Leaderless/Structureless-ness in practice
I've been following these two threads:
1.MFD OpenForum: General Mayhem: General Mayhem: The Tyranny of Structurelessness
2. MFD OpenForum: General Mayhem: General Mayhem: The leaderless org - Snake without a head or freedom at last?
This stuff hurts my head sometimes, and I think it encourages me, at least, towards incredible long-windedness and speaking in a lot of academese when I try to talk about it. But I am going to give it a shot here, because I have a specific question I'm trying to get to. If you don't mind bearing with me for this, read on.
My understanding of current union structures is that they are largely shaped by the legal and labor/management relations system that currently governs the workplace and provides the environment for the unions to operate in.
In both Canada and the U.S., that system was largely developed and erected in the 1930s and 40s. Its design was heavily influenced by the mainstream social theory currents of the time, such as: Taylorist management theory, Keynesian economics and bureacratic centralist government, among other things. It is a system which presumes and encourages bureaucracy, hierarchial decision-making and generally, recourse to the law and adjudication for problem solving.
Practically everyone agrees, at least to some degree, that the system is outmoded today. It is in particularly rough shape in the U.S. But in both countries, people on all sides are looking for some kind of overhaul.
You people here are revolutionaries. You are arguing not only that the system is out of date, but that it is also philosophically unsound. You basically want to scrap the whole thing and build up something new.
You have also pointed your guns primarily at the union movement. They are the ones in biggest crisis right now. I guess you figure they are the ones most likely to and/or in most need of change most immediately. I guess you also figure a revolution in the union movement is the most likely factor which will precipitate a more general revolution in workplace life, which will in turn bring the whole system down.
This makes some sense. A lot of people think it was a mobilized and militant working class who precipitated the last major revolution in labor relations & labor law - giving us the system we have today. So the workers and their unions is a good place to start if you want to change things again.
But those workers and unions are and always have been in constant dialogue with the government and with management. It was the workers who mobilized, but it was Senator Wagner and President Roosevelt who got elected and passed the laws, and the corporate powers of the day who established their internal labor relations systems in accordance with those laws. Those laws, rules and policies, in turn, channelled labor down a particular direction and entrenched it in its current form.
Now you want to break that form and replace it with something new. I guess what I want to talk about on this thread is, assuming you pull it off, what then happens in terms of the above dialogue(s) i.e. how do the other parties react and what is the end result?
To boil things down as best I can, here's my question:
I understand from the above threads that what you are trying to do is build "networked" unions with a web/node structure and an emphasis on consensus decision making in small, localized, specialized units. This provides accountability, democracy and flexibility while achieving scale and power through network effects and efficient information-flows. I've probably missed some stuff, too, but that's basically what I got. Please fill me in if you think I've missed something really important.
Assuming all this stuff actually works...
How will these new unions interact with the current legal and LR sytem? If this is going to precipitate a transformation of that system, how will it do this, and what will the new one look like? How are governments and managements going to react to these changes and how are unions going to react to these reactions, etc.? What, in a nutshell, would your new workplace and work world look like?
Nah unh R_D, we're just posting shit. 
(tongue 'n cheek)
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You people
???? What do you mean *you people*. I see a diverse and varied opinion/information posted here, really difficult to box up IMHO, although good effort. 
.
Information, tools, hub, all the right words and yet it doesn't 'splain nothing eh?
I personally see a place for information to flow freely. As individuals or groups gather information, each may opt to do whatever fit their particualar circumstance. For instance, what one group needs in an organization, another may not, there is no one set of rules to fit all occasions, exceptions abound.
It is told that some members even like the way their union is and aren't looking for change. Others do want and need change and with the right tools/information can attack the specifics of their needs.
When each individual/group begin to take that responsibility, apply information, wouldn't it follow that the organization molds/transforms/dies/changes/adjusts/ to that group. Wouldn't that success draw in others?
Is it not possible to be diverse in unity? Do we all have to want and have the same? Is it not possible to just empower and let the chips fall, or must it be structured and always have an end?
Siggy:
I'm not trying to box anyone into anything. When I say "you people" I'm just trying to address the ones who have been most enthusiastic about all this web stuff.
My point is to try and apply the discourse here, which is heavily focused on a subject I don't actually know much about (organizational theory), to a subject I know quite a bit more about (labor law and the organization of work). As far as dealing with unions and work (the purpose of this site), I think the two subject areas are actually quite closely related to each other.
