Saul Alinsky in Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky
On Principles & Values:
Means-versus-ends is meaningless; real arena is bloody
That perennial question, "Does the end justify the means?" is meaningless as it stands; the real and only question regarding the ethics of means and ends is, and always has been; "Does this particular end justify this particular means?"The ends is
what you want, and means is how you get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of issue views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his
resources and the possibility of his various choices of actions. He asks of ends only if they are achievable and worth the cost of means. To say that corrupt means corrupts the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles.
The ethics of means and ends can be recognized by one of two verbal brands: "We agree with the ends but not the means," or "This is not the time." The means or ends moralists or non-doers always wind up on their ends without any means.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p. 24-5
Jan 1, 1971
On Principles & Values:
Compromise isn't surrender; it's the basis of free society
Compromise is another word that carries shades of weakness, vacillation, betrayal of ideals, surrender of moral principles. In the old culture, when virginity was a virtue, one offered to a woman's being compromised. The word is often regarded as being
unsavory or ugly.But to the organizer, compromise is a key and beautiful word. It is always present in the pragmatics of operation. It is making a deal, getting that final breather, usually the victory.
If you start with nothing, demand 100%, then compromise for 30%, you're 30% ahead. A free and open society is an ongoing conflict, interrupted periodically by compromise- which then starts conflict, compromise, and infinitum.
Control of power is based on compromise in our congress and among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. A society devoid of compromise is totalitarianism. If I had to define a free and open society, the word would be compromise.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p. 59
Jan 1, 1971
On Abortion:
Birth control and abortion are personal rights
I have always believed that birth control and abortion are personal rights to be exercised by the individual. If in my early days I organized the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago, which was 95% Roman Catholic,
I had tried to communicate this, even though the experience of the residents, whose economic plight was aggravated by large families, that would have been the end of my relationship with the community.
That instant I would have been stamped as the enemy of the church and all the communications would have ceased.
Some years later, after establishing solid relationships, I was free to talk about anything, including abortion.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p. 94
Jan 1, 1971
On Corporations:
Denounce exploiting employers; we're on the people's side
The incoming organizer must establish his identity, or to put it another way, get his license to operate. He must have a reason for being there--a reason acceptable to the people. Any stranger is suspect. "What's he asking all those questions
for?" "Is he really the cops or the FBI?" "What's he really after?" "What's in it for him?" "Who's he working for?"
The answer to these questions must be acceptable in terms of the experience of the community. If the organizers begin with affirmation
of his love for people, he promptly turns everyone off. If on the other hand, he begins with denunciation of exploiting employers, police shakedowns, gouging merchants, he is inside their experience and they accept him. People can make judgements based
only on their own experiences. And the question in their minds is, "If we were in the organizer's position, would we do what he is doing and if so, why?" Until they have an answer, they find it difficult to understand and accept the organizer.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p. 98-9
Jan 1, 1971
On Government Reform:
Organizers must achieve change; otherwise, who needs them?
The question in people's minds is, "If we were in the organizer's position, would we do what he is doing and if so, why?" Until they have an answer, they find it difficult to understand and accept the organizer. His acceptance as an organizer depends on
his success in convincing key people, and many others first, that he is on their side, and second, that he has ideas, and knows how to fight to change things; that he's not one of these guys doing his thing, that he's a winner. Otherwise, who needs him.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p. 99
Jan 1, 1971
On Jobs:
1939: attacked in press for organizing Chicago stockyards
In 1939, when I began to organize in the Chicago Stockyards, on the site of Upton Sinclair's jungle, I acted in such a way that within a few weeks the meatpackers pronounced me a "public Menace". The Chicago Tribune's depiction of me aqs a public enemy
of law and order, "a radical's radical" gave me a perennial and constantly renewable and baptismal certificate in the City of Chicago. A generation later, in a black community on Chicago's south Side, next to my alma mater
University of Chicago, it was the university's virulent personal attack on me argumented by attacks on the press, that strengthened my credentials with the black community somewhat suspicious of white skin.
Eastman Kodak and the Gannett newspaper chain did the same for me in Rochester, NY. In both black ghettos, the reaction was: "The way the fat cat newspaper is ripping hell out of Alinsky, he must be alright!"
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p.100
Jan 1, 1971
On Education:
Organize people so they have power to improve schools
In a black ghetto, if you ask ,"What's wrong?" You are told, " The buildings are old, the teachers are bad. We've got to change.""Well, what kind of change?"
