A-Infos (en) Spaine, Regeneration: Organization: Efficiency vs. Militant Alienation By HEDRA ANARCHIST (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

We must understand that horizontality and cooperation do not imply that 
everyone must be present in every process. ---- It is very common, in 
various activist movements, to see people overwhelmed, overloaded with 
work and accumulated stress. At the same time, and conversely, there are 
scenes of inactivity and feelings of wasted time in long assemblies and 
meetings from which one emerges with the feeling of having made no 
progress, without reaching clear agreements, without defined tasks for 
the future, little space to intervene, or ineffective working groups. 
Throughout history, these phenomena have been repeated in revolutionary 
political organizations; situations that not only wear down and repel 
potential activists, but also hinder the progress of organizations in 
achieving their objectives.

These situations, and the emotions and pain they cause for members of 
the organization, are just as, if not more, concerning than when they 
occur in the workplace within the capitalist system (and perhaps we 
replicate them because we are part of the capitalist system). We must 
pay attention to the various areas for improvement that anarchism has 
experienced and continues to experience at the organizational level, in 
order to overcome these challenges and create strong, broad, and 
efficient organizations that achieve their objectives while always 
prioritizing the well-being of their members.

In 1972, the Organisation des Jeunes Travailleurs Révolutionnaires (ORG) 
published a scathing, self-critical, and even humorous pamphlet , 
translated by Ediciones Esfuerzo in 2016. The article in Spanish is 
titled "La militancia, etapa supremo de la alienación" (Militancy, the 
Supreme Stage of Alienation), although the literal translation would be 
"Militantism, the Supreme Stage of Alienation," a title chosen to 
emphasize the doctrinal aspect of militancy. This stark analysis of 
militancy in revolutionary and political organizations speaks frankly of 
a voluntary masochism among militants, since "the effort they compel 
themselves to make, and the doses of boredom they are capable of 
enduring, leave no room for doubt: these people are, first and foremost, 
masochists." Apart from the possible debates that could arise from a 
detailed reading of the article, we must not overlook the evidence that 
there are indeed dynamics that repel potential members and burn out 
current comrades, because a member should not be "the type of person for 
whom eight or nine hours of daily brutalization are not enough" nor 
should membership have a "doctrinal aspect" per se , as it often does 
and as the aforementioned article explains.

Overwork, with its resulting stress, and inactivity or a sense of wasted 
time are two of the main problems that can arise in an organization-so 
antagonistic, yet at times, so simultaneous. Dogmatic rigidity, a lack 
of dynamism, an inability to listen to and integrate new proposals, a 
top-down structure, and the view of the organization as immutable are 
characteristics that many activists reject and fear, and which a 
libertarian organization today must overcome if it doesn't want the 
burnout of its members to ultimately hinder its progress. It is urgent 
to find organizational formulas that foster flexibility, participation, 
and dynamism while simultaneously reaching consensus on objectives and 
actions to be carried out, with the necessary care, shared 
responsibility, and trust among its members to avoid falling into the 
aforementioned militant alienation.

These organizational deficiencies must be analyzed from a historical and 
scientific perspective in order to try to avoid them and clean up the 
organizations in order to build a cohesive membership that feels 
involved and cared for while advancing in positions and obtaining 
results, which increases motivation and encourages them to continue in 
the struggle.

