There has been a flurry of discussion around process in OWS of late. This can only be a good thing. Atrophy and complacency are the death of movements. Any viable experiment in freedom is pretty much going to have to constantly re-examine itself, see what's working and what isn't—partly because situations keep changing, partly because we're trying to invent a culture of democracy in a society where almost no one really has any experience in democratic decision-making, and most have been told for most of their lives that it would be impossible, and partly just because it's all an experiment, and it's in the nature of experiments that sometimes they don't work.
A lot of this debate has centered around the role of consensus. This is healthy too, because there seem to be a lot of misconceptions floating around about what consensus is and is supposed to be about. Some of these misconceptions are so basic, though, I must admit I find them a bit startling.Occupy Wall Street News
David Graeber: Some Remarks on Consensus
OccupyWallSt
I think that two distinctions are in order. First, that between hierarchical organization and consensus decision making. Hierarchical decision making is the military model of organization that was promulgated in the West through the Roman Empire. Consensus decision making is characteristic of tribal organization in which leadership is natural and based on trust.
The second distinction is between institutional arrangements based on rules and cultural and social rituals based on values, values being expressed in principles if expressed explicitly at all.
Hierarchical organization is based on institutional arrangements set forth as rules. It is used in the military and business in that it is ruthlessly efficient and effective in achieving given objectives. That is the temptation to use it, and why it is not compatible with direct popular democracy, where objectives are not given but are emergent. And being top down, it is antithetical to exploring options.
Consensus decision making is based on cultural and social rituals that rest on shared values, especially voluntary cooperation for mutual benefit, mutuality, reciprocity, fairness, and most importantly treating everyone as intrinsically valuable as a person.
Consensus decision making is neither efficient and effective at achieving objectives because objectives are not given. They are emergent. The process of allowing them to emerge embues them with power instead of coercion.
Consensus decision making is foundational for a complex social system in which the focus of the group is directed onto emergent challenges in a flexible format that allows for exploration of options. This increases the adaptability rate and amplifies return on coordination through crowd sourcing. It's a biological principle that fosters life.
Potentially adaptive systems that do not follow this pattern of distributed decision making that is conducive to exploring alternatives end up in evolutionary dead ends due over-centralization that encourages premature focus and crystallization.
This is how an apparently weaker force can beat a stronger force, even militarily, as guerilla warfare has shown. It's also the basis of the internal martial arts that use circular motion rather than linear, that is, apparently yielding in order to turn the force the opponent against him by putting him off balance.
More noble savage romanticism.
ReplyDeletefitting; an anthropologist talks OBT&E ... and gets the typically expected response from an erstwhile economist
ReplyDeleteDan, in other circles, the concept is called group agility;
Group agility is a function of interaction rates, feedback rates, and practice at accelerating adjustments to both. Different methods are required as population sizes and distributions vary. No need to be condescending about anthropology. You're just illustrating that it's not your field.
Roger, I know that Graeber is proposing that we apply models of decision-making drawn from tribal societies of a few hundred people to challenges on a vastly larger social scale.
ReplyDeleteI also know that in the time that I have been reading his drivel he has not contributed a single practical solution to a single practical problem, and has been embarrassed in almost every public debate in which he has participated.
And I know that his famous book is a self-indulgent ramble filled with careless argument, illogic and bold social and historical claims based on weak evidence, and modeled on a few anecdotes from his anthropological interpretations of simple societies. He doesn't seem to be capable of sustained analytically thinking.
There is nothing new in Graeber's basic outlook. It's the same doomed silliness Rousseau gave us two and a half centuries ago. Some people are incapable of grappling with the hard choices of adult life in a complex society, and prefer to project their arrested teenage narcissism and egocentric rebellion onto a world in which they do not fit, and in which each of us is just one relatively insignificant component.
Functioning democracies - including vibrant, participatory ones, need established and rule-governed decision procedures to make social choices. The decisions don't just "emerge". When these procedures are employed, decisions will be made that are not the decisions everyone would have preferred. Boo-hoo.
