--- /dev/null
+[[!meta title="Anarchist Cybernetics"]]
+
+* https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/37597/1/2016swanntrphd.pdf
+* https://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/phir/staff/thomas-swann/
+* https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.686573
+* https://lra.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/37597
+* https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/3/12/1642612/-Anti-Capitalist-Meetup-Swann-s-Way-anarchist-cybernetics-amp-organizational-dynamics-in-politics
+
+## Excerpts
+
+ goals. The metaphor of a dance with complexity echoes the way Ashby describes the
+ process of control as being similar to a fencer facing an opponent. ‘(I)f a fencer faces an
+ opponent who has various modes of attack available,’ he writes, ‘the fencer must be
+ provided with at least an equal number of modes of defence’ ([1958] 2003, p. 356; see
+ also Ashby, 1962)). Control and regulation are processes of responding to the
+ unpredictable moves of another dancer (again, the complexity can be threatening or, in
+ the case of a dance or in fencing, it can be more of a friendly game or a negotiation). 11
+ Control is not something enacted by an entity, be it an individual or a group, over an
+
+ [...]
+
+ Self-organisation is a sticky concept for cybernetics. Ashby, for example, argues that it
+ cannot exist. He bases his argument on the second-order cybernetic position that
+ viability or effectiveness is always determined as such by an observer of a system. Self-
+ organisation suggests that a system responds effectively by itself to complexity. Along
+ these lines, self-organisation is not a property of the system itself but of the observation
+ (1962; see also von Foerster, [1960] 2003; Duda, 2012, p. 89). While this may apply to
+ mathematical, biological and engineering applications of cybernetics, it is
+ fundamentally at odds with organisational cybernetics and the cybernetics of social and
+ political organisation more generally. A more fitting account of self-organisation, one
+ that is applicable to both the cybernetic need for control and the specific nature of social
+ and political organisations, is the more common one of a group of people deciding
+ amongst themselves, to achieve some goal(s). Stewart Umpleby (1987) highlights this
+ simple definition by contrasting two situations:
+ A teacher can organize a class into groups by assigning each child to a specific group and
+
+ [...]
+
+ One of the core ideas in cybernetic thought when it comes to communication is that of
+ feedback. Beer in fact highlights feedback as ‘the most important concept of all’ ([1981]
+ 1994, p. 32). Feedback explains how information, 12 from the environment but also the
+ internal workings of the organisation itself, plays a role in how the various parts of the
+ organisation operate autonomously. Beer is keen to stress that feedback does not mean
+ what it is commonly thought to mean, i.e. a response to something. Instead, feedback
+ refers to the way in which information about the changes a part of an organisation or
+ system faces are used to help that part maintain an agreed level of operation or to work
+ towards an agreed goal. Information coming into an operating unit of an organisation or
+ system about what is happening, both internally and externally, allows it to direct its
+
+ [...]
+
+ account of the free market as a tool for allowing order to emerge from chaos (Cooper,
+ 2011; see also Gilbert, 2005). Hayek was of course one of the key architects of the
+ theories that supported neoliberalism and, in a sad irony, was involved in advising the
+ dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet that had toppled the government of Salvador Allende
+ in Chile that Beer had become so invested in (Harvey, 2005). While complexity has
+ been discussed thus far in relation to the potential for self-organisation in a way that
+ may well run parallel to radically political accounts (see also Maeckelbergh, 2009, pp.
+ 203-210; Purkis, 2004, pp. 51-52), it is important to note that there is a competing
+ narrative around complexity theory, one that takes it in a dramatically different
+ direction.
+ Autonomy and ideas of self-organisation and horizontality, too, have been subject to
+
+ [...]
+
+ This initial affinity between anarchism and organisational cybernetics comes through in
+ how Kropotkin characterises centralised, top-down forms of government as being not
+ only politically and morally objectionable but at the same time ineffectual. Kropotkin
+ writes (1927, pp. 76-7) that ‘in all production there arise daily thousands of difficulties
+ which no government can solve or foresee.’ Against the plans of those socialists who
+ wish to use the state to manage this complexity, ‘the governmentalists’ to use
+ McEwan’s term, he argues that ‘production and exchange represented an undertaking so
+ complicated that the plans of the state socialists, which lead inevitably to a party
+ directorship, would prove to be absolutely ineffective as soon as they were applied to
+ life.’ 21 As an alternative to centralised attempts at attenuating variety in society (which
+ would lead to an oppression of individuals’ right to live their lives as they see fit) and
+ amplifying variety in the state as an organising body (resulting in a massive
+ bureaucracy), Kropotkin proposes that the workers themselves and their unions
+ administer production in an autonomous manner. 22 As political science scholar Marius
+
+ [...]
