Self-organization

“ Then it will no longer be mechanical and external, hampering the free play of artistic gifts, fettering men and women with chains of conformity, conducing to abdication of all which does not fit into the automatic movement of organization as a self-sufficing thing. Organization as a means to an end would reënforce individuality and enable it to be securely itself by enduing it with resources beyond its unaided reach. ”

“ Therefore, impelled by the self-interest of the individuals thus brought together, a certain division of labor is established, necessarily followed by exchanges. In brief, we see an organization emerge, by means of which man can more completely satisfy his needs than he could living in isolation. ”

“ Accumulated precedents of the successful exercise of power, observation of the might of organization, and equally instructive experience of the weakness of disorganization and of the danger of self-seeking, personal or political, in the head of the Christian world, had brought the thinking party in the Church to understand the dominant position which it might hold in the world if it could be controlled as a single organization and animated by a single purpose. ”

“ And in a world where organizations are regularly being confused and fouled up—either as whole organizations, or through your attempts to get rid of individual members—a smooth-running, efficient organization stands out like a sore thumb. ”

“ For myself, I am convinced that much is yet to be gained by better appreciation of the element of organization. But organization is only the mode under which the work of life goes on. It is not a force—it never can force anything. It has to do with the smoothness and harmony of the operations. In human society, in its lower forms, organization has always produced itself spontaneously and automatically and has, therefore, just suited itself to the case. ”

“ Is it extravagant to anticipate a time when the tendency to union shall have been perfected; when the whole organization of society shall have been rendered more compact and harmonious? Will God suddenly suspend the great law of providential development?
Organization is not life, but it is the sign of life; and the degree and perfection of organization is the test of life. [1] ”

“ Though to make coöperation possible, and therefore to facilitate social growth, there must be organization, yet the organization formed impedes further growth; since further growth implies reorganization, which the existing organization resists. ”

“ There is a mistaken notion that organization does not foster individual freedom; that, on the contrary, it means the decay of individuality. In reality, however, the true function of organization is to aid the development and growth of personality. ”

“ And we ought to tell ourselves (parenthetically) at this point that the one reasonable and worthy use of all our machinery is just this—to follow the example of life not only in the actual organizing but in the purpose and meaning of organization. ”

“ It is the difference between the fellow who lets a political club, a military company or a factory force go all to pieces, and some other fellow who can put the pieces together again, or rather, draw them together instantly. For the man who reorganizes without this Something is like the chap who cleans his own clock—he usually has a few pieces of the organization left over because they wouldn't fit in anywhere. The personal equation is magnetic. It comes along and acts, and every part falls into place, and the organization is capable of performing a lot of new functions. ”

“ The Principle of Organisation and Collective Action A third principle is that of Organisation and Collective Action. The problems of industry are world problems. To cope with them successfully, organization is absolutely necessary.
What would become of Capital, under the stress of world competition, if its units were not permitted to coalesce, and large organization of business thereby rendered impossible? What would become of the Community, if its activities were not organized? ”

“ It will be seen that the idea I have in mind might be imagined as a kind of civic federation club, a super-consumers' league, and a super-advertising club rolled into one. Rolling these three ideas into one is a temperament, and the men who are full of the vision of what can be done with them rolled into one, and of what is the matter with them if they are not rolled into one, must be the controlling powers in the new organization. ”

“ Then came her picture of organization: the individual impotent, the mass of individuals, each helping one another, a mighty power that could grapple with the employer and force from him a generous wage. ”

“ Each variation has its emotional background and its impulsive discharge. Within normal limits they are all equally useful for the biological existence of the group and through the usefulness for the group ultimately serviceable to its members. Only through superordination and subordination does the group receive the inner [Pg 692] firmness which transforms the mere combination of men into working units. They give to human society that strong and yet flexible organization which is the necessary condition for its successful development. ”

“ We are great believers in the force of a persistent, regular and frequent circularization. But, in our humble estimation, there is something more essential in the matter under consideration, and that is the human contact and continued influence of a "field-organizer." An extensive organization without this factor will not be efficient, will not last. ”

“ The tendency to treat organization as an end in itself is responsible for all the exaggerated theories in which individuals are subordinated to some institution to which is given the noble name of society. ”

“ Man's genius for organization institutionalizes every aspect of thought and activity he takes under his control. The institution, organized at first for the benefit of personal life and the life-process, tends invariably toward a fixity of method and hardness of substance that finally sacrifices life-growth to its iron pressure until a new form of institution makes its way through struggle and suffering. ”

“ And since, under the present industrial system, it is impossible for him to assert and maintain this right without organization, all who love justice and freedom ought to encourage him to organize, and stand by him and see that he gets the fruits of his organization. ”

“ Organization, of certain kinds, is no doubt more extensive and elaborate than ever before, and organization, it may be said, involves the interdependence, the unity, of parts. But will this be a conscious and moral unity? In a high kind of organization it will; but rapid growth may give us a system that is mechanical rather than, in the higher sense, social. ”

“ The subordination of the individual to an organization, in which each member cares only for himself regardless of what happens to all the others, seems a paradox, but it is simply modern—the employment of dynamic laws of modern societies. ”

