Control (Part I): Tactics, Strategy and Grand Strategy

Chapter Four returns to the description of the anarchist Viable System Model to focus on the distinction between the functional roles involved in the anarchist cybernetic organisation. A three-part distinction between tactics, strategy and grand strategy is developed in the chapter. The chapter presents a functional hierarchy whereby grand strategy provides the overarching worldview or paradigm; strategy the shorter-term but still not immediate goals; and tactics the immediate, day-to-day activity. The chapter relates this conceptualisation to the idea of prefiguration, a notion central to contemporary radical politics. This chapter argues that a distinction between tactics, strategy and grand strategy is crucial for understanding how anarchist cybernetic organisations might operate in a prefigurative way, showing that strategy and grand strategy can be engaged with in participatory and democratic ways.

Control (Part II): Effective Freedom and Collective Autonomy

Chapter Five builds focuses on the tactical autonomy the different parts of an anarchist cybernetic organisation have and the strategic constraints on that autonomy. Drawing on how autonomy is understood in cybernetics and in anarchism and related radical political theories, the chapter defines two linked forms of autonomy: Functional Autonomy (central to cybernetics) and Collective Autonomy (vital to anarchist politics). The chapter argues that a balance between individualism and centralisation is crucial to explaining how organisation can both be effective and meet the political demands of anarchism. Linking this discussion to the Viable System Model and to the distinction between strategy and tactics, the chapter explores Consensus Decision Making as a key democratic practice that helps achieve the Functional Autonomy and the Collective Autonomy that anarchist cybernetics helps shed light on.

Anarchism and Cybernetics: A Missed Opportunity Revisited

Chapter Three provides a historical and conceptual overview of both anarchism and cybernetics, focusing on recent developments in anarchist social movement practice and Stafford Beer’s organisational cybernetics respectively. The chapter argues that the core cybernetic principles of complexity, control and autonomy, understood through the overarching idea of self-organisation, can help elaborate a detailed understanding of anarchist organisation. To do so, the chapter develops Beer’s Viable System Model for anarchist social movement organising and uses the example of Occupy to show how the functional hierarchy of Beer’s model can be applied to forms of organisation that are typically understood as rejecting hierarchy. The chapter builds on an important article written by John D. McEwan to show how functional roles in an organisation can be realised on structurally non-hierarchical ways that reinforce the radically democratic and participatory practices of anarchism.

Communication (Part II): Building Alternative Social Media

Chapter Seven presents a schematic account of the functions a social media platform would need to have in order to fulfil the roles required of it by anarchist cybernetics. Drawing on the negative critiques of existing social media platforms and the positive requirements outlined by activists and scholars, this chapter asks what an alternative social media platform would look like and how it would be different from the commercial platforms we use everyday. The chapter identifies four broad lines of critique aimed at the use of social media in anarchist cybernetic organising: (1) the privacy critique (2) the political economy critique; (3) the weak ties critique; and (4) the political subjectivity critique. The chapter provides a sketch of what such an alternative platform would look like, identifying the key features that aid the functionality of such a platform for self-organisation.

Radical Left Organisation and Networks of Communication

Chapter Two discusses the organisational forms relevant to contemporary anarchist and radical left organisation. The chapter shows that anarchist organising is at the core of radical movements that have emerged in recent decades, presenting an image of radical left social movement organisation as networked and/or federated, in contrast to more hierarchical command and control structures common to traditional political parties and trade unions. Linked to this account of organisation is an understanding of communication, and the chapter offers a framework based on the idea of many-to-many communication to identify parallels and divergences between the organisational practices of radical left and anarchist groups and their communication practices.

Communication (Part I): Information and Noise in the Age of Social Media

Chapter Six focuses on communication practices and social media, examining how the concept of noise features in how cybernetics understands communication and information. The chapter considers how certain communication practice are more prone to problems concerning noise, linking this discussion to the experiences of the Spanish 15M protests where activists highlighted different forms of noise in communication practices. The chapter points towards ‘pink noise’ as a form of noise in networks that is conducive to self-organisation. As well as making an argument for a reappraisal of how we think about noise in relation to social and digital media, the chapter suggests that the concept of ‘pink noise’ can be a constructive contribution to how activists organise around online platforms. Rather that aiming to eliminate noise from communication, the introduction of the notion of ‘pink noise’ shows how that a more nuanced position can be developed that is conducive to the self-organisation at the heart of anarchist cybernetics.

2011: The Year Everything Nothing Changed

Chapter One introduces the connections between anarchism and cybernetics against the backdrop of what will be referred to throughout the book as the 2011 uprisings (Occupy, the Arab Spring, 15M/Indignados, the UK riots). The chapter highlights the apparent role of leaderless self-organisation in these uprisings and the perceived use of social media as an organising tool therein. It is argued that the examples of the 2011 uprisings show that there is a need for an in-depth understanding of how self-organisation and social media-backed organisation can and do operate.

Organising Radical Left Populism

Chapter Eight provides both an overview of the promise of anarchist cybernetics in relation to radical left social movement organising and a projection of how the principles of anarchist cybernetics may be utilised in understanding the kinds of organisation forms that have come to the fore since the 2011 uprisings. The chapter examines the so-called ‘electoral turn’ and developments in social democratic political parties such as the Labour Party in the UK, Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain and ongoing contestations in the Democratic Party in the US. Doing so, the chapter looks at, on the one hand, where horizontal forms of organising operate within these kinds of structures and, on the other, the limits on the power of horizontal, grassroots organising that come from its engagement with these typically structurally hierarchical organisations. The chapter makes the case for anarchist cybernetics as a way of articulating the limits of party forms of organisation and, more practically, in designing organisational and communication structures within such organisations to aid democracy and participation.