Yep. Not only do we have the “NGO industrial complex”, we’ve got the idea that the NGO model of organisation - small, professionalised outfits run by unelected staffers, operating primarily online, with “membership” a largely passive process - is the optimal model for the left.
Traditional norms of left/labour movement organisation and culture - meetings with democratic and deliberative processes like voting on motions and electing reps; written exchanges and debates; publishing minutes and reports - are often denounced as inaccessible.
It’s ironic, then, that the NGO model is in fact far *more* inaccessible: you can’t have any direct involvement over what the organisation does unless you’re one of the (unelected) professionals at the centre.
It’s also ironic that this model much more closely resembles the Stalinised caricature of revolutionary organisation it’s cited as the alternative to: a clique of professional revolutionaries appointing themselves a vanguard and handing down orders for foot soldiers to follow.
Clearly a lot of traditional left/labour movement spaces *are* often boring and inaccessible. Sometimes that’s because their democracy exists on paper but is overridden or subverted by bureaucrats who’ve gotten used to operating without any pressure from below.
Sometimes, as in many unions with huge unelected officialdoms (again, ironically, operating more like businesses or NGOs), it’s because the democracy barely even exists on paper. Or, as in many left organisations, because they’ve got commandist models inherited from Stalinism.
But all of that is a case for *more* democracy - more rank-and-file organisation, more pressure for democratic reform in our unions, etc. - rather than giving up on the idea of membership organisations based on direct democratic engagement altogether.
