How the Iron Law of Oligarchy Extends to Peer Production

Paper: Laboratories of Oligarchy? How the Iron Law Extends to Peer Production. By Aaron Shaw, Benjamin Mako Hill. Computers and Society (cs.CY); Social and Information Networks (cs.SI); Report number: ci-2014/96 

Abstract
“Peer production projects like Wikipedia have inspired voluntary associations, collectives, social movements, and scholars to embrace open online collaboration as a model of democratic organization. However, many peer production projects exhibit entrenched leadership and deep inequalities, suggesting that they may not fulfill democratic ideals. Instead, peer production projects may conform to Robert Michels’ “iron law of oligarchy,” which proposes that democratic membership organizations become increasingly oligarchic as they grow. Using exhaustive data of internal processes from a sample of 683 wikis, we construct empirical measures of participation and test for increases in oligarchy associated with growth. In contrast to previous studies, we find support for Michels’ iron law and conclude that peer production entails oligarchic organizational forms.P2P Foundation

How the Iron Law of Oligarchy Extends to Peer ProductionMichel Bauwens

The causal mechanism behind the "iron law of oligarchy" as democratic organizations grow is that the organization tends to become hierarchical above a certain number owing to the transaction cost of consensus decision making. Hierarchical organization, along with power relationships and structure, is simply more efficient, as Peter F. Drucker has convincingly argued about the development of the firm.

This is a reason that subsequent to the hunter-gather stage at which a sparse humanity could function more or less on consensus-building, the agricultural stage and then the industrial stages led to increasing organization and power relationship and structure, especially after the development of the ancient city-state as a political institution. This was a natural and evolutionary development in accordance with the law of least action, otherwise known as "water runs downhill."

This is the dilemma facing humanity since the advent of liberalism in the Enlightenment. There is an inherent tension between popular, participatory democracy and efficient organization. The social, political and economic challenge is to work out tradeoffs that enable humanity to recapture the liberty and dignity of Rousseau's noble savage"while also harnessing the advantage of modern organization and management.

Paul Rosenberg — Conservatives, evil and psychopathy: Science makes the link!

More science on the difference among personality types that determine different attitudes and behaviors.

The defense of hierarchy is what conservatism is all about, as Corey Robin reminded us all with his recent book, “The Reactionary Mind.”

What’s more, the differences between how liberals and conservatives think are reflected in a range of divergent cognitive processes, as summarized in a 2003 paper by John T. Jost and three co-authors, “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition,” a “meta-analysis” that brought together findings drawn from 88 study samples in 12 countries:

“The core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification of inequality and is motivated by needs that vary situationally and dispositionally to manage uncertainty and threat,” Jost and his co-authors wrote in the abstract. These are not merely American phenomena, nor is there any reason to think they’re particularly modern.

While Jost’s paper revealed a complicated array of different factors involved, two in particular have been shown to explain the lion’s share of intergroup prejudice: right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO)....

A few weeks ago, I came across a reference to an unpublished conference paper, with the intriguing title, “Does endorsement of hierarchy make you evil? SDO and psychopathy.”

So I contacted the lead author, Marc Wilson, a New Zealand psychologist at Victoria University of Wellington, to ask him about his research....

“When SDO was originally proposed, it was argued that group dominance (as measured by SDO) is not the same thing as individual level dominance, and indeed that’s what the original research appeared to show,” he explained. “More recently there have been a few studies that have suggested SDO and psychopathy are related, and I’ve collected a lot of data now that leads me to believe they’re flip sides of the same coin — interpersonal dominance (psychopathy) on one side and group dominance (SDO) on the other.”...

“Therefore, it makes sense that environments that promote social hierarchies will also be fertile breeding grounds for individual dominance, and vice versa,” he continued. 

Salon
Conservatives, evil and psychopathy: Science makes the link!
Paul Rosenberg

Mike Lofgren — The Authoritarian Seduction

[Authoritarianism] is a psychology at once absolutist and schizophrenic. That is why health insurance and restrictions on carrying loaded weapons in public are intolerable tyrannies, while all-encompassing surveillance, life in prison for growing marijuana, or assassination without judicial process are praiseworthy. Paradoxically, the authoritarian personality embodies anarchic rebellion and craven submission at the same time. It is, as Richard Hofstadter said, a disordered relationship to authority, "characterized by an inability to find other modes for human relationship than those of more or less complete domination or submission."...

The seductive power of authoritarianism is particularly strong during times of economic and social stress. Seemingly, the reptilian brain becomes dominant in a crisis; for every government that instituted a New Deal or something like it in the wake of the Great Depression, a half dozen fell into fascism, military rule or some other authoritarian form of "national unity."...

The virus of authoritarianism is a flight from reason, a goose-stepping reflex and a search for simplistic, usually conspiratorial, explanations for complex events. It is no wonder this mindset esteems institutions that are based on hierarchy and various forms of coercion, regardless of those institutions' success or failure. That this mindset derides institutions of self-government and enlightenment and fails to see its own responsibility for those institutions' serious shortcomings is equally significant and bears watching.

Truthout | Op-Ed
The Authoritarian Seduction
Mike Lofgren

Michael S. Wilson — Noam Chomsky — ‘Everyday Anarchist’: The Modern Success Interview

Basic Chomsky.

Modern Success
Noam Chomsky — ‘Everyday Anarchist’: The Modern Success Interview
Michael S. Wilson

Dmitry Orlov — In Praise of Anarchy, Part III

This is an important post about discoveries in complexity theory and the difference between anarchic systems (biological) and hierarchical systems (social). As you probably have figured out, I think that systems and institutions are where it's at for gaining understanding in sociology, economics and poli sci.

This is part three in a series explaining anarchism as the opposite of hierarchical structure and institutions. I suggest reading the whole series if you have the time. It's a good intro to anarchist thinking that blows away the myths and disinformation.

Links to parts one and two are provided in part three, linked to below. The first two parts are largely about the work of Peter Kropotkin, who was a life scientist as much as a social activist. As Orlov notes, Kropotkin was an anarchist, that is, anti-hierarchical based on his understanding of life science, and not a Communist, since he considered its organization to be hierarchical.

Club Orlov
In Praise of Anarchy, Part III
Dmitry Orlov

Needed: A Hierarchy of Cultural Needs

Can Anyone Get Consumer Reports to Notice White Collar Crime?

Consumer Reports Urges Creating Federal Regulations for Arsenic Levels in Rice

Someone warn them that you can boil both frogs & the 99% in unregulated rice-cookers?

Look, I'm all for protecting consumers from arsenic in rice. Yet out of the millions of real concerns besetting US consumers, why on earth is there no statistically relevant HIERARCHY of needs? Maslow must be turning over in his grave. Why on Earth hasn't Consumer Reports noticed the primacy of white collar crime since at least 1990?

We need our own statement on A Hierarchy of Cultural Needs.

ps: That statement absolutely MUST NOT come from economists. It has to be a consensus from all the 1900 or so professions already recognized by the NAICS.  It's not just war and generals.  EVERY process is too important to be left to the presumed process owners.