Rules For Radicals

Saul David Alinsky (January 30, 1909 – June 12, 1972) was an American community organizer and writer and a founder of modern community organizing. He wrote the book Rules for Radicals published in 1971 one year before his death.

Alinsky spoke of class struggle as a political necessity for social progress, but such a notion is hardly a communist invention. Marx and Engels embraced and integrated this principle into their political theory.

In the opening paragraph Alinsky writes:

• "What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away."

At the end of his personal acknowledgment:

"Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer."

Alinski was often fighting for the underdog and people often disenfranchised or just taken advantage of by people in positions of power. Alinsky was not really a Socialist although his Rules could be used by both socialists or capitalists.

The Tactics: 12 Rules For Radicals

• RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from different sources which can include both money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)

• RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don’t address the “real” issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)

• RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

• RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)

• RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)

• RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid “un-fun” activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)

• RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)

• RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)

• RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists’ minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)

• RULE 10: “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management’s wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)

• RULE 11: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)

• RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)

Cloward-Piven Strategy

Cloward-Piven Plan is a 1966 strategy rooted in the ideology of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis.

The 8 point plan was the product of two Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven known as the “Cloward-Piven Strategy”. Cloward and Piven understood that welfare like the free bread of Rome weakened the poor by providing an all to convenient social safety net which worked as an opiate of the people.

Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system. It would call for "cadres of aggressive organizers" to use "demonstrations to create a climate of militancy" in a "massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls" swamping the bureaucracy with new applicants and bankrupting governments.

George Alvin Wiley and others used this “crisis strategy” through The National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) which certainly added to the bankruptcy of New York City in 1975.

Sol Stern on the Manhattan Institute's City Journal wrote. "The flooding succeeded beyond Wiley's wildest dreams. From 1965 to 1974, the number of single-parent households on welfare soared from 4.3 million to 10.8 million, despite mostly flush economic times. By the early 1970s, one person was on the welfare rolls in New York City for every two working in the city's private economy."

With the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act President Clinton established "a federal program of income redistribution," which culminated in "the end of welfare as we know it" where both Cloward and Piven attended the White House signing.

Cloward-Piven strategy explains how you could hasten the fall of capitalism by overload the entitlement system which would push society into economic crisis and collapse. That would unleash chaos and violence in the streets, opening a door to radical Leftist political change. Cloward and Piven were inspired by the philosophy of Saul Alinsky and the Watts Riots of August 1965 believed that chaos would need to be achieved before they could introduce their Progressive political ideology which was the ideology of Democratic Socialism masquerading as the salvation of the people.

The 8 point plan to implement Socialism

1) Healthcare– Control healthcare and you control the people

2) Poverty – Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.

3) Debt – Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.

4) Gun Control– Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state.

5) Welfare – Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income)

6) Education – Take control of what people read and listen to – take control of what children learn in school.

7) Religion – Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools

8) Class Warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.