To understand the atomization, lack of organization, and defeatism of 
the current anarchist struggle, I recommend reading the article "The 
Epidemic of Rabies in Spain (1996-2007)." Its authors analyze the 
failure of what was called "informal organization," which prevailed in 
the libertarian movement during the 1990s and 2000s, centered around 
insurrectionism and autonomism. At the same time, they state that they 
do not regret anything that was done, nor do they believe they wasted 
their time, which is interesting because it focuses on the errors of 
previous organizations while also acknowledging the limitations of their 
strategy. They assert that this "false criticism forgets, whether out of 
self-interest or ignorance, the conditions that were at work at the 
time." It is therefore vitally important to understand these "conditions 
that were at work at the time" and to identify the errors committed in 
the different periods of Iberian anarchism, which the aforementioned 
article sheds light on. They demonstrate how the sectarianism of 
"official anarchism" prior to these decades, its excessive bureaucracy, 
and its inability to actively include new members or broaden its 
activities, objectives, and strategies clashed head-on with what they 
call "youth antagonism." Outside of formal anarchist organizations, this 
antagonism deployed various practices such as squatting, fanzines, 
distribution networks, cultural activities, and participation in 
movements like the antimilitarist, anti-repression, antifascist, 
anti-bullfighting, and antisexist movements. In other words, "official 
anarchism," which "in its congresses stipulated with great 
exclusionary-inclusive delicacy that the Libertarian Movement was made 
up of the CNT, the FAI, the FIJL, and Mujeres Libres," failed to embrace 
the new and young anarchist forces that wanted to be protagonists in new 
struggles. There was no organized anarchist movement capable of 
welcoming these initiatives, these aspirations, and these new and 
broader ways of understanding the struggle for emancipation.

These young anarchists criticized bureaucratic dynamics, congresses, 
delegations, the frequency of meetings, and other organizational 
obligations, prioritizing concrete action without long-term aspirations 
or the pursuit of hegemony. They were based on and nourished by 
camaraderie, affinity, and the agility of discussion, by mutual support 
and practical collaboration. They allowed for a rethinking of 
organization as a means, not an end, conceived to fight, win, and disappear.

In informal organizations, there was no room for militant alienation, 
preventing a fetishization of the organization itself, as could occur 
with the aforementioned and mythologized organizations. However, there 
was also no room for a medium- and long-term strategy and objectives. At 
this point, we understand how traditional organizations, by failing to 
address the aforementioned inefficiencies, depleted their potential 
militancy, neglecting both individuals and objectives. This, along with 
other factors, led to the current state of affairs regarding the 
libertarian struggle. Therefore, our mission is to create organizations 
that embrace the dynamism demanded by "youthful antagonism" and avoid 
the pitfalls of "official anarchism," while simultaneously maintaining a 
long-term structure and strategy.

In the insightful article "Working to Live or Living to Be an Activist?" 
, written by Inés Kropo in this same journal, she states that "only 
activism that takes care of itself can last, and only that which lasts 
can transform," making it clear that our organizations cannot afford to 
reproduce a militant alienation that wears people down with an 
unbalanced distribution of labor. This same article examines activism 
and clearly explains why we must consider it work, albeit not in the 
mercantilist sense of the term.

«Structurally, militancy encaixa not reproductive work. It does not 
produce markets or exchange value, but it produces something 
fundamental: the conditions of possibility of politics itself. It 
produces collective tempo, it produces trust, it produces learning, it 
produces continuity. In short, it produces subjects capable of acting 
politically in a sustained manner. Produces power. Like all other 
reproductive work, it tends to be invisible when it works and only 
becomes evident when it fails.

Finally, the article discusses "the care of coexistence, limits, and the 
redistribution of work and power." While it does so from a sound 
feminist perspective, I am interested in shifting the focus, at this 
point, to analyzing what key aspects we must keep in mind to develop our 
organizations, and more specifically, organizations that seek to 
generate a strategy with dynamics that work and achieve results.

Work in our organizations should not be alienating (nor overloading, nor 
creating a sense of wasted time); it should be inclusive and practical, 
it should achieve objectives, and it should "last to transform." In 
other words, it should be organized so that everyone can contribute 
according to their abilities, and from these collective contributions, 
we can obtain the best results. It should be efficient work.

The optimal point, where organizational efficiency is achieved in 
productive terms, occurs when greater production is achieved with the 
fewest resources used, and we can extrapolate this to our political 
organization as the achievement of objectives or the achievement of 
greater strategic progress with the least wear and tear on the 
militants, always respecting the basic principles agreed upon.

We must understand the pursuit of efficiency not in a capitalist sense 
that seeks to increase productivity to achieve greater production, sales 
and profit margin, but in a libertarian sense that is aligned with an 
increase in freedom, capacity for development and enjoyment of people.