"Well, everybody knows things have to change."
That is usually the end of the line. If people feel they don't have the power to change a bad situation, then they do not think about it.
Once people are organized, so they have the power to make changes, then, when confronted with questions of change, they begin to think and ask questions about how to make changes.
If the teachers are bad, then what do we mean by bad teachers? What is a good teacher? How do we get a good teacher?
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p.104-5
Jan 1, 1971
On Civil Rights:
˙Organize Indians regardless of tribe, with white allies
I met with various Canadian Indian leaders in the north of Canada province. I was there by invitation by these leaders, who wanted to discuss their problems and solicit my advice. The problems of the Canadian Indians are very similar to the
American Indians. They are on reservations, segregated, relatively speaking, and they suffer from all the discriminative practices Indian's have been subjected to since the white man took over North America.
The conversation began with my suggesting that the general approach should be that the Indians get together, crossing all tribal lines, and organize.
Because of their relatively small numbers I thought that they should then work with various sectors of the white liberal population, gain them as aliens, and then begin to move nationally.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p.109-110
Jan 1, 1971
On Jobs:
Labor organizers provide opportunity for effective action
Let's say of a particular industrial plant, the workers are underpaid, suffering from discriminatory practices, and without job security. The workers express their demoralization by saying, 'What's the use?' They generally succumb to the frustration--
all because of the lack of opportunity for effective action.Enter the labor organizer. He points out, the workers in the other places have also been exploited in the past, and had existed under similar circumstances until they used their
intelligence & energies to organize into a power unit called the trade union, with the result, they achieved all these other benefits Generally this approach generates new trade unions.
Let us examine what this organizer has done. He has demonstrated
that something can be done, and that there is a concrete way of doing it that has already proved its effectiveness and success: that by organizing together as a trade union they will have the power and instrument with which to make these changes.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p.117-8
Jan 1, 1971
On Government Reform:
Have's vs Have-Nots: they have money; we have lots of voters
I have emphasized that tactics mean you do what you can with what you've got, and that power in the main has always gravitated toward those who have money and those who people follow. The resources of the have nots are 1) no money and 2) lots of people.
All right, let's start from there. People can show their power by voting. What else? Well, they have physical bodies. How can they use them? Well, now a melange of ideas appear.
Use the power of law by making the establishment obey its own rules. Go outside the experience of the enemy; stay inside the experience of the people. Emphasize tactics the people will enjoy.
The threat is usually more terrifying than the tactic itself. Once all the rules and principles are festering in your imagination they grow into a synthesis.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p.138-9
Jan 1, 1971
On Principles & Values:
Push organizations to live up to their own regulations
The basic tactics in warfare against the have's is a mass political jujitsu: the have-not's do not rigidly oppose the have's, but yield in such planned and skilled ways that the superior strength of have's become their own undoing. For example, the
have's publicly pose as the custodians of responsibility, morality, law, and justice (which are frequently strangers to each other), they can be constantly pushed to live up to their own book of morality and regulations.
No organization, including organized religion, can live up to the letter of its own book. You can club them to death with their own book of rules and regulations. This is what that great revolutionary,
Paul of Tarsus, knew when he wrote the Corinthians: "Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth.'
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p.152
Jan 1, 1971
On Crime:
Jailing organizer leaders strengthens us with martyrdom
Jailing revolutionary leaders is itself a tremendous contribution to the development of the have-not movement as well as personal development of the revolutionary leaders.Jailing the revolutionary leaders and their followers performs three vital
functions for the cause of the have-nots
- it is an act that in itself points up the conflict between the haves and the have-nots;
Repeatedly in the situations where the relationship between the have-nots & their leaders has become strained, [if] the remedy has been the jailing of the leaders by the establishment, immediately the ranks close & the leaders regain their mass support.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p.155-6
Jan 1, 1971
On Environment:
To pressure polluters, pressure the banks that fund them
Let's look at pollution. When utilities or heavy industries talk about the people, they mean the banks and other sectors of their own world. If the banks say pressure them, then they listen, and they hurt. The target therefore should be the banks that
serve the steel, auto, other industries.If a thousand people all moved in, each with $5 or $10 to open up a savings account, the banks floor functions would be paralyzed. The people can return in a few days and close their accounts, and then repeat.
