The Superior Organizational Capability of the Privileged
We can leave open here when the newcomers agreed on their claim to Property. That it was a solidarity group from the outset, some kind of family clan, is expressly not to be assumed. At a certain point in time, a series of quarrels must have revealed that two opposing ideas of order came into conflict with each other on the ship.
Those who derived permanently exclusive powers of disposal from an act of "occupation" that had already been carried out claimed an Advantage [⇒ Preadaptive Advances].
They were thus already privileged in their self-interpretation, by virtue of well-acquired rights. Their opponents did not claim this privilege for themselves, but denied it in principle.
For the time being, it is still clear who will make up the majority. But it is already questionable what weight majority relationships have. If one compares the two groups, a difference becomes apparent which is much more essential: the privileged have the greater chance of organizing quickly and effectively. Their common interest is not necessarily more intense, but it is more capable of Organization.
First of all, a most simple circumstance has to be considered. If I wish that a deck chair, which I temporarily occupy, is not occupied by others in my absence, but voucher symbols are not recognized, I can first do only one thing: ask another person to supervise, to represent my claim. This other person, however, is in this first phase inevitably an also-lounger, my Neighbor. Only he can have an interest in helping me. But his interest is also unusually evident: first, he can hope that I will help him in the same situation, and second, every case in which a possessory claim achieves validity promotes its own chances. Mutual support, cooperation, thus imposes itself immediately. By helping the other, we help ourselves and the principle at the same time.
Cooperation is necessary: I cannot preserve a possession on which I cannot constantly sit without outside help. The cooperation is obvious: The possessors have something to offer to each other immediately: Substitution, protection, confirmation. Individual and common interest coincide. This relationship becomes immediately obvious and relevant for action. The new recliners had to figure out their need and ability to organize quickly.
The situation of the non-owners is much more complicated. In itself, the commonality of interests seems to be obvious here as well. But as soon as an attempt is made to translate it into action, it becomes questionable. The only thing that cannot be doubted is the interest in ousting the propertied classes. But this first step is problematized from the second. What should happen if a common action would be successful? How to decide how to use the newly conquered deck chairs?
The expectation of driving out the possessors does not yet give any security for the individual to achieve anything for himself. The agreement that the existing order is unjust does not yet create an agreement as to which new order would be just. Agreement that the existing order is just, on the other hand, equates agreement as to what new order would be just with – namely, none.
In our case, the obvious solution for the dispossessed seems to be the restoration of the former order, that is, of a mere right of use without permanent claims. This obvious solution, however, is at the same time the most difficult and the least probable under the given circumstances.
The one-time recapture of the deck chairs would by no means suffice to enforce the principle as long as the opposing group insists on its claims. It could occupy and defend the deck chairs again and again. In the free competition of the two designs of order, the advocates of the pure right of use would have to assert themselves anew each time against fixed claims of ownership, while they for their part would release the deck chairs after use without conflict. Consequently, the conflict situation would manifest itself every time they were the have-nots. "Free competition" would mean nothing else for them than that they could be constantly maneuvered back into the situation of the attacker and disturber of the peace – with nothing more in their hands than their principle.
The conclusion is not new: The representatives of the cooperative egalitarian principle can only assert themselves if they assert themselves radically. Either they must succeed in suppressing the idea of property in such a way that it cannot practically come into effect – the "re-education" – or they must form a closed society in which the others do not participate, are excluded from the right of use. The result is that strange compulsion to intolerance which seems to be inherent in a certain conception of order, but which arises merely from the relationship between two conceptions of order. Rules of free competition inevitably create unequal chances for the conflict of these ideas of order. Those who are against "having" cannot compete freely with those who want to have.
On our ship, the restoration of the old order was unlikely because the attempt would have been either hopeless (in the case of free competition) or "too radical" (if the others were excluded) – a very typical alternative.
