Largest leaderless movement?

Ginja Ninja · 27-12-2009 7:00pm #1

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum.

What is the largest leaderless movement you can think of?

The idea of this came from the "Killing in the name of " xmas no.1 campaign that succeded in beating Xfactor.Without any formal leadership or direction.

Any thoughts on why these things get so much momentum? or any better examples?

Joycey · 29-12-2009 3:48pm

Ginja Ninja wrote: »

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum.

What is the largest leaderless movement you can think of?

The idea of this came from the "Killing in the name of " xmas no.1 campaign that succeded in beating Xfactor.Without any formal leadership or direction.

Any thoughts on why these things get so much momentum? or any better examples?

I think it depends on how you define "movement" really. Im not sure id call the phenomenon you refer to a movement. I was going to offer a suggestion of how to define it but I cant really. Saying "political" isnt good enough because depending on how you define political you could (and should) see your example as political too.

cue · 29-12-2009 5:47pm

Interesting question.
Alcoholics Anonymous has over two million members worldwide (estimated, as they keep no membership records) and it has no leaders since its last co-founder died in 1970. They have traditions which ensure the efficient functioning of the organisation without the need for bosses and it seems to work very well. This may be because the purpose of the organisation is very very specific - to help alcoholics recover from alcoholism through the teaching and practice of the twelve step program. They do not concern themselves with anything else at all.
There may be other organisations out there that are like them e.g boy scouts, Lions Club (I'm guessing here) etc but I think AA are unique regarding their structure and enforcement of principles as their members will not stand for much authority and prefer a sort of benign anarchy.

Ostrom · 29-12-2009 9:11pm

Moved to Political Theory

Xluna · 17-01-2010 10:00pm

Ginja Ninja wrote: »

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum.

What is the largest leaderless movement you can think of?

The idea of this came from the "Killing in the name of " xmas no.1 campaign that succeded in beating Xfactor.Without any formal leadership or direction.

Any thoughts on why these things get so much momentum? or any better examples?

Islam I would imagine.

ChocolateSauce · 18-01-2010 6:45pm

Atheists? The atheist movement is like a headless body which is trying to go in several different directions at once.

LazyFecker · 18-01-2010 10:33pm

Yea there are lots of movements that are umbrella terms and encompass many smaller movements. Most movements could even be that way.

The rainbow family i think might be one of the larger ones. And whilst not affiliated to it, there would be a large spill over of affiliates i would imagine from the rainbow family into burning man, in america.

RepublicanEagle · 09-02-2010 1:33am

The largest movement, politically,without a leader,would be anarchism.But that is due to the fact that the ideology opposes any means of control.

LazyFecker · 09-02-2010 4:02am

Dunno if it would be now
i mean its tempting to write down, considering it is avowedly leaderless, but whether it is really the "largest" would be less than convincing
I certainly dont know too many commited, life-long anarchists

ANarcho-Munk · 09-02-2010 10:51am

Wow, i'm surprised that none of you schmucks have guessed the correct answer yet.

For the top prize the right answer was: the millions upon millions of people involved in illegal anonymous online activity in the form of p2p filesharing networks and other online anti-copyright movements.

Thanks for playing.

ANarcho-Munk · 09-02-2010 11:04am

RepublicanEagle wrote: »

The largest movement, politically,without a leader,would be anarchism.But that is due to the fact that the ideology opposes any means of control.

I wouldn't say its leaderless per se (informal hierarchies and leaders etc) and it certainly doesn't "oppose any means of control". It just believes that the burden of proof should be firmly resting upon and validating the form of "authority" or "control" being exercised.

Here's another interesting case study for "leaderless" mass movements though: The Planka group in Sweden who advocated in protest that eevryone should boycott paying for public transport and it worked ! (kinda)
Can't find too much info online but here's a wiki page and an interview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Party
http://libcom.org/news/planka-freeriding-in-sweden-and-finland-09022006

DeBunny · 18-02-2010 5:57am

ANarcho-Munk wrote: »

Wow, i'm surprised that none of you schmucks have guessed the correct answer yet.

For the top prize the right answer was: the millions upon millions of people involved in illegal anonymous online activity in the form of p2p filesharing networks and other online anti-copyright movements.

Thanks for playing.

Can it be called a movement though? It's probably more on a par with looting. There's nothing idealogical going on. For it to be a movement doesn't there have to be a goal to achieve?

Of course there are people who see it as a cause but I'm sure they're in the minority and the rest just want free stuff.

old_aussie · 18-02-2010 6:39am

The human race...........Take Me To Your Leader

Well who would that leader be?

seanybiker · 18-02-2010 6:45am

definitely the human race. We messed up the whole world all by ourselves.

Victor · 18-02-2010 7:03am

Humans that Breathe is the biggest I've heard of.

Ginja Ninja wrote: »

What is the largest leaderless movement you can think of?

You will need to define "movement" and "leader".

Some movements, e.g. political parties are quite formal and structured while others are "show up if you want".

