THE M MODEL OF SOCIAL CHANGE:
MOVEMENTS AGAINST THE MACHIAVELLIANS
BY TOM HAYDEN
[an excerpt from a forthcoming book. May 1, 2006]
All social change results from the clash between social movements and Machiavellians. What is meaningful in our lives, from those values we live by, the wages we make, or the air our children breathe, is the outcome of this permanent contradiction of history.
MOVEMENTS MANIFEST MORAL VISION.
A social movement is a massive community of protest that begins outside, and seeks to change, the dominant institutional order and its values. A reforming social movement forces the institutional order to concede space for new values, ideas and constituencies. A revolutionary social movement succeeds in triumphing over and replacing the institutional order altogether.
MACHIAVELLIANS MANIFEST MAMMON.
The Machiavellians are the elites and power technicians within the institutional order whose purpose is the maintenance of incumbent power over culture, the economy, the state and orderly processes of change. The Machiavellians operate in the spheres of business, education, the state, the military and the media, coalescing when necessary to preserve the larger institutional order.
The Machiavellians are broader than a ruling class, but hold commanding decision-making positions even within pluralist democracies. While holding common values Ð the market economy, limited democracy, the rule of experts and bureaucrats Ð the Machiavellians continually divide over whether to concede or refuse reform in the face of social movements.
MINORITIES AT THE MARGINS.
Social movements arise from prophetic minorities at the margins where they have been ignored, oppressed or persecuted Ð culturally, racially, politically or economically. Social change never begins within the mainstream; rather, that is where it ends.
The actual makeup of the prophetic handfuls is a mysterious. They cannot be reduced to pathological misfits. Nor do they arise from organizations. They seem to come from nowhere, unexpectedly. They feel impelled to action by inner sources of offended dignity and desire, partly from a collective and sometimes unconscious memory of previous movements and martyrs. They are the prophetic precursors of the spontaneously organized forces that suddenly enter history to the shock and chagrin of the Machiavellians, who mistakenly believe they have removed all access to the movement spirit.
MIRACLE.
They emerge as if by ÒmiracleÓ, as Tom Paine used the term. By this I mean unexpectedly, unnoticed by journalists or experts until the movement already has begun. They are Òevidence of things unseenÓ (James Baldwin). ÒMiracleÓ also is meant in the sense that the participants are inspired (Òin the spiritÓ) in ways they have not experienced before. In PaineÕs terms, their great Òmass of senseÓ Ð the talents which lie beneath the surface of their apathy Ð is awakened, and they become emboldened to live at risk.
MAGNETISM.
Like love or sexual attraction, social movements exist as a magnetic field of energy, arousing and unifying participants on a basis beyond material interest alone. Grievances must exist for a movement to arise, but the inner desire motivating a social movement is for something more than a cup of coffee or wage increase. It is a desire to heal wounds inflicted on intrinsic dignity. The activist cannot take it any more, on the one hand; feels newly empowered, on the other.
MEMORY.
Social movements begin and end in memory, the recovered memory of half-forgotten past movements and mythical figures like Moses which motivate and locate the participants in history. The Machiavellians seek either to erase memory with amnesia, or co-opt memory to serve the mainstream.
THE COMMUNITY OF MEANING.
To sustain themselves, the prophetic minorities create a community of meaning, complete with myths, magic, music, and healing memory, a self-generated alternative subculture which fulfills their aspirations for meaning, friendship, love, meaningful work, education, self-development, and politics consistent with values. These movement communities most certainly are not cults, although they can degenerate into closed and claustrophobic enclaves. Nor are they communes, which are more totalizing than a community. Nor are these the Òblessed communitiesÓ of Rev. Martin Luther King or the Society of Friends, which are based on a religious viewpoint. A community of meaning means a loose network in which the participants discover and define their common vision, develop their sense of worth, exchange and develop skills, and sustain a solidarity in the face of all machiavellian obstacles. Such communities may remain permanent subcultures of protest, eventually alter the mainstream culture, or be co-opted to the purposes of the very culture they originally opposed.
THE MOMENT COMES.
Movements at the margins pass through transformative moments which expose their identity, beliefs and demands to a wider public. Such moments usually involve a shocking machiavellian case of overkill, but may also arrive suddenly in the form of new music or art.
THE MARCH TO THE MAINSTEAM.
With wider public interest, the movement begins its march towards the mainstream. Their action on the outside exerts a magnetic respect from the mainstream public. Their spirit becomes contagious to larger numbers. Their numbers become too large for the Machiavellians to either repress or ignore without spreading the contagion even further. The movement becomes larger, through spontaneous growth, than the capacity of its organizations to direct or control. The movementÕs magnetic energy and example cross-fertilizes the birth of analogous movements, both domestically and globally,
THE MAJORITY IS ACHIEVED.
