This was an illuminating read, and as someone who has not yet delved into anarchist theory, I wanted to get my thoughts out on “paper,” so to speak.

Discussing groups as having both formal and informal structures had me reflecting on my own experiences in various groups throughout my life. I’ve never been part of a political group (I aim to change that), but I could identify these patterns of formal and informal structures even in the various “non-political” groups I belong to or have belonged to. Even among friend groups, this dynamic is at play. As a group grows, its size facilitates the formation of smaller groups inside, since a person can only dedicate so much time to building meaningful connections with everyone in the group, and undoubtedly people will draw in new members with whom others will not be socially “compatible.” A group of “friends” and “acquaintances” in overlapping patterns. These groups within groups are often described as “cliques.” It would seem if there are A) no stated objectives of a group and B) that there are several groups of equal size in overlap within the primary group, these ultimately result in cliques, which in some ways are the more benign form of “elites,” or more accurately, the “non-political” form of “elites.”

Defining “elites” as the byproduct of informal structures within an unstructured group definitely aligned some patterns for me in various ways. The note about the word “elites” and its misuse is something that has been expressed as a broader notion before regarding the use of language by the ruling class as a way to mystify or muddy a word’s meaning by deliberately using it broadly to destroy parts of our language. I can’t put my finger on where I heard of this idea right now, but this was one of those moments where you read a statement so obvious it baffles you as to how it’s something you hadn’t yet internalized. Obviously, there are other ways to think about the concept of “elites,” but this has a logic to it that simply feels like a broadly applicable metric.

Correctly, an elite refers to a small group of people who have power over a larger group of which they are part, usually without direct responsibility to that larger group, and often without their knowledge or consent. A person becomes an elitist by being part of, or advocating the rule by, such a small group, whether or not that individual is well known or not known at all. […] The most insidious elites are usually run by people not known to the larger public at all. Intelligent elitists are usually smart enough not to allow themselves to become well known. […] Elites are not conspiracies. Very seldom does a small group of people get together and deliberately try to take over a larger group for its own ends. Elites are nothing more, and nothing less, than groups of friends who also happen to participate in the same political activities. […] These friendship groups function as networks of communication outside any regular channels for such communication that may have been set up by a group. If no channels are set up, they function as the only networks of communication.

This is all very relatable. We’ve all had that experience where we become members of some group and naturally form bonds with some members of that group, which grows into external communication outside the group’s normal channels of communication. Thinking of groups in terms of various networks of communication, both formal and informal, is interesting. Even in this forum, we know that is probably happening; it is only natural for people of like mind to create these networks. Thinking locally, I live in a rather progressive town, but we have our contingent of MAGA like anywhere else. It’s not a large town, and it would seem that one of the more active networks of communication is a Facebook page operated by a few locals. They take a pretty “laissez-faire” approach to page management but have a “rule” about keeping “politics” off the page. This gets back to the idea of “muddying language,” because much of the most active communication on the page is political in nature, even if the moderators do not recognize it as such. There is a clear contingent of MAGA who understand this reality and, as such, attempt to be some of the more active members on the page while also actively maintaining a secondary page that acts as their “elite” group. This group is managed by two political figures in the local MAGA movement, one of whom is currently in a position of power, and the other is seeking a similar position. There is no equivalent to this kind of formation on the Democratic side of this equation, and at a minimum, local Democrats do not engage on the page at the same frequency as the MAGA group. In many ways, this leaves the conversation among the wider group framed by the MAGA group. It is a kind of reflection of the national politics.

The group, due to its attempts at being “neutral,” then acts as a kind of recruitment pool and stage for politically active subgroups to exploit. If one politically active subgroup is more dominant in their use of this sphere, they de facto become in “control” of the group. If the group takes a non-neutral stance politically, it fractures the group into two groups, since this now formalized structure and perspective hinders the activity of these politically active subgroups. Strict enforcement of this non-neutral stance further stifles this activity in favor of one group over the other. This is obvious for the politically active, but to those who consider themselves “apolitical,” it might not be so obvious, and it is what leads to a Nazi Bar scenario.

The MAGA contingent has been slower to take hold lately, despite the nature of national politics. This year, however, it seems to be changing. Within the local Republican Party, their caucus resulted in more formal authority going to the MAGA group; it’s taken them almost three years to accomplish this task. No doubt in my mind, it is due in large part to their effective use of weaponizing the loose structure of one of the more powerful means of communication in town, the Facebook group. Their “colleagues” in their party who are of a more moderate nature act in a similar disengaged manner to the Democrats, allowing the MAGA group to establish the broader framing of “issues” in the town and establishing themselves as the spokespeople for their group.

These ideas clearly scale outside the context under which they were presented. When we apply a constraint that naturally forms a “group,” we can find these formal and informal structures, these networks of communications, and various forms of elites all attempting to shape and mold the wider group to suit their smaller groups’ desires. People, it would seem, are the only creatures walking the earth that can decide how they are organized, or if they are organized at all.

it is easier to rationalize the exclusion of the members of the other informal structure by such means as “red-baiting,” “reformist-baiting,” “lesbian-baiting,” or “straight-baiting.” The only other alternative is to formally structure the group in such a way that the original power structure is institutionalized. This is not always possible. If the informal elites have been well structured and have exercised a fair amount of power in the past, such a task is feasible. These groups have a history of being somewhat politically effective in the past, as the tightness of the informal structure has proven an adequate substitute for a formal structure. Becoming structured does not alter their operation much, though the institutionalization of the power structure does open it to formal challenge. It is those groups which are in greatest need of structure that are often least capable of creating it. Their informal structures have not been too well formed and adherence to the ideology of “structurelessness” makes them reluctant to change tactics. The more unstructured a group is, the more lacking it is in informal structures, and the more it adheres to an ideology of “structurelessness,” the more vulnerable it is to being taken over by a group of political comrades.

There just seem to be so many parallels that can be drawn from this, in all forms of groups we find ourselves interacting with. I know that for some, this “Facebook” group might seem like a “silly” example, but I do think that there is a kind of “unawareness” to these groups, a naivete among the operators of these various networks of communication and social groupings, that creates an unstructured setting for these groups of “elites” to exploit. I’m also not trying to say that these various groups suddenly need to implement some form of democratic structure either; simply that, we exist within many self-assembling structureless groups full of informal structures being maintained by various groups of elitists seeking to ensure the maintenance of this structurelessness for their own means.

This writing is very obviously about building effective political action groups, about movement building, and how to build a stable and focused network of political cells, but I think it also reveals a very real and very actionable tendency broadly in the way people self-organize. It reveals a whole social ecosystem of behavior that one can tune into and attempt to become more aware of. Identifying these “elitist” groups, their shapes, members, aims, and goals should make you more effective at defending and holding a political line inside of groups you don’t have formal control over. If the reactionaries appear to be coalescing into a group and building informal power within the social spheres you intersect with, it’s time to start building your own. The strength of these groups is proportional to the void created by the lack of competing interest groups.