“ It is not the amount of organization, but its kind and its purposes, that cause our troubles. But before tackling this question, let us pause for a moment to ask ourselves what is the measure of the intensity of organization in a given community.
A man’s acts are partly determined by spontaneous impulse, partly by the conscious or unconscious effects of the various groups to which he belongs. A man who works (say) on a railway or in a mine is, in his working-hours almost entirely determined in his actions by those who direct the collective30 labour of which he forms part. ”

“ Organization is all you require. You have as yet only organized into simple isolated groups. You must now organize all these groups. Every industry, every partnership, is a group. Each group is dependent upon all the others. This being true, you must form a whole. Let every man stick to his special work, let every locality remain in its special work, let every industry and every partnership stick to its special work,—don't disturb nature—but all these must stick to each other! How? By forming yourselves into one solid, compact, organized body. Call yourselves a nation. ”

“ Such are the organized forms of business, education, government, and religion. But all groups require organization of a sort. The gang has its recognized leader, the club its officers and by-laws. Even such antisocial persons as outlaws frequently move in bands and have their chiefs. [9] Organization goes far to determine success in war or politics, in work or play. Like achievement, organization is the result of a gradual growth in collective experience, and must be continually adapted to the changing requirements of successive periods by the wisdom of master minds. ”

“ Such an appeal, if it is wary, is an appeal to the present situation as undergoing that reorganization that will confer upon it the unification which it lacks; to organization as something to be brought about, to be made. ”

“ The more tangible kind of social power—so far as it is intrinsic to the man and not adventitious like inherited wealth—depends chiefly upon organizing capacity, which may be described as the ability to build and operate human machinery. ”

“ And then mark that the idea, thus developed into an all-embracing truth in Biology, comes back to Sociology ready to be for it, too, an all-embracing truth. For it now becomes manifest that not to industrial arrangements only does the principle of the division of labor apply, but to social arrangements in general. The progress of organization, from that first step by which there arose a controlling chief, partially distinguished by his actions from those controlled, has been everywhere the same. ”

“ But we shall come back to the basic principle that individual initiative, energy and the rewards that accrue therefrom are and always must be the basis for collective initiative, energy and the rewards thereof; that no collective organization such as a government can remain virile and effective unless its component parts--the individuals--remain virile and effective. ”

“ The idea of looking out of yourself for an organization is all false. The idea that you must look to a distance for some being out of yourselves as a representation or reflection of the perfect attributes of Deity, is erroneous. The individual who feels the need of an organization must first understand that that organization must be built up by the law of affinity; and that as each individual becomes a particle to be incorporated into the organism in his love and affection, he must grow to retain his position. The vital principle must be felt by himself. ”

“ We are in a society, where classes and groups face each other in a destructive way. They disorganise one another, precisely because each such group seeks to organise the world and humanity for themselves in their own way. This is the result of isolation in which social forces are organised separately - they do not reach a point of unity with a shared simplified organisation. This is the struggle of organisational forms.
So, the conclusion is confirmed: all the interests of mankind are organizational. ”

“ The sharp insistence of the sociologist that "organization must be for the organized" expresses the same thought. One must add sociology's double assertion, that society is really advancing toward its goal, and yet that a chief condition of the progress of society is unselfish leadership. [6] This can only mean that there is, increasingly, unselfish leadership, more and more of conscious, willing coöperation on the part of men in forwarding the social evolution. ”

“ That which one has to fight hardest against in bringing together a large number of people to do work is excess organization and consequent red tape. To my mind there is no bent of mind more dangerous than that which is sometimes described as the "genius for organization." ”

“ There can be little difference of opinion concerning the necessity for some such organization. A question may well be raised, however, with regard to the probable developments of so vast a world machine. What are its ultimate purposes? Why, in the last analysis, do men seek to improve the economic and political structure of human society? Why organize at all? ”

“ So that while, at each stage, better immediate results may be achieved by completing organization, they must be at the expense of better ultimate results. These are to be achieved by carrying organization at each stage no further than is needful for the orderly carrying on of social actions. ”

“ Some organizations use up so much energy and time maintaining a feeling of harmony that they have no force left to work for the object for which the organization was created. The organization is secondary to the object. The only harmonious organization that is worth anything is an organization in which all the members are bent on the one main purpose—to get along toward the objective. ”

“ In both cases such semi-independent organisations, the instincts or the institutions, are relatively fixed and stable, and they work, if left to themselves, quasi-mechanically along old established lines, without intelligent adaptation to new circumstances; and they are incapable of self-adaptation. ”

“ Socially, as well as individually, organization is indispensable to growth: beyond a certain point there cannot be further growth without further organization. Yet there is not a little reason for suspecting that beyond this point organization is indirectly repressive—increases the obstacles to those readjustments required for larger growth and more perfect structure. Doubtless the aggregate we call a society is much more plastic than an individual living aggregate to which it is here compared—its type is far less fixed. ”

“ This transformation must be wrought through the organization of the people—the consumers—into a large club or league with branches and chapters. Thus organized, the individual would have a channel for the expression and application of their constructive thought. On the individual is the responsibility of arming himself with knowledge adequate for good judgment, with perspective for sound progress, with vision for comprehensive planning. ”