Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman is a famous essay, which I see cited frequently whenever a group is in some type of organization process, and someone wants to introduce more formal organization for some reason.

I appreciate the original essay, but I think it often gets offered as though it were the end of the conversation, and there weren’t other opinions out there, and sometimes it gets used as a blanket justification for using formal rules and processes, without fully considering all the non-formal influences, negotiations and possibilities that can go into collectivity, and how different people, depending on their background, have different affinity for formal process.

Sometimes it even gets used as a justification for technocracy, which has a long history, ever since missionaries and “enlightened” folks started thinking they know what’s best for everyone, and it is their moral obligation to manifest their vision onto the unenlightened world.

technocracy - “The government or control of society or industry by an elite of technical experts.”

See this article for more on technocracy.

Here is some more writing and critique of the tyranny of structurelessness:

And here is the somewhat related (misguided) link about putting sexual consent on the blockchain (if we see some forms of crypto-maximalism as the full logical extreme position of formalizing life):