[lbo-talk] OWS Demands working group: jobs for all!

Bhaskar Sunkara bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com
Thu Oct 20 18:25:35 PDT 2011


Well, when you're engaging in consensus politics, which for the record I've only done a few times, the tendency seems to be to try to avoid bringing divisions and disputes to the foreground, in order to get anything done. So that might mean that this kind of structure might facilitate the type of debate that can keep a diverse movement from fracturing.

If a slim majority passes a divisive resolution in a majority-rules system that can indeed cause problems. But I'd rather the structure that allows for real political debate and discussion, because I think this process is clarifying and better then "burying the contradictions."

Not sure if that makes sense, I'm rushing. I have a term paper to write. Anne McClintock, Benedict Anderson, Habermas, feminism, nationalism, public spheres, quite the clusterfuck.

On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 9:15 PM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com>wrote:


> you specifically say that something cool - a demand for full
> employment - could be lost because the use of consensus democraccy
> means that a faction can block it.
>
> do you understand how failure could be the result of majority decision
> making? In other words, let's imagine that a 56% majority votes for
> full employment as one of the demands.
>
> Do you see the problem with that situation?
>
>
> > What do you mean by failure? What we individually think of as "bad"
> > politics
> > may win out, there's always that chance, but in a condition of free
> > discussion and debate, call me a 19th century rationalist, but I'll
> > take my
> > chances with democracy.
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 8:27 PM, shag carpet bomb
> > <shag at cleandraws.com>wrote:
> >
> >> Since you guys are so big on criticizing anarchists for lacking an
> >> understanding of the drawbacks of consensus, could you name a
> >> drawback
> >> of majority decision making?
> >>
> >> In other words, please imagine for me the way the failure could also
> >> happen through your preferred method.
> >>
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
> --
> http://cleandraws.com
> Wear Clean Draws
> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
>
>
> ___________________________________
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>



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