I've been reading some of the Occupy discussions on their websites over the past few days, and I'm encouraged that they are now having a multi-faceted discussion of ways of moving out of the ineffective consensus model they have employed so far. Hopefully they are on the verge rebuilding their movement into an effective engine of social change, capable of careful planning and strategic thinking on behalf of a coherent, ambitious but realistic agenda, and not just a vehicle for self-expressive but politically unavailing "actions".
Graeber can keeping playing in his sandbox. I don't care.
One thing that is missing is the size of the group which rules by consensus. Another is the environment of the group.
ReplyDeleteMy impression is that the maximum size for consensus rule is around 150. Also, consensus is more effective if the environment is hostile. A small minority of dissidents will be more likely to go along if the environment is hostile, as the relationship with the rest of the group is more valuable than when going it alone or shifting allegiance to another group is a viable option.
Sociocracy attempts to get the best of both worlds, absolute consensus allows miinority stubbornness to block ANY decision, the objection/alternative has to be shown as reasonable for it to apply, the idea is for consent/consensus...
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocracy#Organizing_in_Circles
My impression is that the maximum size for consensus rule is around 150.
ReplyDeleteSee Dunbar's number. It's the point beyond which matter become impersonal to cognitive-affective limitation.
Also, consensus is more effective if the environment is hostile. A small minority of dissidents will be more likely to go along if the environment is hostile, as the relationship with the rest of the group is more valuable than when going it alone or shifting allegiance to another group is a viable option.
Having operated in groups based on consensus decision making, I would say it is more a question of the priority of the task at hand. Leadership is natural in a consensus based group, since people line up behind those who they think are best qualified. This changes with the nature of the task. There are no permanent leaders, titles, or ranks. Rather leadership shift with the opportunities and challenges. In less pressing tasks, there is less pressure on leadership and wise circle choose people with less leadership experience for low priority tasks to spread experience around the group and groom participants for future leadership roles. This is how natural leadership emerges. It's obvious.
Native Americans were organized into clans, tribes and nations. They where able to mount armies of thousands of warrior lead by legendary leaders without resorting to Western organizational principles. They were not defeated by superior military organization and skill but by superior firepower.
" democracies ... need established and rule-governed decision procedures ... ."
ReplyDeleteDan,
You're missing the orthogonal point being expressed. Rules-based organization cannot - by defintion - be agile, or endlessly scalable. It just boils down to sub-methods for adjust the "rules" on the fly.
Methods for workably redefining "consensus" as was, as is, and as will someday work in even larger populations is what is really at issue. Replace the word "consensus" with the word "policy agility" and you have the real issue.
As usual, our semantics are never fully up to emerging tasks. That's also inevitable. Work with it, and make suggestions, not just criticisms.
No methods work forever. Only until they don't scale further. The principle we're still following is that Adaptive Rate, aka agroup agility, still follows methods for increasing the quality of distributed decision-making. Call that what you will, but Graeber at least knows the principles of anthropology.
Graeber's pointed out a few ancient, timeless principles that supposedly learned (and arrogant) people have forgotten. Just acknowledge and use those principles, and don't bother criticizing him for not being an infallible god.
Dan's caricature of Graeber is just plain vicious. If Graeber said 2 plus 2 equals 4, Dan would object. For whatever reason, Graeber brings out a boatload of hostility and cruelty from Dan. And, yes, we get it, you don't like indigenous peoples and their folkways or those who see enduring value therein.
ReplyDeleteIt's one thing to disagree with a person. That's fine. To throw around petty invectives makes the hurler sound like an angry, narrow minded, fool.
Maybe it's just that Dan is a Hobbesian rather than a Rouseavian. :)
ReplyDeleteSee I got here on my bike's On Luxury.
Tom,
ReplyDeleteDan doesn't have an affinity for anti authoritarian types. Cool. I don't have an affinity for authoritarian types. Cooler. Just ask all my employees...