Here's one for you: describe to me a day at work in the grocery store represented by your ideal democratic and "networked" union instead of, well, the one you've got now. Suppose some kind of specific issue/conflict/problem/something else union-management related came up.
What would you do? File a grievance (and with whom)? Go on strike? Talk it over with your manager/hr dept/"kaizen" style work committee? Something else?
For that matter, would you even have a manager to have a dispute with? Or is "management" also obsolete? How did you get there from here?
The question:
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How will these new unions interact with the current legal and LR system? If this is going to precipitate a transformation of that system, how will it do this, and what will the new one look like? How are governments and managements going to react to these changes and how are unions going to react to these reactions, etc.? What, in a nutshell, would your new workplace and work world look like?
Me thinks the question assumes that what is happening will be taken and stuffed back into the "box."
Evolution doesn't pick one thing and leave the rest unmolested. Everything is affected by evolution. Our current legal system is evolving and is relatively young in as far a world timelines go. Heck, it has a hard time dealing with the Internet.
Workplaces in developed parts of the world will more resemble webs than the current hierarchies. The power of bosses will diminish and the workgroups will operate as nodes of a web.
Industrialism as we know it will be the domain of developing countries. 'Informationialism' will be the engine driving developed countries-if you want to call them countries.
You'll notice that federal governments are becoming impotent and subservient to world trade bodies and organizations.
The workplace will change, and so will the way we fight to control our work lives.
Those in the box will suffocate or be shipped in it to developing countries. What is developing outside the box will never fit in the box, so trying to figure out how it will fit within the box's interior is a waste of energy.
There are two things going on here:
1. The trendy leaderless/structureless "alibi" that allows the powerful to mask their power;
2. The reactive leaderless/structureless organizing priniciple that dupes the powerless into adopting ineffective strategies.
The only real solution for workers is strong organizations, with efficient and accountable central authority.
JD, you seem to be proposing "Democracy."
1. The trendy democratic "alibi" that allows the powerful to mask their power;
2. The reactive priniciple of democracy that dupes the powerless into adopting ineffective strategies.
Ya think ya have a vote that counts, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
Why don't people bother to get off their asses to vote? 'Cause democracy is the illusion manufactured by the industrialists to keep the rabble from eating the rich.
R_D my preferable would have me working in an environment of my choosing, as would most others I know, where most of the present day worker issues would be non-existent, (and yeah managers would be discontinued in my ideal for sure, cut out the middle-mice, is my motto 
)
Is that possible? Of course it is. Is it probable, not by Monday morning as weiser said, .
Many workplace issues are a direct result of disempowerment. Address the discrepancies of power and we're half way there. When union organizations resemble democracies, or are forced to be democratic (hate that word) the process has begun. If/when empowered workers begin the push from the inside, isn't the outside (management, union, bureaucracy) forced to change?
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The only real solution for workers is strong organizations, with efficient and accountable central authority
You're right on J_D and there will be many centers which will meet in another center.
Authority is in the eyes of the oppressed.
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JD, you seem to be proposing "Democracy."
1. The trendy democratic "alibi" that allows the powerful to mask their power;
2. The reactive priniciple of democracy that dupes the powerless into adopting ineffective strategies.
Ya think ya have a vote that counts, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
So close and yet so far, weiser.
You are right to the extent that my argument is that *you* are merely the mirror image of everything *you* despise.
Hence "reactive".
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How will these new unions interact with the current legal and LR sytem? If this is going to precipitate a transformation of that system, how will it do this,
As Weiser pointed out, these systems will be forced to adapt or risk public recalcitrance and, as a consequence of the former, political extinction.
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and what will the new one look like?
Well, the legal system won't look any different but the laws certainly will.
The LR system, ideally IMO, would be largely irrelevant because the power would have already been shifted from specialized groups into the hands of the public.
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How are governments and managements going to react to these changes
They're going to fight it - tooth and nail - by throwing money at it... naturally.
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how are unions going to react to these reactions
The good ones will react with vigilance and a new militance founded by virtue of an informed membership.
The bad ones will cave, like usual, and be rendered obsolete. I can hear them whining already.
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What, in a nutshell, would your new workplace and work world look like?
Employers would be accountable.
"Union" presence would be 24/7.
Direct action would be global in scope.
Would you consider the paper below to be an appropriate application of the principles you are talking about? It is an attempt to apply information flows, market forces and international advocacy networks to the problem of regulating sweatshops. When I first read it, it reminded me a bit of these discussions here.
Personally, I take issue with parts of the paper, but I wanted to see if you thought it was relevant first.