An organization that aims to build a better world should not be allowed 
to generate the same ills as the worst and most inhumane production 
lines or conventional hierarchical organizations, which exploit workers 
solely to steal the fruits of their labor and increase corporate 
profits. It is worrying that this phenomenon occurs in organizations 
striving for horizontal structures, without a supervisor demanding that 
you tighten 70 nuts per minute like Chaplin in Modern Times . And yet, 
one of the fundamental problems of militant alienation, of weariness, 
frustration, and apathy, stems precisely from the fact that sometimes 
there isn't just one supervisor demanding 70 nuts on an assembly line, 
but rather between five and twenty activists working together, nut by 
nut, supervising each other, "deciding" in assembly who tightens the 
next one, and, of course, debating whether it would be better to use an 
adjustable wrench, a socket wrench, a double-ended wrench, or an offset 
wrench. In other words, we may be generating the same or even more 
pressure among ourselves than the watchdog of the industrial boss, and, 
moreover, achieving the opposite effect to what the supervising dog 
seeks: to be much less productive.

When objectives (what to do) are agreed upon and action is guided by 
agreed principles and values ​​(how to do it), all that should remain is 
trust in the colleagues who will carry out the tasks. In a healthy 
organization, members should act freely, confidently, and with good 
judgment, choosing their own tools, making mistakes, and learning from 
each other. The collective should support and contribute, avoiding 
fleeting arguments and debates that hinder progress rather than advance 
the work. The organization must be efficient to validate the argument 
that three people working together achieve more than the sum of three 
people working separately.

Conversely, while organizations that claim to be horizontal often 
replicate negative effects similar to those produced by hierarchical 
organizations within the capitalist production system, we can explore 
the path of understanding what leads to productivity and efficiency in 
these organizations and try to bring that understanding to our own 
field, based on our principles.

With the intention of provoking irritation in the intransigent anarchist 
sensibilities of some readers, I will quote the classical economist Adam 
Smith, who, in his book *The Wealth of Nations * (1776), was the first 
to analyze how the division of labor into distinct tasks increased 
worker productivity. Using pin-making workshops as an example, he 
explained how the various tasks were divided: some workers were 
responsible for smoothing the metal, others for cutting, another group 
for sharpening, and finally, there were those in charge of attaching the 
pin heads and polishing the pieces. Dividing work into different tasks 
fosters specialization among workers, allowing them to perform tasks 
better and faster, and enables better spatial and temporal organization, 
thus reducing overall time.

This reality, observed by the 18th-century liberal economist, led him to 
coin the term "division of labor" and defend it as a means to achieve 
greater productivity in organizations. As is often the case, it didn't 
take long for many business owners of the time to take Smith's words to 
heart and carry out disastrous transformations in their industries. We 
are talking about the emergence of industrial models based on seeking 
the maximum division of labor to increase productivity, production, and 
consequently, corporate profit. This division went so far that workers 
performed a single, precise, and measured movement repeatedly throughout 
their workday, every day of the year—in other words, perfect alienation 
by definition. All of this while ignoring Adam Smith's own warning, who 
clarified in the same book that "a man who spends his whole life 
performing a few simple operations has no occasion to exercise his 
intelligence or mobilize his inventiveness. He naturally loses the habit 
of exercising them and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as a 
human creature can become" ( The Wealth of Nations , p. 717).

Anarchist authors such as Emma Goldman and Piotr Kropotkin warned of the 
dangers and alienation inherent in this division of labor. On the one 
hand, it clearly generates hierarchies, placing intellectual and manual 
tasks at different levels and subordinating one to the other; on the 
other hand, it leads to the brutal alienation and intellectual, 
physical, and mental deterioration of the proletariat.