+
+ 22
+ An alternative approach to anarchism and cybernetics that focuses on feedback loops can be found in
+ Roel van Duijn’s Message of a Wise Kabouter (1972). In a conversation I had with van Duijn in 2013 he
+ suggested that he had come to cybernetics as a result of discussions between himself and Murray
+ Bookchin in the 1960s. Bookchin does use the term ‘cybernetics’ but does so to refer to high-technology
+ and links it to a centralised, authoritarian corporate state (e.g. 1985), so it seems that he had not engaged
+ with the cybernetics of Wiener and Beer. Van Duijn may have been put onto cybernetics through reading
+
+ [...]
+
+ John Duda (2013, p. 64) describes the approach to anarchism of McEwan as ‘a shift
+ away from a moral vision of anarchism, outraged at the scandal of domination’ towards
+ a paradigm focussed on the ‘superior productivity of anarchist organisational
+ methodology’, but I would suggest that it in fact tries to show that anarchism trumps
+ top-down government on both counts, without prioritising one over the other. Indeed,
+ the fact that it is present in Kropotkin’s work supports the view that it is not a shift that
+ took place in light of anarchist engagements with cybernetics but is a dual-perspective
+ that is present in at least some forms of anarchism from relatively early in the canon.
+ This could be thought of as ‘the two sides of the anarchist coin’. On the one hand there
+ is the ethical and political concern for autonomy, while on the other there is the
+ functional concern for effective organisation.
+ The connections between anarchism and cybernetics were also picked up on by one of
+
+ [...]
+
+ While this is framed within a typically-hierarchical organisational structure with an
+ executive and a receptionist, the point Pask is getting at is that the hierarchy is also one
+ of levels of language. The highest level in the hierarchy involves a metalanguage that is
+ used to talk about lower levels, which too have a metalanguage to talk about levels
+ lower than them. Although this is clearly a hierarchy such that a level thrice removed
+ from the top, for example, would have difficulty communicating directly with the top
+ and vice versa given the difference in languages, Pask is very clear that this describes a
+
+ [...]
+
+ She goes so far as to point out that System Five in the VSM, the part of the organisation
+ involved in defining the identity and overall goals of the organisation, can be ‘just a
+ routine or an activity’ and ‘does not necessarily need to be an extra set of people’ (2013,
+ p. 12; see also 1999).
+ McEwan follows Pask’s account by making explicit the distinction between the two
+
+ [...]
+
+ command such that each level is subordinate to the levels above it and where the top
+ level has overall control over decision making in the organisation. Functional
+ hierarchy, however, applies to an organisation where ‘there are two or more levels of
+ information structure operating in the system’ (McEwan, [1963] 1987, p. 44).
+
+ [...]
+
+ the working groups consider their activities and adjust them if necessary in line with the
+ decided-upon goals of the organisation. Crucially, for an anarchist cybernetics and
+ VSM, everyone involved in the working groups can, potentially, be involved in the
+ General Assemblies and so in these System Three discussions. The same individuals
+ step out of their functional role as working group members and into that of reflecting on
+ their practice within working groups. System Four involves the same individuals again,
+ and also in the General Assemblies, reflecting on the activities of the working groups
+ and the organisation as a whole as well as its overall strategy in relation to events in the
+ outside world. Adjustments to both tactics and strategy can be made in light of changes
+
+ [...]
+
+ Elsewhere, Bakunin similarly argues that ‘all organizations must proceed by way of
+ federation from the base to the summit, from the commune to the coordinating
+ association of the country or nation’ (1971b: 82-83, italics in original). Here we have a
+ picture of a federated form of organisation in which smaller local organisations, free
+ associations or cooperatives, link up with one another at the level of the commune.
+ Communes then link up in a regional council and so on to the level of an international
+ council. This too is reflective of the recursivity that is essential to the VSM: any viable
+ system is itself a part of another viable system and has within it multiple viable systems.
