The principles of power at work in democratic societies can be described with three conditions:
(i) There must be no incentives for the offenders to confess their manoeuvre.
(ii) The offence must be invisible to third parties.
(iii) There must be no incentives for the victim to make the offence public.
In its most general form, democracy-adapted power merely involves the manipulation of information. An important set of strategies concerns upholding (iii) by attacks which would make the victim appear as delusional if made public, thus deterring a credible witness statement. Such assaults involve long-term undermining such as isolation, compatible with high-intensity operations, potent enough to cause psychological, and even biological trauma, only with the manipulation of a couple of bits of information. However, additional levels of deception are compatible, such as meta-strategies to cover previous attacks, or more sinister operations involving chemicals which satisfy the aforementioned principles. [1]
The economics of power is concerned with how to ensure obedience in a cost effective manner. One of the most iconic expressions in this vein is Bentham’s panoptical prison. Its architecture gives a prisoner incentives to behave, based on their incomplete information about surveillance. Foucault [2] spent considerable time pondering the special case when prisoners internalize the logic of power and behave as if they were supervised. The thought experiment is rather straightforward. Under such circumstances, no guards are needed in the end.
The principles (i)-(iii) above can be combined to give a good description of a wide range of strategies without prior knowledge of particularities. The aim in this article is to extend the characterization of power to an organization which is adapted to carry out socially calibrated attacks obeying the principles of democracy-adapted power. This is a natural extrapolation as it would make no sense to carry out these attacks without an organization capable of concealing its abusive members.
In general, neither the victim nor the offenders may be aware of their own or the roles of each other, or at least have incomplete information about it. Such considerations affect the cost of satisfying (i) or (iii). The relative informational position or distribution of information between offenders and victims is therefore at the heart of how the democracy-adapted organization operates.
A trivial example is to infiltrate left-wing groups by boosting fake activists. These will receive most attention and could be given key positions as organizers. One way to do it is simply to aid an ideologically motivated far-right person with a hidden agenda. This person can be made credible simply by mimicking true activists. Another way is via extortion, especially through the use of sensitive information. This is a way of recruiting external fake activists or persuading real incumbent activists with something to hide. Obviously, these fake activists may destroy the organization at once or use it for long term aims. Therefore, full spectrum dominance of both left- and right-wing organizations is a distinct possibility. Under such circumstances, fake leftists can be given street cred by orchestrated attacks from the plotting right.
Naturally, the long-term aims go beyond the left-right spectrum. Considering the geopolitical situation, the highest stage of a fake activist is to infiltrate resistance movements, especially in the underdeveloped world. One of the big revelations of the Assange debacle is the numerous shameless fake activists that fortunately have exposed themselves by endless intrigues and overconfident sabotages. Resistance movements in the underdeveloped world run a very low risk to be fooled by that lot, which pretty much destroys their most desirable future prospects, and deprives them of a meaningful existence. The non-existence of an independent Swedish left has been underscored in this process.
Moreover, the impact of these techniques are amplified by tangible property and capacity of violence. It is important to reiterate that although the attacks are potent enough to deal immediate psychological trauma, they are in fact means to get a message across. Furthermore it is to warn or conceal more ominous and tangible punishment such as the use of brute force, loss of employment, blacklisting etc. There is a long list of such punishments and a vast amount of cases in the whistle-blower literature alone [3].
At a more general level, the capture of activists goes through pure intellectual domination. It is in principle enough to school activists with nonsense ideology or unsound organizational practices to make them irrelevant. The highly regulated role of so-called public intellectuals in Western democratic societies is full of such examples. These have in some instances merely appropriated the centuries old wisdom of popular resistance but will in the end prove conspicuously inept organizers, argue that no one knows how to deal with current problems, to do nothing for embarrassing pseudo-intellectual reasons etc. Hierarchical organizations and personal cults are tailor made for corruption.
Fake leftist intellectuals may simply be built from the ideas of committed left-wingers, which makes the fake ones outcompete the real thing through foul play. The interplay between fake intellectuals and the establishment, e.g. media, is of outmost importance to study, as it is one of the most informative social relations between covert and overt actors. One of the windows to the inner workings of power.
