Nathan Newman wrote:
>Consensus decision-making is more fair to minorities because they simply
>can't be voted over by the majority. A minority can block a proposal in
>this process (which I've done on several occasions), thereby stopping a
>proposal from being passed over the legimate concerns of the minority.
>THe other important thing about this process is that is has good methods
>to simply stop bad proposals from being passed for the sake of
>efficiency or because people want to go home.
This paragraph sums up all that is wrong with consensus decisionmaking-- the idea that "wanting to go home" is a bad value and should be stopped in favor of endless meetings. Those who are willing to block and hold things up and get their way through wearing down those who have lives and want to get on with the work they came together to do. So let me amend my earlier statement-- consensus politics is both oppressive to minority and majority opinions and only empowering to those willing to abuse the patience of others and take advantage of the privileges that allow them to outlast others at meetings.
Wanting to go home is the most perfectly normal emotion to have at most left meetings; not wanting to go in the first place is the second most normal emotion-- and a lot of people act on that basis. Which means that decisions by those who show up for endless meetings are usually unrepresentative of the normal run of humanity, instead containing freaks like Chuck and myself who can happily endure such endless ordeals.
The normal alternative in history is for people who hate meetings to elect people to represent them to exercise their interests; Unfortunately, most anarchist style groups don't recognize that a person elected by 10,000 (or 1 million) union or organizational members should have more decision-making heft than an 18-year old with endless time on their hands who happens to be able to attend every meeting. Recognizing representative democracy is "oppressive" and "hierarchical." There are some reasonable reform intentions in the whole "particapatory democracy" rhetoric, but somewhere along the way it jumped the rails of sanity and any semblance of democracy that includes anyone other than political freaks who love to attend meetings.
Democracy is not representing all the views of those who happen to show up to a meeting but aiming to represent the views of those who don't show as well. The very term "participatory" democracy, however highminded, is inherently exclusive. Leadership is not alienating but quite empowering for the vast numbers of people in the world who want to leave the room and know that their interests will be fully represented when they are not there. Concentrating on making the leadership democratically accountable is a continual needed focus of reform, but eliminating it is hopeless not due to any iron law of hierarchy but because most people want to be able to go home and sleep.
-- Nathan Newman