+ Not only does the decision-making structure of an anarchist federation relate favourably
+ to that of organisational cybernetics, but so too does the very principle of federated
+ organisation, something Wiener in fact hints at (1961, p. 155) and of which Beer is
+ sometimes quite explicit in his support (see Medina, 2011, pp. 159-160).
+ McEwan, in his Anarchy article, makes this link between this syndicalist model of
+
+ [...]
+
+ Importantly, this is not enough for an anarchist version of cybernetics. A more explicitly
+ ethical and political autonomy, which values autonomy as an individual and collective
+ good over-and-above its role within organisational structure, needs to be introduced.
+ This brings into play a crucial distinction between the firm, as Beer conceives of it, and
+ radical left and anarchist organisation. While the firm may be viable on cybernetic
+ terms by including a functional autonomy, whereby individual operating units have
+ some scope for self-organisation and independent decision making, it will be shown that
+ radical left and anarchist organisation must combine this cybernetic demand with the
+ ethical and political demand that values individual and collective autonomy in and of
+ itself. The two sides of the anarchist coin, as I have described them above, must be
+ brought together. For now it is enough to note that while Beer’s work focusses on the
+ firm and, one can argue, takes that as a model of social organisation in general, an
+ anarchist cybernetics highlights a distinction that must be made between the firm, which
+ takes as a necessary condition autonomy as a function, and radical left and anarchist
+
+ [...]
+
+ Thinking about cybernetics and organisation along these lines, the work of science and
+ technology studies scholar Andrew Pickering (2010) becomes extremely important.
+ Rather than being focussed on representing an external reality with accuracy,
+ Pickering’s cybernetics is instead involved in performance. Performance is understood
+ as the actions we undertake in the world that demand a pragmatic and constructed
+ knowledge as opposed to a detailed representation of reality. 24 He describes this as a
+ ‘performative epistemology’: ‘a vision of knowledge as part of performance rather than
+ 24
+ This owes something of a debt to the American Pragmatism of Pierce, Dewey and others, although this
+
+ [...]
+
+ as an external control of it’ (ibid., p. 25, italics in original). The cybernetician, therefore,
+ is not engaged in unpacking and describing a reality (be it a machine, an animal, a
+ human being or a social phenomenon) but in facilitating performances or practices that
+ he or she is a part of. Cybernetics, in this regard, is committed to action and not simply
+ theorising about the nature of knowledge. This is evident in the work of Beer who, as I
+ have shown in the second chapter, was throughout his life heavily involved in practicing
+ cybernetics. Pickering highlights the fact that the very definition of cybernetics as
+ steering shows this connection with performance and practice (ibid., p. 30). It is a
+ science not of representing the objective mechanisms of control and communication but
+ of doing control and communication.
+ Interestingly, this turn towards science as performance in fact brings to the fore another
+
+
+ [...]
+
+ He also speaks of the importance of ‘radical transformation and listening’ (2010, pp. 42-
+ 43). While many more could be added, these seven goals (mutual respect, cooperation,
+ egalitarian decision-making, promotion of radical democratic vision, deconstruction of
+ borders, radical transformation and listening) will serve to demonstrate how a virtuous
+ anarchist mode of research can be conceived. In order to act virtuously as an anarchist, a
+ researcher must act so as to embody these goals. The researcher should aim to: (1) be
+ respectful of participants in research; (2) encourage cooperation in the research on the
+ part of the participants; (3) engage in egalitarian relationships with the participants; (4)
+ promote the radical democratic ideal of anarchism; (5) conduct the research in a
+ borderless fashion; (6) be radically transformative (i.e. live as radically transformed);
+ and (7) listen to participants. It should be noted that according to the prefigurative virtue
+ ethics outlined by Franks, these virtues and goals are negotiable and specific to
+
+ [...]
+
+ While it is not the focus of cybernetics, such an ethical approach can also be seen in the
+ work of von Foerster. In line with the second-order cybernetic concern for the
+ researcher as ‘a person who considers oneself to be a participant actor in the drama of
+ mutual interaction of the give and take in the circularity of human relations’ ([1991]
+ 2003, p. 289), von Foerster frames ethics as an understanding of the norms that govern
+ the practices we engage in. Rather than seeing scientific research as a practice involving
+ truth, von Foerster recasts it as involving trust, understanding, responsibility, reaching
+ out for the other and ‘a conspiracy, whose customs, rules, and regulations we are now
+ inventing’ (ibid., p. 294). 27 On this understanding, an ethics of research is
+ fundamentally an ethics of co-producing knowledge and von Foerster’s account of
+ second-order cybernetics links up well with the anarchist research ethics defined by
+
+ [...]
