Mass Movements versus Corporate Entities

When the native tribes of the Ohio territory sought to counter the advance of the colonials, they tried to organize a pan-indian resistance that was based on new spiritual ideas and notions of racial purity and religious practices that sought to purge (in some cases literally by ceremonially puking) the influence of the white man.

Their plight isn't unlike the plight of white working class people today who look across their street at Mexicans moving into their neighborhood and think, "there is my enemy". For whatever reason, it's much easier for the people on the bottom rung of the social hierarchy to see one another as enemies than it is for them to see those in the top levels of the hierarchy prey on them.

The white man's society the Indians faced was a corporate entity. The people inside it made systems work and followed laws and procedures rather than doing almost anything directly. Corporate entities are severely centralized and hierarchical and decision making is generally closely held and secretive. Consequently, there's huge asymmetry in the "importance" of the individuals within the structure that make it function. That's their real, potentially debilitating vulnerability. The Indians raided forts and outposts and settlements. A better approach would have been for the Indians to create highly trained special forces teams who would disrupt commerce and attack the leadership of the colonists.

It will be interesting to see if a "distributed" approach to attacking corporates, like the US banks, can work. My guess is it is a type of mass movement, so it probably won't fare well. The inability to concentrate resources strategically, or to create the equivalent of special forces is a severe limitation.