Review: Rules for Radicals
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Simon Copland reviews Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky, the classic text on community organising. This is another review in our series on recommended reading for campaigners, community organisers, and other activists. What books have you learnt from, been challenged by, and found inspiring? What books have informed your activist practices? Share your recommendations and reviews.
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Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, is essential reading for any radical who wants to create real change in the world. The book contains Alinsky’s codification of the ‘organising model’ of community change, and is generally considered the key text in the development of community organising. Rules for Radicals was published in 1971 and Alinsky drew on his experiences as a community organiser working with poorer and African American communities throughout the United States from the 1930s.
Alinsky’s organising model is based on the idea of generating durable power for an organisation through bringing communities together to act collectively for common goals. The model is now used in many unions and community organisations around the world and this book is an important resource for anyone who wants to do community organising well.
Alinsky covers a range of topics in Rules for Radicals, including discussions on the purpose of radical movements, ‘means and ends’ in campaigning, choosing issues to organise around, selecting targets, getting campaigns going, developing tactics, and communication strategies.
In developing this model, Alinsky develops what he calls a ‘pragmatic primer for realistic radicals’. It is designed to allow radicals to know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical radical”. Throughout the text he looks at pragmatic ways organisations and radicals can work to create change. For example, when discussing tactics he suggests:
“For an elementary illustration of tactics, take parts of your face as the point of reference; your eyes, your ears and your nose. First the eyes; if you have organised a vast, mass-based people’s organisation, you can parade it visibly before the enemy and openly show your power. Second the ears; if your organisation is small in numbers, then do what Gideon did: conceal the members in the dark but raise a din and clamor that will make the listener believe that your organisation numbers many more than it does. Third, the nose; if your organisation is too tiny even for noise, stink up the place.”
Using this practical basis, Alinsky outlines the realistic ways organisations can develop campaigns. One of the most interesting areas in this discussion is his work on how radical organisations can justify means in order to achieve their ends. When discussing means and ends, Alinsky states:
“That perennial question, “Does the end justify the means?” is meaningless as it stands; the real and only question regarding the ethics of means and ends is, and always has been, “Does this particular end justify this particular mean?”
In other words, Alinsky argues that there are no clear lines for defining what ‘justifiable means’ are, but rather that justification is dependent on the context of the campaign and issue. This is particularly relevant given the power structures in our society, where those who are fighting for change (who are often the ones who get caught up in discussions about the ethics of means and ends) are fighting against people with a large amount of power who often have little care about the ethics of their means. Alinsky therefore states that:
“The practical revolutionary will understand Goethe’s “conscience is the virtue of observers and not of agents of action”; in action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one’s individual conscience and the good of mankind (sic). The choice must always be for the latter.”
Alinsky develops this idea further by outlining a range of rules for how organisations can determine the ethics of their means and ends. Two key rules are:
“The third rule of the ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means.”
“The ninth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.”
The discussion on means and ends is just one area where Alinsky challenges much of the dominant discourse around movements for change. Throughout his work, Alinsky argues that much of our strategic decisions about ethics are made out of context, and that this is not a practical way to achieve change. And this is what is so important about his work. In many ways Alinsky’s work is an analysis of flawed approaches to social change (even today) and a call out for change. The great thing is that he also provides realistic, radicals ways for this to be achieved.
Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is an essential work for any realistic radical. If you are working to create change in your community, make sure you get a copy. 5 stars!
About the reviewer
Simon Copland works and studies in science communication at the ANU. Simon has worked in environmental campaigns at University and been active in the ACT Greens since 2007. He is also a committed unionist and queer activist and the political editor for the ACT based queer magazine, FUSE.
I still don’t really get the appeal of this book. I found it a bit obtuse, and anything but “practical”. The ends and means discussion seemed to go on forever and at the end, I was still unsure how I would actually apply any of it to my organising.
It seems like a long argument that essentially says, be pragmatic, look at what you can win, not just what you’d like to win, and do stuff.
For me the stuff about ethics of particular means is more about recognising that ethics is not a neutral concept, but is debated through and in the midst of struggles for power.
Has this book changed the way you approach or understand any specific campaigns in contemporary Australia? Some examples would be interesting.
Hi,
Thanks for the comment. I can understand where you are coming from when you say that the book isn’t practical. Alinsky definitely doesn’t create a practical book in terms of setting out a start-to-finish discussion on how to run a campaign on an issue.
I think the practicality of the book however comes through the discussion on what I said in the review to be about setting our campaigns and ethics in context of the world in which we sit. I think a lot of Alinsky’s text is calling out for people to stop developing campaigns out of context and in the perfect world, but to rather sit down, look at the situation in which we are in and then start developing a campaign model. You can see that through his discussion on means and ends through to that on tactics, where the quote about eyes, ears and noses is relevant.
On top of that, I think Alinksy does provide a range of practical tools in which we can use for campaigns. His rules for means and ends for example are what I find to be very useful, practical measures that we can all think about for campaigns.
What I really love about Alinsky’s book is that it places practicality within theory and discusses the two in tandem. He discusses the role of power and ethics in our society and situates that within the way change organisations need to look at their organising. I think that makes the book extremely practical, particularly given the role discussions on ethics, power etc. play in modern change organisations.
Finally, if you were to look at some of the ways this book has changed approaches than I think we can’t look further than the growing influence of the organising model in modern social movements. In particular we can see the organising model growing in the union movement, where unions are moving away from a service model provision to one where they mobilise their members to challenge power. I think Alinsky was essential in developing such movements. We can see things like this happening in modern environmental and social movements as well, with groups ranging across a number of issues focusing on member mobilisations techniques.
Happy to chat more about different models and examples if you like.
Hi there. I find this discussion around means and ends really interesting. It’s a long time since I read Rules, and my copy is in storage, so these comments are from what I’ve internalised about community organising and Alinsky’s approach.
I really like Alinsky’s ‘hard-headedness’. A lot of organising out there is based on the ‘world as it should be’ rather than the ‘world as it is’. For example, in the world as it should be, elected representatives respond to evidence and reasonably put arguments. In the world as it is, elected representatives respond to power and political pain and reward. No matter how lofty our politics, how pure our behaviour, we can’t change the world as it is into the world as it should be without engaging with power.
A lot of groups seem to tie themselves in knots trying to find the perfect process or way to be in the world, without enough focus on winning outcomes. There seems to be an assumption that if we get our ‘means’ just right, the right ‘ends’ will somehow just happen. Or they won’t, but we’ll still be morally superior. I’m not suggesting that groups abandon their values, or cease to examine their process and tactics, but rather that the filters or criterion of community organising may be beneficial, for example: ‘Will these means actually get us closer to our desired ends?’, ‘Does this build power?’, ‘Does this demonstrate power?’, ‘Does this put real pressure on an actual target (decision-maker/power-holder)?’, ‘Is this winnable?’ etc
I’d like to see groups put more emphasis on figuring out how to win – a preoccupation with ideological purity sometimes looks like a mask for timidity about taking action. Alinsky didn’t have a lot of patience for that!