From my pinned tweet, American POWs in the Korean War. Groups of any size, right up to organisations and full…

From my pinned tweet, American POWs in the Korean War. Groups of any size, right up to organisations and full societies, don’t have tops and bottoms. There is no top-down or bottom-up. So what is hierarchy? The Korean War experience shows it. /1 https://t.co/nJClw2kATA

A small number, about 5% of the group, is *delegated* authority to lead, by the remaining 95%. It’s not necessarily written down or even spoken, though it’s that as well in more peaceful situations. Voting is a delegation, for example. /2 https://t.co/JI6vqRloSs

The critical point is that this creates no ‘top’ to the group, or ‘bottom’. It’s perfectly flat, there are no levels. But there are delegations. The 5% can act as if they’re at a different level. But when they do act, it’s the actions of the 95 % that actually act. /3 https://t.co/AV5QRvirRk

They grant ‘power’, and they enact the decisions of that power. The actions are certainly led, by the 5%, but if you forget the delegations that put them in that position and keep them there, you quickly fall back into top/bottom ‘power’ thinking. /4 https://t.co/2rYCwlAZSH

It also doesn’t mean that the 95% really lead. ‘The people’ (our democratic myth). Without the 5%, the 95% do what the POWs did, when the Koreans removed their leaders. Nothing. Over 40% of them just died. There was no great insurrection, led by the 95%. /5 https://t.co/C5DBIgjSOc

It’s easy to say things are bad because ‘power’ prevents the good. Goodies and baddies. Humans are social. It’s pretty much all they are. Any group’s configuration is a product of the *entire* group. A small number can’t impose it on all the others. Power is never ‘held’. /6

It’s granted, delegated. With conditions often not spelled out. Until the ‘powerful’ suddenly discover those limits, and then they’re gone. Often brutally, as the 95% terminate them. But again, not because the 95% are really leading. Without the 5%, they do nothing. /7

This social process is the centre of all human society. ‘The people’ is a non-thing, groups don’t have agency in that way. They do nothing, unless led. And *they* also create the leadership. But without it, again, they do nothing. /8

So how do we effect change? You have to play these status games. No ‘the people’ will rise up to change anything. No appeal to the current 5% will create any necessary shift. You have to find ways to give the change you want status. To make it the new 5%. /9

This is network politics. The 5% are the human ‘hubs’. The 95% are the networks they’re part of. Networks don’t have up/down topology. They’re completely flat. Power is persuasion, ‘bringing the people’ (95%) along for the ride. /10

After which, history shows, they will likely scapegoat you and terminate your 5% status, as desires and corresponding statuses shift. It’s a mug’s game. But it’s how it all works. /end