When the movement enters the mainstream, a majority gradually begins to form in favor of at least the original goals, if not all of its methods. Politics comes to the movement before the movement is ready for politics. Political parties and leaders cannot afford to ignore emerging new majorities. Depending on their constituencies, the politicians will identify either with the demands of the social movement, seek to modify those demands, or promote a backlash against those demands.
By now the Machiavellians are divided between militant opponents of the movement and moderate supporters, both guided by the principle of power maintenance. Mirroring the Machiavellians, the movement itself divides between those devoted to the original demands [usually the mainstream base] and more militant elements who have been radicalized by their struggle, and who now desire More.
THE MOVEMENT TRIUMPHS
When the original aims of the movement are supported strongly enough by a majority, those goals are achieved through legislation, institutional reform, new norms, and a changed climate of opinion. The Machiavellians concede either token, substantive, or even historic, reforms while at the same time seeking to maintain control or hegemony.. The movement has been divided over whether they have won a real victory, partially won, or succumbed to the Machiavellians.
In addition to concrete reforms, the most important impacts of social movements lie in the increasing consciousness, expectations, and demands for participation among people who have previously considered themselves unqualified or powerless to participate in the decisions which affect their lives.
Social movements arise from direct participatory democracy outside the Machiavellian system, and attempt to reform the institutions in such a direction in the long run.
BUT THE MACHIAVELLIANS TRIUMPH TOO.
Being Machiavellian, they claim the reform as their own, while thanking and using moderate movement leaders to restore the image of the system itself. The Machiavellians cannot and will not admit that the movement achieved any power beyond the power to send advice through newly-constituted channels. They agree that the movement may have a seat at the table.
There are times in history when movements become radical and revolutionary, and the Machiavellian order collapses. These moments can occur under both democratic or authoritarian institutional arrangements, depending on the degree of Machiavellian blindness. After the revolution, however, the Machiavellians will always return, sometimes even in the garb of the revolutionaries. This is because even the most successful revolutions are resisted by significant elements of public opinion and Machiavellian interests.
The reverse also may occur: the Machiavellians may impose a counter-revolution or dictatorship by exploiting fear and scapegoating of the movement. What they cannot do is achieve totalitarianism, since social movements arise, challenge and eventually undermine all such systems too.
Neither of these scenarios Ð revolution or counter-revolution Ð have occurred in the United States since 1776, although moments of breakdown and reform have occurred several times. But revolutionary and counter-revolutionary upheavals in other countries can be explained by the MM model as well.
THE MOVEMENT BECOMES DE-MOBILIZED AFTER VICTORY.
When movements are successful, their mass base quickly demobilizes in order to enjoy the reforms in mainstream life they have achieved, willing to believe that the Machiavellians have listened and become responsive.. The movement has been drawn into the mainstream, not simply the other way around. Movement and machiavellian have merged for the moment. The pragmatists and opportunists in the movement take advantage of the opportunity to enter the machiavellian world, declaring their intention to change it from within, becoming gatekeepers of legitimacy, even accepting the roles of administering the reform they have achieved. The more principled or radical movement activists feel stranded in an interlude of irrelevancy, choosing neither to return to private life nor accept roles within the reformed machiavellian order. They feel marginalized all over again.
THE COUNTER-MOVEMENT IS MOBILIZED BY MOVEMENT GAINS.
Having failed to prevent the movement reforms, many of the opponents are increasingly motivated to mobilize to minimize the impact on their lives and interests. The phenomenon can be called a backlash, or a reactionary social movement, since it reflects both a popular base and an intransigent element of the Machiavellians. The counter-movement does not publicly oppose the movementÕs reform in principle, but seeks to undermine its enforcement and funding, and to shrink its significant through amendments. If the backlash goes too far, seeking to openly reverse the new majority consensus, it risks re-awakening the original movement to protect what it has won. For that reason, the counter-movement treads a fine line between mobilizing its militant base and masking its motives through stealth.
MEMORY, MUSEUMS, MEMORIALS.
As in the beginning, the struggle over memory, over what is memorialized, begins after movements pass into history. The Machiavellians want to incorporate the acceptable reforms and reformers, even radical reformers, into an amended historical narrative. The past is considered a Òdark chapterÓ that has been closed. Amnesia hangs like a mist over the memory of social movements. For the movements, however, memory must be mobilized as a resource in the permanent struggle for social change. This contest over memory takes place in the schools, the media, the educational system, and in popular culture, including whatever movement culture has survived the course of history. Where memory is strong, social movements are strong, even in their periods of latency. Where memory has been manipulated or destroyed, the capacity of social movements is weakened but never disappears, because people are known to rise up even against the absence of memory.
[to be continued in chapters on Indian resistance, the American Revolution, Abolition and Civil War, the Mexican War, WomensÕ suffrage, the rise of Labor, the New Deal, the Sixties movements, Iraq and the anti-war movement, and the conflict over globalization.] |
Tom Hayden is national co-director of No More Sweatshops!, a coalition of labor, clergy, community and campus advocates of "sweat-free" guidelines on public procurement and enforceable labor standards for corporate behavior.
