Democracy or Consensus?

[Ludwig]

Basically, none of us like being told what to do. So the greatest satisfaction will come from creating a world where we do not need to be told what to do.

There is a basic problem with this. We all think we're right, but most of us are wrong.

The perfect leader is someone who is right, and can persuade other people that they're right. The easy route to this is simple bribery, electoral or otherwise.

[kenneal - lagger]

I perceive the biggest problem is that some people are greedy, some are over competitive(possibly both), and they are not interested in what others think. They just want to win at all costs.

Not just some - I'd say most these days. The legacy of the Thatcher years was the message "It's not just OK to be selfish, it's RIGHT to be selfish". Well, we shall see how well that ethos serves us, shan't we?

Like Postie, I'll be in the queue to dance on Thatcher's grave. I read a quote by someone close to her who said she'd "not had a single happy day" since she was toppled. Small consolation for her ruining the country, but some consolation nonetheless.

Usual old rubbish from the same ignorant people! Read some decent history books! It was a combination of bad management and truly stupid trade unions that ruined the country. Look at the record of days lost to strikes over the last 60 years.

Selfishness in the UK was started by the trade unions who ruined the country before Thatcher got in. It was their ME, ME, ME attitude to wage negotiation that caused the Labour government to go to the IMF for a bail out loan. It was inter union rivalry over wage differences between various grades of workers which bought people out on strike almost more often than they were working. The supervisors got a wage increase so the workers wanted one as well, so the supervisors wanted more to maintain their differential, so the workers wanted more, so... and on and on to the IMF.

The so called selfishness of British society attributed to her and her government should be compared to the reaction to her famous quote "There is no such thing as society." which was taken completely out of its context. I will reproduce the full quotation here AGAIN for you Ludwig because you obviously didn't retain it from the last time that I recommended that you read it.

There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.

Reading the full quotation (available here) in context shows just how badly she was misquoted in certain sections of the press and how this so called selfishness was also misattributed to her.

Thatcher's Britain was so bad that the Tories got voted in four times in a row. Their monetary policy was so bad that Gordon Brown endorsed it so Labour could get into power. Britain was a basket case before the Thatcher government but had recovered significantly during her governance.

Just for interest, here are some more quotes

"It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake."

How does that compare with "Loadsa moneey"?

"My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police."

[Ludwig]

I'm not interested in debating this with you Ken. You've got your strong opinions on the subject, I've got mine.

[Kieran]

Taking steps into the world of fiction for the moment...

Take control out of the hands of humans.

And no, I am not suggesting the divine, supernatural or blind faith.

Computerise the whole process

Maudibe, surely you of all people don't need to reminded of the Butlerian Jihad against thinking machines. Mentats will do the job nicely

[biffvernon]

Basically, none of us like being told what to do. So the greatest satisfaction will come from creating a world where we do not need to be told what to do.

There is a basic problem with this. We all think we're right, but most of us are wrong.

The perfect leader is someone who is right, and can persuade other people that they're right. The easy route to this is simple bribery, electoral or otherwise.

Ludwig, I'm not sure that addresses the points I made.
First was "none of us like being told what to do". Isn't this generally true? Ok you get stories of people who like being institutionalised, prison, the army, religious houses, where they don't need to bother with thinking for themselves, but I think it holds true for the majority of us.
Second, given truth of first, "greatest satisfaction will come from creating a world where we do not need to be told what to do" must surely follow.

What we then need to discuss is just how possible it is to develop society in the direction of more personal autonomy and less external direction. It's the elusive goal of 'freedom' that so many, of different political persuasions, seem to crave. Is it not a worthwhile search?

[madibe]

Maudibe, surely you of all people don't need to reminded of the Butlerian Jihad against thinking machines. Mentats will do the job nicely

LOL - .... are there any Mentats in the room though?

[biffvernon]

Hmmm...had to look that one up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad having only got as far as using my copy of Dune as a door stop. Fascinating. Maybe I'll read it.

[Kieran]

Maudibe, surely you of all people don't need to reminded of the Butlerian Jihad against thinking machines. Mentats will do the job nicely

LOL - .... are there any Mentats in the room though?