An analyst should be open to the possibility of deep cover when approaching such phenomena, in order to discern the level of actual authoritarianism. There is however a straight forward way to deal with this and that is to decouple public influence from organizing or at least have some minimal safeguards. Problems do arise when both public figures and leading organizers are agents of power. In such case, the organizational memory is at stake and new generations may be lead into practices and ideas which effectively render them toothless against those in power. At this stage, activists who regard themselves as the real thing may actually unwittingly be championing the cause of the powers that be. They will thus have no incentives to admit their manoeuvre, the true meaning of their actions is even more obscure to the public, which subsequently will have few means to address problem. Thus, offenders and victims alike may fail to fully grasp their identities and consequences of their actions.
There is a remedy even under such dismal circumstances. A completely fake organization may still be held accountable and kept in check by pointing out contradictions with its official agenda or attempts to reformulate it to serve elites. To play along accompanied with ruthless criticism when it fails to meet its official targets is a way to go for the everyday person of conscience, especially accompanied with support to a vanguard of activists with the aim to retake the organization.
Is this article unwittingly damaging a hypothetical resistance movement employing similar tactics? No, because those in power obviously know more about such practices, and expect rational best responses to their actions by similar means. Among other things, because they obviously currently are the so-called resistance in some instances. Modern empires and nearly unimaginable degrees of wealth are currently based on the unequal distribution of information. This inequality is exemplified by the vast networks in use to conceal wealth, and the modern surveillance apparatus.
This example naturally leads to a second basic and more general remark about incomplete information on the actions or agenda of others within the organization. Like a giant Lego or Ikea furniture, goals may be achieved as a joint action with contributions from people specialized in different parts. The democracy adapted organization will make sure to distribute information about its aims and operations in suitable chunks.
A proper administration of information lowers the cost of assaults in terms of conscience, risks involved and material incentives. For these reasons, it is rational to keep members of the organization partially ignorant about the meaning of their actions. From their perspective, it may be the case that their offence is perceived as a mere prank or even to give moral support to the victim. If the signal moreover is vague, then it becomes increasingly difficult for the offenders to realize that they are actually performing a serious threat. Those rich in terms information may induce the informational proletariat to perform otherwise costly actions virtually for free. A distinction between immediate abusers and observers can be established to further lower the cost for example.
If the victim remains silent, it has condemned itself to submission because the organization then has succeeded to establish control which it may continue to utilize. After a while, it will be enough with a subtle signal to make a submissive individual feel watched or threatened. The potential of the exercise of power is realized as it is projected from physical violence and coercion, to a symbolic level where the shadow of power manifests itself through cost-effective signalling, which makes large-scale use possible. Because this power primarily relies on the transfer of information, successful strategies can easily be spread through the circuit in charge of the design. At this stage, the strategy has been refined to become a master key, to be copied with ease when needed to intrude in the private spaces of the targeted mind. Such refinements makes it exceedingly resistant to legal actions against it.
One of the reasons it is difficult to spot a powerful democracy-adapted organization is that there are tremendous economies of scale to be gained. At a global level, knowledge about general patterns of human organization are exploited. Small frictions are enough to affect the behaviour of billions. Moreover, information about socio-psychological profiling makes it possible to choose targets with care. Only a small subset of the individuals are necessary to target in order to maximize the likelihood of containment and to enforce status quo [4]. Utilization of a network structure closes the distances drastically. Similar properties are active at the individual level, small perturbations accumulating with rent-like features which further dampens the likelihood of detection and increases efficiency.
Strategies of democracy-adapted power may be used on the members of the organization, and simultaneously function as collateral. Inequality of information is a necessary condition to maintain an efficient democracy-adapted organization in the hands of the few. In particular, gift exchange in terms of sensitive information or performance of acts which may be used as means of extortion are suitable to ensure loyalty of new members.
Therefore:
(i) The members will have no incentives reveal the organization.
(ii) The organization will be invisible to third parties.
(iii) The victims will have no incentives to identify the organization.
This closes the system.
Manuel Echeverría
Based on Original Manuscript from 2015.