Some leadership is dictatorial more or less out of necessity, e.g. a business organisation, some is cooperative, e.g. a coop while other forms are more like chairmanships and other are founders or those with the most knowledge.

There is also matters of scale. Islam has not central authority, but that is not to say that there aren't ayatollahs, mullahs, imams, etc.

Likewise, many campaigning organisations that have international operations are actually based on local or national structures and the international organisation is merely there to facilitate information swopping, exchanges, etc.

I would disagree with the likes of Planka. Those who don't pay their fares on public transport are often also those that are engaged in other anti-social behaviour. Not only that, but someone has to pay for the running of public transport (I imagine the workers would like food on their tables) and if something is free, it tends to be abused. And seeing as cooperatives aren't a great idea in mass transit (I'll drive the train with 1,000 people on board today), I can't see a sustainable alternative model.

CiaranC · 18-02-2010 7:04am

DeBunny wrote: »

Can it be called a movement though? It's probably more on a par with looting. There's nothing idealogical going on. For it to be a movement doesn't there have to be a goal to achieve?

There is a goal to achieve, the absolute free movement of information, art and ideas and the destruction of notions of "intellectual property". See the various Pirate Parties for the ideology.

DeBunny · 18-02-2010 12:45pm

CiaranC wrote: »

There is a goal to achieve, the absolute free movement of information, art and ideas and the destruction of notions of "intellectual property". See the various Pirate Parties for the ideology.

Would they not be in the minority of P2P file sharers? And also, they have leaders.

This topic needs more definition.

Ataxia · 21-02-2010 8:23pm

I'm going to propose definitions:

Movement: Any organised group of people working towards a shared set of goals.

Leaderless: Lacking any formal hierarchical structure.

Discuss.

Kama · 21-02-2010 11:36pm

Leaderless: Lacking any formal hierarchical structure.

So, an informal hierarchical structure doesn't count? Arguments like that of Freeman in relation to non-hierarchical structures would be that lack of a formal structure just means there's an informal one. Many is the group with no formal leader who possesses a quite established and dominant informal one; arguably these structures may paradoxically require leaders even more.

CiaranC wrote:

There is a goal to achieve, the absolute free movement of information, art and ideas and the destruction of notions of "intellectual property". See the various Pirate Parties for the ideology.

I think it would be stretching the evidence beyond recognition to say that this goal is shared by all filesharers. And I say this as a card-carrying member of the Pirate Party, who earnestly wishes it were the case

Ataxia · 22-02-2010 2:38am

Kama wrote: »

So, an informal hierarchical structure doesn't count? Arguments like that of Freeman in relation to non-hierarchical structures would be that lack of a formal structure just means there's an informal one. Many is the group with no formal leader who possesses a quite established and dominant informal one; arguably these structures may paradoxically require leaders even more.

Yes, but then a leaderless movement is impossible, as there will always be inequalities in power relations. Even the most anarchistic of movements will have certain people who are the informal leadership, the ones who contribute the most to deciding the direction the movement takes, or whatever.

imme · 22-02-2010 11:28am

Ginja Ninja wrote: »

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum.

What is the largest leaderless movement you can think of?

The idea of this came from the "Killing in the name of " xmas no.1 campaign that succeded in beating Xfactor.Without any formal leadership or direction.

Any thoughts on why these things get so much momentum? or any better examples?

In the case of beating XFactor winner to christmas number 1 there was a leader behind it, the person who set up the FB group.
The whole 'project' couldn't have happened if there hadn't been an instigator/leader.

Could Presbyterianism be classed as a leaderless movement, from what little I understand of it there is no central leadership.

LazyFecker · 26-02-2010 4:10pm

imme wrote: »

Could Presbyterianism be classed as a leaderless movement, from what little I understand of it there is no central leadership.

As one poster originally said, islam also has no leader per se

Cool Mo D · 08-04-2010 5:54pm

Two interesting leaderless groups are Anonymous - a group based around the 4chan website, who are a group with various goals, mostly centred around showing that they do, in fact, have the ability to translate their internet group into real world effects, and Critical Mass, a dispersed group of leaderless cycling groups in cities all over the world, who regularly take to the streets en mass.

I don't think Islam counts though, even though there is no one leader, there is a definite organisational structure in much of Islam, with many branches.

LazyFecker · 08-04-2010 8:15pm

There remains no centralised, univerally accepted leader in islam since its inception. It thus kinda qualifies for the original posters needs; as they are a unified movement in fundamental theory or basic identity as being muslims.
Every human idea has branches, its the nature of the beast, and every movement has a leader, though the basis of such leadership varies from vested authority to influential respect. Spiritual brotherhoods within islam will often have a central figure of authority (often refered to as a ghowth/ghos), but such brotherhoods generally mutually recognise one another, so their leaders could never be considered the leader of the movement as a whole.

Seloth · 07-06-2010 2:57pm

cue wrote: »

Interesting question.
Alcoholics Anonymous has over two million members worldwide (estimated, as they keep no membership records) and it has no leaders since its last co-founder died in 1970.

Each area for AA has a chairman so that could be counted as a leader.

Largest leaderless movement?

Comments