Hmmm...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentat

"The origin of the first Mentat is later explored in the Legends of Dune prequels written by Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert. During the Butlerian Jihad, thinking machine leader Omnius sees humans as animals, but the independent robot Erasmus argues that any human can become brilliant. Omnius picks a nine-year-old, blond-haired boy who appears to be the wildest and most unkempt of all, and challenges Erasmus to prove his theory. Erasmus calls the boy Gilbertus Albans, thinking that this sounds like a smart human's name. After initially failing to make progress by using a system of benevolence and rewards, he switches to a system of strict supervision and punishment, and the method works. By emulating Erasmus, whom he has come to consider his father, Albans becomes the first to display computer-like cognitive and calculation capacity on the level of thinking machines.
To his own surprise, Erasmus also develops an attachment to the boy; when Gilbertus is about 20 years old, Erasmus performs a life-extension procedure on him without permission from Omnius. Because of Gilbertus' remarkable memory-organizational ability and capacity for logical thinking, Erasmus nicknames him "Mentat," created from the words mentor, mentee and mentation. During the Battle of Corrin, Erasmus deactivates an explosive trip mechanism in the thinking machine defenses in order to save Gilbertus, thereby dooming the entire machine empire. Afterward, the robot declares:
"Perhaps when all the thinking machines are gone, you can teach your fellow humans how to think efficiently. Then all my work will not have been for nothing. ”

Thus, ironically, the Thinking Machines are retconned as the creators of the Mentats, who remained the Machines' enduring legacy to human civilization. Amidst the fanatical anti-computer culture that took permanent root throughout all humanity, the Mentats thrived from being an accepted substitute over intelligent technology, with the Mentats' actual origins completely unknown to all humans."

So first we have to create the thinking machines who then create the mentats.


Bugger that.

[mobbsey]

Quakers have been taking decisions by consensus, from the bottom-up, for 360 years or so. They in turn had a great effect upon all protest/social movements since.

Today "democracy" is really 'mob-rule by ballot'. Those who shout loudest, or scare more people with negative campaigns, win. More importantly, if you want to rest control from people you have to keep the agenda running quickly before people wise-up to what's really going on (err, Peak Oil??) and change their mind -- think of all those political/economic U-turns over the years after the true facts of the case came to light (e.g. Iraq). Once you stoop to representation you must instantly simplify or "frame" the issue to make it easy to communicate, and that inevitably involves "spin" in order to try and secure a mandate from the largest possible number of people.

Consensus decision making takes longer for the simple reason that it has to consult everyone involved. You also, to keep the scale of the decision-making process manageable, have to take it at the lowest level/amongst the smallest "critical mass" possible. That is of course the antithesis of the type of decision-making that favours minority control, and the forms of hierarchy that this perpetuates.

And what about those who "don't" vote? E.g., I vote at elections (it's too hard-fought a right to ignore), but as no party (not even the Greens) represents my views I usually write something erudite on the paper instead. As far as I am aware, the counting of spoilt ballots is up to the decision of the returning officer in the UK, and the centrally collected figures for turnout do not include the figures for spoilt ballots, only valid votes -- i.e., a large proportion of the "no show" in the turnout figure could actually be people soiling their ballots, but the system doesn't record this. If you want to demonstrate that democracy works then you have to include the proportion of those not voting -- and has turnout has gone down for the last 40 years it means that parties today are only elected on a fraction of popular consent.

The ONLY time that a government in Britain was elected on a full (50%+) majority of the population was in 1931. If you calculate the result of the winning party on the total number eligible to vote, rather than those voting, the situation looks pretty dire. Dumping the data from some figures I keep up to date for situations such as this, as a proportion of the whole electorate the winning party's proportion of those eligible to vote was: 2010 Con-Dem (38.5%): 2005 Lab (21.7%): 2001 Lab (24.2%): 1997 Lab (30.8%): 1992 Con (32.3%): 1987 Con (31.8%): 1983 Con (30.8%): 1979 Con (33.4%): 1974 Oct Lab (28.6%): 1974 Feb Lab (29.3%): 1970 Con (33.4%): 1966 Lab (36.3%): 1964 Lab (34.0%): 1959 Con (38.9%): 1955 Con (38.1%): 1951 Con (39.6%): 1950 Lab (38.7%): 1945 Lab (34.7%).

