The Iron Law of Ochlocracy (part 2)

A bit tongue-in-cheekily, about a week and a half ago, I coined a neologism - the Iron Law of Ocholcracy - to describe a dynamic which contemporary Marxist theorist, Michael Hardt, outlined in his recent talk at European Graduate School.  Hardt was speculating about two main topics, both having to do with a perceived dearth of emergent and identifiable leadership among recent leftist "leaderless movements."

One of these is the question why leaders aren't emerging -- a question that he noted could be answered partly by the abilities of external forces to eliminate or co-opt apparent "leaders", but whose deeper answer he sought in the very workings, ideals, and ideologies of the groups and movements.  Another is whether this constitutes a real problem or not -- is it a bad thing or a good thing, all told, even when taking into account concerns of effectiveness and continuity, to seemingly dispense with leadership and all that it entails?

The Iron Law of Ochlocracy (part 1)

This last week, with the exception of the night of my birthday, I've been attending a nightly series of stimulating lectures -- one of the benefits of being accorded Visiting Scholar status at European Graduate school this year -- one of which was delivered by Michael Hardt, probably best known outside of progressive and revolutionary academic circles for his collaborative work, Empire (with Antonio Negri).

Hardt used the lecture as an opportunity to set out a project he has been working on, but has not yet consolidated into a fully polished form.  The central question or problem was that of leadership among non-party, often-marginal, but revolutionary and radically democratic "leaderless movements," Occupy being the one most familiar to us Americans, but comprising a number of different, usually rather transient, and only occasionally effective movements worldwide over the last two decades or so.