+
+ who wish to hinder and frustrate the movement with invaluable information about how
+ practices are organised. Franks (1992) warns that ‘the social sciences are the third
+ section of the intelligence gathering services. […] The state's liberal surveillance wing,
+ sociology, informs on what working class people are thinking and doing.’ He goes on to
+ say that sociologists aim to show ‘when working class people's actions and attitudes are
+ showing signs of becoming a threat to the stability of [the ruling] class’s dominant
+ position.’ This is a rather dramatic and perhaps unfair characterisation, but in general
+ concerns related to research as surveillance are warranted. There is a serious risk
+
+ [...]
+
+ associated with anarchist research that detailed information about successful anarchist
+ organising would be at the same time a guide to countering such organising. This is
+ perhaps especially true in the case of the research carried out here as this could provide
+ detailed information on the organisational dynamics of radical left groups and their
+ communication practices, and would allow security services to disrupt organisation and
+ communications at key points. In writing this thesis, care has therefore been taken to
+ reduce the risk of it being useful to those wishing to disrupt the movement. I have
+ allowed activists to review the transcripts of their interviews and highlight any details
+ that they would prefer to not be included or that they would prefer not attributed to
+ them.
+ This anarchist, prefigurative research ethics has much in common with ethics of care in
+
+ [...]
+
+ levels of an organisation is through the notions of tactics and strategy. Beer does just
+ this when he suggests that Systems One and Two are involved in tactics while System
+ Three is involved in strategy (ibid., p. 360; see also, e.g. Pickering, 2010, p. 245). This
+ is, I would argue, misleading as for Beer Systems Three and Four operate along similar
+ lines but with System Three focused on the internal environment and what happens at
+ Systems One and Two while System Four is focused on the external environment and
+ the potential future of the organisation. I want to think, therefore, of Systems Three and
+
+ [...]
+
+ important tactically to what radical left groups and activists do. In a social centre I used
+ to frequent there was a small model of a kitchen sink with written on it: ‘First the
+ washing up, then the revolution’. 41 The tactical repertoire of radical left groups includes
+ all this and more.
+ How does this distinction between tactics and strategy operate in anarchist organisation,
+
+ [...]
+
+ As an extension of the tactics-strategy dichotomy presented above, this suggests the role
+ of a third element of the politics of radical left groups and movements, what I want here
+ to refer to as ‘grand strategy’. The term ‘grand strategy’ was coined by American
+ military theorist John Boyd during the Cold War. 45 Boyd defines grand strategy as
+ pursuing ‘the national goal’ and amplifying ‘our spirit and strength (while undermining
+ and isolating our adversaries)’ (2005, slide 140). The notion of a ‘national goal’ is of
+ course very specific to a state-centred geo-political project such as a war and is certainly
+ at extreme odds with anarchism’s anti-militarism and anti-nationalism. Indeed, even the
+ idea of competition contained in Boyd’s definition of grand strategy is antithetical to the
+ relationships of mutual aid and cooperation. While ideas such as these are common in
+ some business and management accounts of strategy (see, e.g. Carter, Clegg and
+
+ [...]
+
+ Hopefully, I have shown that the answer to both of these has to be negative. For Beer,
+ organisational cybernetics is about defining the necessary and sufficient conditions,
+ based on the need to handle complexity, for viable organisation. This does not need to
+ result in a centralised, bureaucratic and authoritarian structure but can be grounded in
+ one that relies on autonomy. By formulating an anarchist cybernetics, I want to show
+ that while Beer maintains the basic structure of capitalist enterprise, with a middle
+ management layer and a senior executive level at the top, these are not necessary for
+ viability. This is the core difference between Beer’s cybernetics and the anarchist
+ cybernetics I am arguing for here. To give Beer the credit he is due, his account of how
+ organisations should determine goals does touch on non-hierarchical processes, as
+ Pickering argues (2010: 272). Anarchist cybernetics shows how tactics, strategy and
projects / blog.git / commitdiff