e.g., if in our local group, I want to put together a float for the christmas parade, others in the group will say "yay, me too." If a minority of others say, "meh. not my cuppa, but go ahead." here's what I heard: I don't really have enough resources to do anything. the minority of people who said "meh" have indicated they won't provide resources to the effort.
When this happens under voting conditions, that nuance doesn't come out unless there is a good discussion where everyone can say what they like and I learn exactly the tenor of each yes vote(in which case, the supposed benefits of voting - shorter meetings - are lost). Since there is no way, in most groups, to enforce disciplined support for the majority decision, it's easy for people to passively agressively refuse to support what they never supported in the first place. They magically don't have time to help, they magically can't be bothered to post status updates or fix typos on the blog, etc.
So, I can get 80% of vote but it is easy to not really understand that 40% of those who agreed weren't really going to help build the float.
This is the reason why consensus works better when you are also counting on the bodies in the room to do the work as well. It's also a good idea to use it when the actions you are undertaking could land you in jail or beaten or worse.
It's also why building trust and solidarity is important. As Natasha said, if you have an impromptu consensus d-making process to decide to commit CD, then you have to trust that, when the group of 70 says it's going to do it, they are actually going to do it with you. If you don't trust them, you'll never agree to it.
When you have money and a labor force of volunteers and hired help to actually run the show, and you don't have rely on the bodies voting to actually do the work, and when you aren't facing hostile conditions of being beaten, killed, maimed and jailed - you have the luxury of not worrying about building solidarity and all that other girly stuff the big buoyz seem to be terrified of.
with a bigger organization, you can get away with majority d-making like that. If you are using voting d-making in a small group where the bodies do the labor too, then you still need mechanisms to build solidarity and trust - which are time consuming -- otherwise, people who feel they've been mistreated by leadership (much as our labor education collective saw happen), will simply passively-aggressively refuse to support the decisions: they don't show up for working group meetings, the plead other commitments, they throw monkeywrenches, donations dry up, etc.
> From the Bookchin article:
>> In majority decision-making, the defeated minority can resolve to
overturn a decision on which they have been defeated -- they are
free
>> to openly and persistently articulate reasoned and potentially
>> persuasive disagreements. Consensus, for its part, honors no
>> minorities, but mutes them in favor of the metaphysical "one" of
the
>> "consensus" group.
> Graeber gives his defense of consensus:
> http://makeworlds.net/node/84
>> Consensus is often misunderstood. One often hears critics claim it
would cause stifling conformity but almost never by anyone who has
actually observed consensus in action, at least, as guided by
>> trained,
>> experienced facilitators (some recent experiments in Europe, where
there is little tradition of such things, [yeah, cause there's no
Quakers there! -- S.A.] have been somewhat crude). In fact, the
operating assumption is that no one could really convert another
completely to their point of view, or probably should. Instead, the
point of consensus process is to allow a group to decide on a
common
>> course of action. Instead of voting proposals up and down,
proposals
>> are worked and reworked, scotched or reinvented, there is a process of
>> compromise and synthesis, until one ends up with something everyone
can live with. When it comes to the final stage, actually "finding
consensus", there are two levels of possible objection: one can
"stand
>> aside", which is to say "I don't like this and won't participate
but
>> I
>> wouldn't stop anyone else from doing it", or "block", which has the
effect of a veto. One can only block if one feels a proposal is in
violation of the fundamental principles or reasons for being of a
group. One might say that the function which in the US constitution
is
>> relegated to the courts, of striking down legislative decisions
that
>> violate constitutional principles, is here relegated with anyone with
>> the courage to actually stand up against the combined will of the
group (though of course there are also ways of challenging
>> unprincipled blocks).
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