If, however, the dispossessed attack haphazardly or only with the intention of turning the tables, then the problem of redistribution arises immediately and predictably for everyone. As soon as some of the hitherto dispossessed sit on the newly conquered deck chairs (as soon as some of the landless have staked out the occupied land for themselves), they are faced with the question of whether they cannot personally consider the problem of distribution settled and thus the action completed. The idea of non-possession, of the pure right of use, has probably lost its innocence by now. But it is not enough for everyone anyway.
The first success thus separates the attackers into groups with at least latently different interests. This difficulty of holding out immediately after the first occupation, however, is only the beginning of a chain of similar conflict situations. Their common core is the fact that the attackers bring the Distribution Problem, which the defenders have solved for themselves, into the conflict. They inherit it, as it were, from the status quo they are fighting.
This burden is, as Heinrich Popitz said, predictable. Before we join with other dispossessed people in a common action, we ask ourselves what is in it for us. The answer is vague or risky. Mutual aid – cooperation in conflict actions – does not yet ensure individual success. Cohesion is not immediately rewarded for the individual; commonality initially means only a gamble. What the dispossessed really have to offer each other is decided only later. Solidarity is therefore dependent on all participants orienting themselves towards the next but one phase. Not to a momentary advantage, but to a distant Goal, the readiness to organize must constitute itself, not to the real, but to the imaginary deck chair. It can only be based on a speculative trust, on a speculative solidarity, – an incomparably much higher achievement than is expected of the privileged.
However, the formation of such trust is further complicated by specific opportunities for manipulation on the part of the privileged. The privileged are able to constantly compete the hope of future benefits with the offer of present benefits: in the form of material rewards for services and loyalty, opportunities for relative individual advancement. (Why shouldn't I help guard deck chairs if I can use them temporarily to do so?) We know this strategy from all Stratified Societies. It does not establish the barriers to organizational capacity of the negatively privileged, but further reinforces them.
These inhibitions are, of course, surmountable. But for the negatively privileged, much stronger impulses are needed to reach the level of organizational ability that almost comes naturally to the positively privileged. The mere willingness to act – the "determination to act" – does not create the balance. The solidary readiness to act with long breath necessary for this obviously requires above all a "disproportionality" of the objectives and hopes. Utopia (in the meaning of this "disproportionality") seems to be the realistic method to do justice to the speculative character of the necessary solidarity. The deficit of organizational ability is compensated by a realism of a different kind.
On our ship, too, a strangely large internal and external effort would have been necessary to eliminate the new order. Strangely large, because here the claim of a minority asserts itself. Strangely large, because an advantage falls into the lap, as it were, of the new deckchair owners – the opportunity for cooperation that imposes itself – while the non-owners are suddenly faced with an unusual difficulty in turning what everyone wants into something that everyone wants.
To David Hume's question, why the few seem to rule so easily over the many, one would have to answer first: Because and insofar as the few are the possessors, and because possession – the defense of possession, the solved problem of distribution, and thus the consensus of order – conveys a superior organizational capacity.
They rule not least because they are superior in this way, and because they rule they can constantly reproduce and possibly further extend this superiority. There are, of course, also countervailing processes: For example, what we call "democratization" today is essentially the product of an organizational capacity of the lower classes that is quite exceptional by historical standards and that emerged in the course of industrialization.
To inquire into the reasons for such gradual changes is a task in itself. In our case it turns out that the "additional chance" of the superior organizational ability already arises in the status nascendi of a power formation: The new group initially possessed nothing but the instantaneous de facto disposition of a general commodity and laid claim to exclusive and permanent power of disposition: this seemingly razor-thin advantage was sufficient for the formation of a superior organizational capacity, – and thus for the beginning of a process of accumulation of power against the interests of the majority.
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POPITZ, Heinrich, 1992. Phänomene der Macht. 2., stark erw. Aufl. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (P. Siebeck). ISBN 978-3-16-145897-2, p. 190–197.