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In a recent debate I had with David Graeber, who — no surprise — was full of praise for horizontalism, I told him that those who celebrate things coming out of nowhere spontaneously have everything in common with those who believe in the immaculate conception. In truth nothing comes from nowhere — it’s no truer of Nuit Debout than anything else.

At the beginning of Nuit Debout there was a small number of people who agreed that the situation was less depressing than it seemed, that there was a welter of grievances that just needed a spark to set them off, and that François Ruffin’s film Merci Patron! might well serve as a catalyst. Then there was a slightly bigger number of people who took it upon themselves, really decisively, to combine words with action.

Then along came the El Khomri bill (the Labor Law) whose explosive potential was even more remarkable. And then the slogan “After the (March 31) demonstration we’re not going home” took shape. But if people were going to stay overnight, that really couldn’t just come from nothing: we needed sound equipment, tents, stuff to eat and drink, a screen for the unauthorized “wildcat” projection of Merci patron! in Place de la République, communications about the event — things that don’t just come about thanks to the operation of the Holy Spirit.

Rather, they came through the dogged efforts of a few dozen people — who were indeed people around the paper Fakir and the Convergence des luttes collective. The launch of Nuit Debout would not have seen the light of day — or at least, would not have happened as it did – if it weren’t for the determined action of a quite small ultra-mobilized collective.

Then the movement took flight — in a way that surprised us, and — need it be said — left us overjoyed. Soon it mutated and entered into a new phase of its existence: daily general assemblies, commissions, inter-commission meetings etc. For most people, this is a model of horizontalism.

But it should also be said — even if, at first sight, this point seems to be of theoretical interest — that when people demand pure horizontalism and reject any form of verticality (an aversion that we can understand and, at least partly, also share in) — they refuse to see verticality at work even when it’s right in front of their eyes. And that’s also the case with Nuit Debout.

Even the general assembly, the supposed supreme expression of horizontality, does not conform to their pure model. It has authoritative rules — rules on taking turns speaking, rules on the length of interventions, rules on hand signals, rules for respecting the moderators, etc. — and the mere fact that they are authoritative, or more simply, the fact that they are rules, makes them displays of verticality.

But is this anything other than picking up Rousseau’s classic idea that being free, in politics, does not mean living outside of all constraint, but living according to rules we have set for ourselves? That is, living according to verticality such as we have chosen to institute it, in the form that we have chosen to give it.

What should we take from this analysis? That there is nothing collective that does not combine and articulate the horizontal and vertical in some way, and that consequently the horizontal versus vertical debate is totally inane. Really what we have to think about is this articulation.

And we couldn’t go too far advising collectives to look square in the face at the degree of verticality that they do have, rather than deny its existence. For that is the only way to stop it expanding out of control. It is also the only way to structure themselves in some measure, which is a condition — like it or not — of being productive politically.