However, although critical, they are aware of the advantages of a good 
division of labor. Proudhon himself recognizes the benefits that can 
come from this division of labor in his 1846 book, * System of Economic 
Contradictions *, noting that "it is useful when the worker remains 
master of himself and his work." Kropotkin, in Chapter XV of *The 
Conquest of Bread*, dedicated to the division of labor, harshly 
criticizes the capitalist approach to it and the resulting brutalization 
and alienation. While not dismissing the pursuit of productivity itself, 
he focuses his criticism on the effects on the individual, asserting 
that greater productivity would come from a variety of occupations. This 
should not invalidate the process of analyzing and dividing tasks to 
increase efficiency; rather, it adds the rotation that allows for 
expanding knowledge, contributing to other areas, and eliminating 
alienation.

In the first chapter of Fields, Factories and Workshops (1899) he again 
attacks the consequences of the division of labor and in this case he 
does focus on its consequent specialization and states that "while a 
temporary division of functions remains the safest guarantee of success 
in each particular enterprise, the permanent division is doomed to 
disappear, being replaced by a variety of intellectual, industrial and 
agricultural occupations, corresponding to the different aptitudes of 
the individual, as well as to the variety of these within each 
aggregation of human beings" ( Fields, Factories and Workshops , p.14).

From this critical analysis, we must understand that many of the 
problems of burnout among activists stem from organizational structures 
that can be improved. These structures should be based on agreed-upon 
objectives, basic principles, and tasks, and then a division of labor or 
task allocation should be implemented, allowing each person or group to 
focus on specific and achievable actions. With well-defined, 
distributed, and agreed-upon work, there will be neither overburdened 
nor idle activists. Furthermore, by clearly defining roles and 
rotations, taking into account availability and capabilities, formal and 
informal hierarchies will be avoided, and the need for redistribution of 
the invisible workload analyzed in Inés Kropo's article will be 
addressed. However, all of this requires a thorough analysis of the 
organization and the precise creation of groups and tasks. The result 
will be a healthier and less burdened militancy, which should not 
curtail the freedom of action of each individual, since, as Emma Goldman 
argued, within organizations, individual will and initiative must be 
respected above all else ( Anarchism: What It Really Means , p. 9).

This division of labor should not serve to create a hierarchy within the 
organization; it should simply serve to organize, define roles and 
responsibilities, and prevent interference or the accumulation of work 
or power. It should serve to improve coordination, cooperation, and 
collaboration. It should serve to avoid the overloads and inefficiencies 
generated by the lack of prior discussion in the formulation of 
objectives and actions to be carried out. From there, in an organization 
that claims to be libertarian, trust and commitment should be sufficient 
to prevent significant failures or deviations. When a part of the 
organization must make an urgent decision due to a setback or unexpected 
event, simply referring to the previously established objectives and 
principles should be enough to guide that decision-making, which, even 
if it is possible to err, should be done with humility and trust. 
Finally, when the achievement of the objectives is reviewed, everything 
that happened will be evaluated as a group, and in most cases, there 
will be room for improvement. But giving freedom, reviewing and 
proposing improvements once progress has been made is always better than 
not moving forward due to a lack of defined objectives and actions or 
due to debates and bureaucracies that hinder action.

The phenomenon that occurs when more people than necessary perform a 
task in economics is well-studied. It's called the law of diminishing 
returns and it perfectly illustrates certain deficiencies that arise in 
activist circles. This law states, in productive terms, that as a factor 
(workers) is increased, if the workspace or machinery is not increased, 
the resulting output will initially increase, but this increase will 
gradually decrease until it begins to decline. A simple example would be 
to imagine preparing sandwiches. Let's say that, in one hour, a person 
is able to make ten sandwiches with all their ingredients. Two people 
cooperating, with a well-executed division of labor, can make 25 
sandwiches, which is more than the sum of the two people working 
separately. In the case of three people, they can prepare up to 45 
sandwiches, which is much more than three working separately. However, 
there will come a point when this increase in productivity decreases, 
for two reasons: first, there are not enough tasks to perform; Second, 
if space is limited, people will start to get in each other's way, so 
not only will there be idle people, but they may also hinder the good 
performance of others, even preventing the achievement of the objective. 
This fact demonstrates the lack of organization, of defined roles and 
responsibilities that hinder the good work of organizations, demotivate 
the membership and prevent advancement in positions.

