Bey may be on to something when he argues that historians must take conspiracy theories seriously -- virtually all regimes in the post-1945 Mid East came to power through conspiracy. But he is also right to remain attuned to chaos in the unfolding of historical processes- that is chaos theory probably brings us much closer to an accurate representation of the past than conspiracy theory. the question is, should the "vanguard" simplify for the "masses." I'm not so sure, it seems that a historian worth his salt should be able to capture the dialectic between conspiracy (the power of conscious intent) and chaos (the law of unintended consequences) -- Marx set the bar pretty high in this regard: "Men make history..."
Likewise, I am less optimistic regarding the prospects of conspiracy as an organizational form for the radical Left. its seems that a small group of activists operating in secret is relatively easy to smash. Whereas a broad based social movement operating in the open and making full use of modern communications technologies represents a much more formidable political force (not to mention that a broad based social movement is more prone to taking democratic form- its a pretty small leap from vanguardism to authoritarianism).
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