collectives

Hi Adam,

I have been looking for books that may appeal to your question, and I must say that I have been a bit disappointed in what I have (or have not) found! There are, of course, a plethora of corporate titles that will tell one "how to manage," (hierarchically) and there are many lefty publications about activism, but few that are written by activists or radicals about how their cooperatives work (that I was able to find).

I browsed through a few library catalogs and bookstores, and was only able to find a few titles that looked like they might touch upon your question:
Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky
The revolution will not be funded : beyond the non-profit industrial complex by Incite! Women of Color Against Violence.
Organizing for social change : Midwest Academy manual for activists by Kimberley A Bobo; Jackie Kendall; Steve Max; Midwest Academy.
Tools for radical democracy : how to organize for power in your community by Joan Minieri; Paul Getsos.
Building powerful community organizations : a personal guide to creating groups that can solve problems and change the world by Michael Jacoby Brown.

A lot of collectives use consensus to create non-hierarchical organizations.

For more background, ActUpNY.org gives a good overview.

If this sounds like something you and your group would like to implement, I highly recommend Consensus: A new handbook for grassroots social, political, and environmental groups by Peter Gelderloos. This is the model Food Not Bombs uses. The handbook includes the consensus process, meeting structure, awareness of group dynamics, and an appendix of sample dialogues.

Resolve (a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the effective use of consensus building in public decision making) also has an online guide to consensus that is a quick and easy reference for the process.

There is also the Basic Intro to Co ops Zine (PDF) from ZineLibrary.info, covering the topic well and hey, it's a zine!