So, Bliar never even had a third of the the UK electorate behind him, and on his last victory he scraped home with just over a fifth! Even the present Con-Dem government has just less than two-fifths support (although "support" is an interesting choice of words since a lot of Lib-Dems I know "didn't vote for that").

Let's face it, in Britain only big parties can win elections, and that's the root of the problem of representation of public will -- it's the parties, not simply the voting system! I think, secretly, that's why both Con and Lab oppose proportional representation -- under a proportional system both their parties would fracture down their traditional internal fault lines; Labour into at least two parts, and the Cons into two or possibly three.

In short "anarchy", where there is no "central order" but everyone accepts the discipline of management and contributes to the evaluation of strategy and decisions, is far preferable to "democracy" where the minority always rule.

[biffvernon]

I agree with you, of course, but there's one point where I think you've strayed up a blind ally.

As far as I am aware, the counting of spoilt ballots is up to the decision of the returning officer in the UK, and the centrally collected figures for turnout do not include the figures for spoilt ballots, only valid votes -- i.e., a large proportion of the "no show" in the turnout figure could actually be people soiling their ballots, but the system doesn't record this. If you want to demonstrate that democracy works then you have to include the proportion of those not voting

I don't know if you've ever attended a count. When I have the number of ballot papers that are classed as 'spoilt' that are actually protests is very few. There was one that I saw at the election I was involved in last May. The rest of the spoilt ballots were where the wrong number of candidates were chosen - two instead of one - or where there was nothing written or some other reason why it was impossible to be sure of the voter's intention. Each suspect ballot was looked at by the returning officer, the candidates and agents and agreed to be 'spoilt'. There was never a disagreement. My point is that recording numbers of spoilt ballots would not actually tell you anything useful.

[rue_d_etropal]

Some really good discussion here. I thought I was on my own, thinking that democracy was actually doing more harm than good.
The time it takes to make a decision is often used as an excuse just to take a simple vote, but that puts control into the hands of only part of a group - the exact problem I am witnessing at the moment.
This discussion has given me the strength to challenge what those around me are saying and doing.
Maybe the old saying, Keep your friends close, keep your enemies even closer(or something like that I think), is now more relevant.

[Ludwig]

Quakers have been taking decisions by consensus, from the bottom-up, for 360 years or so. They in turn had a great effect upon all protest/social movements since.

Yes, but Quakers are self-selecting.

[mobbsey]

Quakers have been taking decisions by consensus, from the bottom-up, for 360 years or so. They in turn had a great effect upon all protest/social movements since.

Yes, but Quakers are self-selecting.

Meetings open to all (try it... you never know!); anyone is free to join if you subscribe to/act out the principles/practice. So how are they self-selecting?

More importantly, you see these same kinds of decision-making in practice in many protest camps and alternative communities, and if you read anthropological studies of ancient peoples/tribes they're based around the same principles. The Mondragon co-operatives in Spain use something very similar, as does the growing movement of neo-Gandhian communities in India.

It's a naturalistic way of taking decisions as a group of people; it was the way local communities were managed before industrialisation and "railway time" began to dominate our collective psyche. Quakers have simply preserved this tradition as an essential aspect of the way they work -- they didn't originate it.

[Ludwig]

Yes, but Quakers are self-selecting.

Meetings open to all (try it... you never know!); anyone is free to join if you subscribe to/act out the principles/practice. So how are they self-selecting?

I went to a Quaker meeting once. Nice people, but I wasn't sure the "sitting" thing is for me. Also, I don't feel able to commit myself fully to pacifism. I think sometimes you have to fight.

When I said they were self-selecting, I meant that the sort of person who joins a tolerant movement is going to be tolerant to start with. Communal decision-making among tolerant people is bound work better than among the population at large.

More importantly, you see these same kinds of decision-making in practice in many protest camps and alternative communities, and if you read anthropological studies of ancient peoples/tribes they're based around the same principles.

Internally yes, but generally they devoted a hell of a lot of time to murdering other peoples and tribes!

[RevdTess]

religious houses, where they don't need to bother with thinking for themselves

Heh...