The Organizational Imperative

Last week's NRA shocker -- see the October 16 post on this subject -- brought home to me that organizations exhibit protective instincts similar to those we see in living organisms.  They all seek to thrive, prosper, and, above all, to survive.


However, in contrast to living organisms, which all have natural life spans, organizations seek perpetual existence . . . and this explains why those that purport to be goal oriented do not in fact want to achieve complete success. Achievement of the professed goal can devastate those who thrived and prospered while seeking it.


Remember the March of Dimes? Back in the days of my youth it was everywhere, collecting money to combat polio. It supported treatment of the disease and research into a cure for it. The organization almost died when a vaccine eliminated the dreaded disease. It frantically thrashed about looking for another cause.  Ultimately, it survived by finding other diseases to combat but those diseases are less widespread and less feared and the organization faded into a shadow of its once omnipresent former self.


Just think about the civil rights campaigns led by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Does anyone believe that those hustlers would wave their hands if by doing so they could eliminate all vestiges of slavery and discrimination, and bring their black followers to full economic and social equality with their white contemporaries?

The organizational imperative is to maintain its raison de'etre in perpetuity.


It therefore behooves us to examine the actions of every socially active organization in light of this organizational imperative.


Hispanic organizations have sought and continue to seek bilingual programs in our schools. How much of this is due to fear of Hispanics becoming assimilated into the larger English speaking society? Do they not have an interest in maintaining a support group of individuals bound (and limited) by language to a separate subculture?

The National Rifle Association provides another example of the subject phenomena. It campaigns for the preservation of the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms. If it had the capability to do so, would it eliminate all legal restrictions on the right of Americans to own, carry, and use any and all arms that they wished? Perhaps it would as the NRA does many very worthwhile things in addition to its activities in the legal arena. But it is the perpetual threat to gun rights that brings in the big bucks that sustains the organization and allows it and its leaders to live large.


The lesson drawn from these examples is that to perpetually survive, thrive, and prosper an organization should (i) work for a goal or goals that are not fully achievable or never will be fully achieved, (ii) strive to achieve limited but observable and, preferably but not necessarily, real gains toward such goal or goals, and (iii) regularly present to its supporters credible enemies and threats to previously achieved and/or future gains and to maintaining even the status quo. 

None of this is inherently wrong or undesirable. But the organizational imperative is something we should keep in mind and consider in evaluating the activities of any and all activist groups.