Structurelessness as structure

Written August 9. 2003, at 01:17 GMT.

Jo Freeman The Tyranny of Structurelessness:

"The idea [of 'structureless' group] becomes a smokescreen for the strong or the lucky to establish unquestioned hegemony over others. This hegemony can easily be established because the idea of 'structurelessness' does not prevent the formation of informal structures, but only formal ones. Similarly, 'laissez-faire' philosophy did not prevent the economically powerful from establishing control over wages, prices and distribution of goods; it only prevented the government from doing so. Thus 'structurelessness' becomes a way of masking power".

...Via Kellan Elliott-McCrea's criticism of the Pie/Echo/Necho/Atom project's Wiki-based development process. (FYI, Pie/Echo/Necho/Atom is a project that is supposed to supercede both RSS and the Meta Weblog API. the chances of that really happening are IMO slim to none. Still interesting...)

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