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!

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.