Can we apply Saul Alinsky's ideas concerning social activism to game theory?  I don't know if Saul Alinsky played chess, but he probably would not have been a bad player. Just imagine that Alinsky is talking about chess, and his comments suddenly take on new meaning. What he has to say about means and ends is revolutionary and full of insight into the art of 'getting things done'.

 

"Life and how you live it is the story of means and ends. The end is what you want, and the means is how you get it."

 

Review by  C. Brandt

They don't make 'em like Saul Alinsky anymore. (The only left-wing public intellectuals alive today that could even be mentioned in the same breath are Zinn and Chomsky...and they ain't gonna be around much longer.) Saul was one of those hyper-literate, socially-conscious Hebrews, coming straight out of the Jewish liberal tradition that made a unique impact on the political/class struggle of the 20th century. (Now the Jews have joined the establishment, and the historical accident of an intellectually capable oppressed minority will, in a generation or two, no longer exist.)

 

His treatise on pragmatic social change is a delight to read (even for a reactionary right-winger like myself), though it is somewhat dated, and the predictions oftentimes wrong. Despite his errors, and predictive ineptitude, this book is the work of a keen intellect, a man committed to what he thought was right, and an invaluable insight into the mind of a thinking leftist.

 

Alinsky has read his Marx, and the Hegelian/Marxist dialectic is a continuing theme in the book, as is the middle class's supposed alienation, but he is no commie. He criticizes Soviet Russia, and extols democracy as the only means by which revolution is to be achieved. He believes in probability, not causality, and is fiercely opposed to individualism. ("We are our brother's keeper," "Individuality is primitive stupidity.") I find the latter quote ironic, since, recalling Anthropology 101, the more primitive tribes display the most communitarian spirit...but Alinsky never says he is infallible.

 

His rules on means and ends are brilliant, as is his dissection of how protest is to be effective. He is particularly scornful of protest tactics (still used today by the anti-war movement... ineffectually) that achieve no concrete results, and only alienate the middle-class power base.

 

He considers that right actions are always done for wrong reasons, and adduces Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, disobeying a directive from the Supreme Court, and illegal use of military commissions to try civilians (sound familiar?), in order to win the Civil War.

 

He analyzes Gandhi as a pragmatist, not as some living moral saint, and provides a revisionist account of his tactics of non-violence.

 

Alinsky stresses change, and dynamism, the stagnation of consistency, and how your friends today can be your enemies tomorrow. (The Left has forgotten this lesson, to their rhetorical disadvantage.)

 

The one place where Alinsky seriously goes off the rails is the chapter on using stock proxies to combat corporate practices. I've been to shareholders' meetings, and seen the "progressive" proposals by church groups, PETA, the Sierra Club, etc., voted on...and routinely defeated by margins of 99.7%. Alinsky lets his idealism trump his pragmatic common sense when he claims that people--middle-class people--will sacrifice dividends for "social justice."

 

Notwithstanding that, however, this book is still very worthwhile for all to study...partly as an historical artifact, partly for the Man to understand how to effectively stymie the lumpen-proletariat, and partly for the Left to understand why not to replicate the mistakes that Alinsky identified and warned against. (Although the Left would be advised to devise completely new tactics altogether...marching, picketing, and chanting are, as Alinsky would say, "trite.")