[1] For a background to these strategies, see Echeverría, M. (2019). The Swedish Advent Calendar. In particular window 12, 14 and 16 24.
https://steemit.com/power/@critico/how-i-almost-died-the-swedish-advent-calendar-19-24
https://steemit.com/power/@critico/the-swedish-advent-calendar-13-18
https://steemit.com/power/@critico/the-swedish-advent-calendar-1-12
For instance, Amphetamine gives a creeping psychosis inducing effect, and may cause sleep deprivation, which in turn also makes the victim prone to psychosis See e.g. Cullberg, J. (2004). Psykoser: ett integrerat perspektiv. Stockholm: Natur och Kultur.
[2] Foucault, M. (2003). Övervakning och straff. Lund: Arkiv förlag.
[3] See e.g. Brown & Donkin or Olsen (2008), Smith (2014) for quantitative studies in regular work-place environments (chosen nearly at random). However some figures in this strand of research may underestimate the precariousness of the situation due to a categorization which may conflate whistleblowing on grave transgressions with more common complaints. Selection bias is an issue if only the currently employed are surveyed.
Brown, A.J & Donkin, M. (2008). Whistleblowing: shifting the focus. In A.J. Brown (ed.), Whistleblowing in the Australian Public Sector: Enhancing the Theory and Practice of Internal Witness Management in Public Sector Organizations. Canberra: ANU E Press, Ch.1, (p. 1-24)
Brown, A.J., E. och J. Olsen (2008a). Whistleblower Mistreatment: Identifying the Risks. Ibid., Ch. 6, 137-61
Smith, R. & Brown A.J. (2008). The good, the bad and the ugly: whistleblowing outcomes. Ibid. (p. 109-136).
Smith, R. (2014). Whistleblowing and suffering. I Brown, A.J., Lewis, D., Moberly, R., & Vandekerckhove W (Ed.), International Handbook of Whistleblowing Research (p. 230-249) Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.
Pioneering work in the qualitative vein may on the other hand overestimate the problem if not taking the usual precautions when interpreting the results. See e.g.
Lennane, J. (2000). Battered Plaintiffs - injuries from hired guns and compliant courts.
https://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/dissent/documents/Lennane_battered.html
Lennane, J. (1996), Bullying in Medico-Legal examinations. I McCarthy, P., Sheehan, M. & Wilkie, W. (Ed), Bullying: From Backyard to Boardroom (1st ed., s.97-118). Alexandria: Millennium Books.
Lennane, J. (2012). “What Happens to Whistleblowers, and Why”, Social Medicine, vol. 6(4), 249-258.
Fotaki, M., Kenny, K. & Scriver, S. (2015). Whistleblowing And Mental Health: A New Weapon For Retaliation?. I Lewis, D. & Vandekerckhove W (Eds.), Developments in whistleblowing research 2015 (s. 106-121). London: International Whistleblowing Research Network.
Kusari, F. (2015). I Lewis, D. & Vandekerckhove W (Eds.), Developments in whistleblowing research 2015 (s. 34-49). London: International Whistleblowing Research Network.
Sweden: Hedin U.–C.& S.-A. Månsson (2012). WHistleblowing Processes in Swedish Public Organisations: Complaints and Consequences. European Journal of Social Work 15 (2): 151-67.
[4] It is commonly understood that most people can be controlled with the usual incentives such as employment, wages and career opportunities or various form of ideology. Thus there is only a smaller subset which seem resistant to so-called extrinsic motives, due to for instance intrinsic motivation originating from a dissident mind set or ideological conviction. Such individuals are easier to spot with current means of surveillance. At the individual level, filtering requires some knowledge in the behavioural sciences. At the macro level the game is played in a vast network and is connected to the techniques to contain deceases in cost effective fashion, e.g. to the notion of immunization of strategic nodes.
For historical reasons, it is worth reviewing Bailey, N. (1975). The Mathematical Theory of Infectious Diseases.
He emphasized the large-scale social dimensions to prevent and contain outbreaks. These are correlated with disease and poverty, thus intimately linked with class struggle. ‘Mathematical efforts in the future should be directed towards those theoretical problems which, if solved, would contribute in a substantive way towards the eradication or control of the principal epidemic and endemic scourges of mankind’ (p.375). It is of no surprise that Bailey cites Marx but ironically these radical correlates have most likely been subjects to containment inspired by similar statistical techniques.