Alinsky’s 13 rules for radicals.

1.       ‘Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.’ Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood. 

2.        ‘Never go outside the expertise of your people.’ the result is confusion, fear, and retreat. 

3.       ‘Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.’ Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat. 

4.       ‘Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.’ You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity. 

5.       ‘Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.’ It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also, it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage. 

6.       ‘A good tactic is one your people enjoy.’ If your people are not having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic. 

7.       ‘A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.’ Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time, after which it becomes a ritualistic commitment, like going to church on Sunday mornings. New issues and crises are always developing, and one’s reaction becomes, “Well, my heart bleeds for those people and I’m all for the boycott, but after all, there are other important things in life”—and there it goes. 

8.        ‘Keep the pressure on. Never let up.’ [Use] different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose. 

9.       ‘The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.’ 

10.   ‘The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.’ It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign. It should be remembered not only that the action is in the reaction but that action is itself the consequence of reaction and of reaction to the reaction, ad infinitum. The pressure produces the reaction, and constant pressure sustains action. 

11.    ‘If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside [positive].’ This is based on the principle that every positive has its negative. We have already seen the conversion of the negative into the positive, in Mahatma Gandhi’s development of the tactic of passive resistance. 

12.    ‘The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.’ You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand and saying ‘You’re right—we don’t know what to do about this issue. Now you tell us.’ 

13.   ‘Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.’ the opposition must be singled out as the target and “frozen.”…in a complex, interrelated, urban society, it becomes increasingly difficult to single out who is to blame for any particular evil. There is a constant…passing of the buck. …Obviously there is no point to tactics unless one has a target upon which to center the attacks… If an organization permits responsibility to be diffused and distributed in a number of areas, attack becomes impossible.