This is what I would call a middle class guerilla attack. It would cause an irrational reaction on the part of the banks which could then be directed against their large customers, for example the polluting utilities or whatever were the obvious,
stated targets of the middle class organizations. The target of a secondary attack such as this is always outraged; the bank; thus, is likely to react more irrationally since it feels it is innocent, being punished for another's sins.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p.162-3
Jan 1, 1971
On War & Peace:
Proxy votes to pressure corporations dealing with Pentagon
College students have argued that their administrations should give student committees proxies in their stocks portfolios in the use for their struggle for peace and against pollution, inflation, radically discriminatory policies, and other evils.
Citizens are organizing proxy groups to pool their votes for action on social and political policies of their corporations. Feeling that national proxy organization may give them, for the first time, the power to do something, they are now waking to
a growing interest in the relationship to the corporate holdings in the Pentagon.
Recently I talked to three students at Stanford's School of Business Administration about the ways and means of proxy use. I asked them what their major goal was and
they responded, "getting out of Viet Nam". They didn't believe in demonstrations in the streets, and recoiled from such actions as carrying Viet Cong flags, draft card burning, or draft evasion, but they did believe in the use of proxies.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p.167
Jan 1, 1971
On Homeland Security:
Corporations vie for Pentagon gold and then get bailed out
Lockheed aircraft appeals for federal millions to save it from it's financial fiascos. With the phenomenal payoffs of every kind of installation from corporations vying for pentagon gold.
This is the Pentagon that has manufactured nearly 16,000 tons of nerve gas, why and what for being unclear except to overkill the overkill.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p.192
Jan 1, 1971
On War & Peace:
Pentagon bewilders public about Vietnam and Cambodia
A daily record of now we are in Cambodia, now we are out, now we are not in it just over it with our bombers, we will not get involved there like Viet Nam without safeguarding
Cambodia, we're doing this but really the other, with no other clue to all this madness except the half helpful comment from the
White House, "Don't listen to what we say, just watch what we do," half helpful because the statement or actions are sufficient to make us freeze into bewilderment and stunned disbelief.
The middle classes are numb, bewildered, scared into silence. They don't know what, if anything, they can do. This is a job for today's radical to fan the embers of hopelessness into flame to fight.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p.194
Jan 1, 1971
On Welfare & Poverty:
Wealth should be distributed more evenly
I will argue that the failure to use power for a more equitable distribution of the means of life for all people
signals the end of the revolution and the start of the counterrevolution.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p. 10
Jul 2, 1971
On Government Reform:
Any legal means of protest/rebellion is justified
[Regarding a "shop-in" protest]: Now pause to examine the tactic. It is legal. There is no sit-in or unlawful occupation of premises.
Some thousands of people are in the store "shopping". The police are powerless and you are operating within the law.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p. 147
Jul 2, 1971
On Welfare & Poverty:
Either share part of our material wealth, or lose all of it
The fact is that it is not man's "better nature" but his self-interest that demands that he be his brother's keeper.
He is beginning to learn that he will either share part of his material wealth or lose all of it.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p. 23
Jul 2, 1971
On Principles & Values:
Rules of ethics: do what you can with what you have
I present here a series of rules pertaining to the ethics of means and ends. - One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's personal interest in the issue
- The judgment of ethics depends upon the political position
of those sitting in judgment
- In war, the end justifies almost any means
- Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred
- Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa
-
The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means
- Success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics
- The morality of a means depends on whether the means is being employed at a time of
imminent defeat or imminent victory
- Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical
- You do what you can with what you have, and clothe it in moral garments
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p. 26-36
Jul 2, 1971
On Principles & Values:
Calls for utilitarian / situational ethics
Ethical standards must be elastic. In the politics of human life, consistency is not a virtue. To me ethics is doing what is best for most. Ethics are determined by whether one is losing or winning. You do what you can, with what you have, and clothe it
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p. 30-36
Jul 2, 1971
On Principles & Values:
Rules of tactics: do what you can with what you have
Tactics means doing what you can with what you have. Our concern is with the tactic of taking; how the Have-Nots can take power away from the Haves. The rules of power tactics: - Power is not only wat you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
- Never go outside the experience of your people
- Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy
- Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules
- Ridicule is man's most potent weapon
- A good tactic is one that your people enjoy
- A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag
- Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions
- The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself
- Develop operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition
- If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside
- The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative
- Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
Source: Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, p.126-9
Jul 2, 1971
Page last updated: Nov 25, 2021