In capitalist organizations, this phenomenon is studied down to the last 
detail with the aim of reducing costs and not paying workers who reduce 
productivity. In our case, we are not looking for that, and if 
inefficiencies occur due to the natural development of activities, so be 
it; however, we must be aware of the harm it can cause to colleagues who 
are held back in their tasks and colleagues who feel that they are not 
contributing and that they could well be performing other, more 
profitable tasks.

We must understand that horizontality and cooperation do not imply that 
everyone must be present in every process. Sometimes, both egos and 
fears of leadership and hierarchies drive activists to want to be 
involved in every decision, every activity, and every process of the 
organization, in some cases leaving "less fun" tasks to be done or to 
someone who takes them on behind the scenes.

Therefore, we can say that the specificism faces the difficult task of 
creating organizations that reject sectarianism and are open to all of 
society and new members, that do not stagnate in bureaucratic processes 
that erode motivation, that achieve agile and dynamic structures when it 
comes to reaching consensus on objectives and designing strategies, that 
are based on trust and camaraderie to create working groups and 
processes that do not overwhelm a few or prevent the participation of 
others, and that are mature and flexible enough to review these 
processes and achievements, modifying the strategy as many times as 
necessary without falling into a fatalistic defeatism—due to tactical 
complications—that frustrates and prevents further progress towards 
medium and long-term objectives. Only by achieving agile organizations 
with a good division of tasks, principles, structure, and strategy can 
we overcome the dichotomy between those who have become entrenched in 
the old, sectarian, and bureaucratic "official anarchism" and the 
practicality and fleeting nature of informal organizations, which also 
failed to consolidate their achievements at a social level, in addition 
to avoiding overloads and idleness. Rethinking the organizational 
formula, agreeing on principles and objectives that frame actions, and 
thus facilitating the division of tasks will allow us to have efficient, 
inclusive, and balanced activism, avoiding militant alienation and 
achieving efficiency in processes and effectiveness in reaching objectives.

c. Militant of Hedra

Literature:

Adam Smith. The Wealth of Nations . Alianza Editorial (2004)

Emma Goldman. Anarchism: What It Really Means (2022) Ed. Edu Robsy 
Retrieved from:

https://www.textos.info/emma-goldman/anarquismo-lo-que-significa-realmente/pdf

Inés Kropo. “Work to live or live to work?” Libertarian Regeneration 
Magazine (2026)

The Tigers of Sutullena. "The Rabies Epidemic in Spain (1996-2007)." 
Resquicios Magazine , numbers 4 and 5 (2007-08). Retrieved from:

https://www.briega.org/es/historia/epidemia-rabia-espana-1996-2007

Organization of Revolutionary Young Workers. Militancy: Supreme Stage of 
Alienation . Esfuerzo Editions (2016) Retrieved from:

https://esfuerzo.noblogs.org/files/2017/11/OJTR-La-militancia-estadio-superior-de-la-alienaci%C3%B3n-FOLLETO.pdf

Pierre Joseph Proudhon. System of Economic Contradictions or Philosophy 
of Poverty (1870) Retrieved from:

https://www.marxists.org/espanol/proudhon/filosofia-de-la-miseria.pdf

Piotr Kropotkin. The Conquest of Bread (1900) B. Bauza Publishing House. 
Retrieved from:

https://www.marxists.org/espanol/kropotkin/kropotkin-la-conquista-del-pan.pdf

Piotr Kropotkin. Fields, Factories and Workshops (1898) Reissued by 
Solidaridad Obrera Retrieved from:

https://www.solidaridadobrera.org/ateneo_nacho/libros/Piotr%20Kropotkin%20-%20Campos,%20fabricas%20y%20talleres.pdf

https://regeneracionlibertaria.org/2026/05/05/la-organizacion-eficiencia-vs-alienacion-militantista/
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