Iron law of institutions: retain power at all costs

There are people who prefer a thousand times more to govern in a pile of ruins than to admit that their administration is not going well, and the iron law of institutions describes this phenomenon very well. Let's see it next.

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The iron law of institutions

Jonathan Schwartz described in 2007 the iron law of institutions, in which it is postulated that the people who control a certain organization is more concerned with maintaining its power within the institution itself than with the power of the institution itself. In other words, according to this law, people who have won an important position in a certain organization or who they preside would prefer to keep their position, even if this led to the ruin of the institution, before ceding power to someone else suitable.

This phenomenon is not strange at all. It is very common to see it in all kinds of human institutions, from primary schools, medium and small companies and, at a very high level, large corporations, political parties and state governments sovereigns. It is something that has always been in history and, both for better and for worse, it will continue to happen forever.

Origin of the concept

Schwartz first used this term to refer to Nancy Pelosi's tenure within the Democratic party. Pelosi, who is currently the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, ran into trouble in 2007 trying to address the opinion of left-wing voters on the issue of the Iraq war. The left was very much against the conflict, but the Democratic party, supposedly on the same spectrum, seemed to be in favor.

Nancy Pelosi was reluctant to discuss this issue with other fellow Democrats, who did want to that the conflict stopped or was better managed, a useful slogan in her race for the presidency of the States Joined. It seems that Pelosi feared that by giving other Democrats a voice and vote, she would lose her position to a candidate closer to the average American leftist voter.

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examples

Let's see some examples of the iron law of institutions.

Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Party

A more recent case in American politics in which you can see how cruel is the iron law of institutions we have it in the case experienced by the Democratic party and Bernie Sanders in the presidential elections of 2016. In these same elections, the Democrats lost the presidency, winning the Republican candidate Donald J. Trump.

Bernie Sanders stood out among Democrats for his truly leftist views, critical of issues such as Palestine-Israel, civil rights and wages. This ideology was especially controversial for the Democratic leadership, who, despite supposedly being left-wing and liberal, saw Sanders as a threat to his power within the party.

Sanders was gaining popularity, which made other Democrats like Neera Tanden and David Brock, will take the initiative to discredit and belittle both Bernie Sanders and his supporters.

The struggle to preserve the leadership and hierarchy within the organization, preventing Sanders from escalating it and becoming the party's top candidate instead of Hillary Clinton, was crucial to the collapse of the Democratic party in the elections of the 2016.

The rest is history. Hillary Clinton did not win the elections as the new president of the United States and Bernie Sanders opted for the US Senate as an independent senator, not circumscribed to the Democratic party.

Stalin's purges

Another case is that of Joseph Stalin. the soviet dictator he ordered purges within the Red Army, killing many competent officers who would have strengthened the Soviet Union militarily, as well as guaranteeing the security of the federation. By assassinating them, Stalin caused a serious problem in the Union, since it was greatly weakened, being at the mercy of Adolf Hitler when he tried to invade the Soviets.

Difference with the iron law of the oligarchy

There is another law whose name can be confusing with the one that is exposed in this article. We are talking about the iron law of the oligarchy and, in it, a phenomenon is described that would be more or less related to that of institutions, although it is not the same.

This law was proposed by the German sociologist Robert Michels in 1911, in his book Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen Demokratie (On the sociology of parties in modern democracy). He stipulates that within a political party it is inevitable that an oligarchy will appear, that is to say, a group of power that is above the others and that manages it in a more or less authoritarian way, regardless of how democratic the institution was in its beginnings.

Michels came to this conclusion by seeing that, in complex institutions, it was very difficult to carry out a direct democracy, that is, that each of its members give their voice and vote without intermediaries. To expedite the process and make the organization work, sooner or later a few will take charge of managing the entire institution.

With the passage of time, in any organization, be it a political party as is the case that you describe Michels in his book, like any other type of less political institution, a class will form leader. This same ruling class will be in charge of controlling the flow of information within the organization, allowing them to retain power and prevent dissenting opinions from emerging.

The difference between this law and that of the institutions is that the second describes how the ruling class prefers to retain power, even if this is detrimental to the organization, while that of the oligarchy would be the one that would describe how this ruling class is formed within the organization, and what it does to continue preserving the can.

Bibliographic references:

• James L. Hyland. Democratic theory: the philosophical foundations. Manchester, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Manchester University Press ND, 1995. p. 247.
• Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, 1915, trans. Eden and Cedar Paul (Kitchener, Ont.: Batoche Books, 2001), 241,