts his hair. If I were organizing in an orthodox Jewish community I would not walk in there eating a ham sandwich, unless I wanted to be rejected so I could have an excuse to cop out.

I remember reading the novel "Goggle-Eyes" in the 1990s which effectively skewered the alienating an ineffective way most protestors behave.

It is, as you'd expect from someone deeply involved in American politics, mostly focussed on US issues. But it is forthright and bombastic enough to be universally relevant - even today. When discussing how you get an idea into people's heads:

As Whitman put it: “The goal once named cannot be countermanded.”

Brexit Means Brexit. Make America Great Again. Where's the equivalent pithy goal for the left? "Defund The Police"? A phrase which seems almost calculated to be misunderstood.

If any of you have been to a Trade Union meeting, you'll recognise the following scenario:

The agendas of those labor union mass meetings were 10 per cent on the specific problems of that union and 90 per cent speakers on the conditions and needs of the southern Okies, the Spanish Civil War and and the International Brigade, raising funds for blacks who were on trial in some southern state, demanding higher relief for the unemployed, denouncing police brutality, raising funds for anti-Nazi organizations, demanding an end to American sales of scrap iron to the Japanese military complex, and on and on.

Personally, I'm not a fan of that. Too many people get distracted by the "glamorous" work of supporting a hundred myriad causes. So many different causes are confusing and alienating to many. The left need focus.

The sadly inevitable rise of populism also gets a look-in:

Power is not to be crossed; one must respect and obey. Power means strength, whereas love is a human frailty the people mistrust. It is a sad fact of life that power and fear are the fountainheads of faith.

The cult of personality is dangerous. It is anti-intellectual. And, I suspect, that is why it succeeds.

It has quite a lot of hubris, but is endlessly entertaining:

I feel confident that I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday.

The book gets to the heart of the matter. We need organisers who not only understand the world, but know how to make effective change.

Once one understands this internal battle for power within the status quo, one can begin to appraise effective tactics to exploit it. It is sad to see the stupidity of inexperienced organizers who make gross errors by failing to have even an elementary appreciation of this pattern.

Some elections ago, the radical left in the UK were saying that they may have lost the election, but at least they won the argument - to which anyone with a shred of sense says "so fucking what?" The only way to effect change is to have power. That's it. That's the whole game. Being intellectually correct is satisfying. Being morally pure and righteous feels amazing. Neither changes the world.

The rebuttal is usually "we would have won if the media weren't so crooked" - to which anyone with a shred of sense says "so fucking what?" That's the whole game. You can't assume a perfect rational world full of spherical cows.

The basic requirement for the understanding of the politics of change is to recognize the world as it is. We must work with it on its terms if we are to change it to the kind of world we would like it to be.