Ratcheting Labors Standards (pdf)
It's pretty clear that this is an argument for disempowerment through depoliticalization of regulatory schema, masked as a means of empowerment.
Like all arguments for depoliticalization, it is rooted in a fear of violence, both actual (raw political power) and figurative (semiotic/legal).
The argument against political regulation as inefficient or having unintended consequences is an essential component of "postmodern cynicism" - rejecting the "impurities" (perceived "distortions" of self-interest) of the political process in favor of what is essentially a metaphysical valorization of the efficiency of "pure information".
I'm not saying it won't work: we may see one day a world in which labor is regulated by the WTO or World Bank. It's a powerful ideology that can delude a bunch of grocrey clerks into believing they are on the cutting edge of the information revolution, instead of being led by the nose.
Yeah, let's not have the temerity to tackle child labor because legal regulation might have unintended consequences. What a daring position to take. A clear example how local, communitarian, consensus-based, informal strategies can actually be more repressive than the political regimens they intend to displace.
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"A complete victory of society will always produce some sort of 'communistic fiction' whose outstanding political characteristic is that it is indeed ruled by an 'invisible hand,' namely, by nobody"
--Hannah Arendt
Welcome to the age of zero accountability.
It is covered rather freely that this argument is disempowerment by that depoliticalization the regulating model, like means empowerment. Like all the arguments depoliticalization, it is enraciné in a fear before the activity of force, indeed (raw political energy) and in a constraining way (semiotic/juridiquement).
The argument counters a political payment like ineffective or credit of the nondesired consequences is rejecting an essential element "postmodern cynicism" - "pollution" (perceived "distortions" of the clean interest) of the political process in favour metaphysical Valorization of the effectiveness "of pure information" is primarily.
I do not say it does not work: we can see one day a world, in which work is regulated by OMC or the World Bank. It is a productive ideology which can tromp a package grocrey secretaries believing in it is on the cut of the falsification of information, in the place, by which nose one leads.
Of Yeah do not make you have to us with that temerity, with which child work to treat, because the legislation could have nondesired consequences. One that for the position verwegene to take. A free example, like buildings, communitarian, founded, abstract strategies as political governments can be more in a repressive way true, plan to defer them.
Line of statement: of "a complete victory of the company always produces a type communistic invention" whose remarkable political quality that it ' is laid out ' indeed by a ' invisible hand, ' is not indeed, by anybody "- - of Hannah Arendt
of reception at the age of a responsibility zero.
JD are you posting from that nuclear facility near where you live? Did you not make it out? 
babylon fish springfield jesus simpson beer belly doh doe dough x ray me fa so fedayeen burrow of investorgation
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Many young people strangely boast of being "motivated"; they re-request apprenticeships and permanent training. It's up to them to discover what they're being made to serve, just as their elders discovered, not without difficulty, the telos of the disciplines. The coils of a serpent are even more complex that the burrows of a molehill.
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Fractal Control I
"Capital forces human beings to be human."19
Contemporarily we can find this instantiated in the instalment of "bottom-up" management procedures such as "Teamwork" into workplaces - a system where a group of workers is responsible amongst themselves for apportioning workloads and meeting targets, including - when required - which of their number is to get sacked. An instance where a self-organising system can be inserted in a rigidly demarcated way to, not just maintain, but intensify domination. Being in a job becomes an activity where you are committed to innovating yourself out of work at the same time as playing kapo to your workmates....
If prison is where you are punished for what you have done in the past, work is where you are punished in order to be able to do things in the future. When future managementologists like Peter Drucker preach the end of work, they do so in the same manner as the Situationist International preached the end of art. Work must be supressed in order to be realised. Control must disappear in order to install itself everywhere. The assembly line is blown off in favour of decentralisation, destabilisation and deregulation, each operation putting into effect its own unlimited schizophrenic proliferation.
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Fractal Control II
Fractal Control of Fluid Dynamics
Amalgamated Research Inc, a Twin Falls, ID based research and development company, has invented and patented engineered fractal cascades (EFCs) for the control of fluid dynamics. The theory behind EFCs is that the random scaling and distribution of free interfluid turbulence can be replaced with the geometrically controlled scaling and distribution of fluid flow through engineered fractals. These EFCs can therefore be used as fuctional alternatives to turbulence as engineered eddy cascades. These engineered eddy cascades remove the random characteristics normally associated with interfluid turbulence. The engineered fractal cascades are most useful when the scaling and distrubution functions of turbulence are necessary, but control of the geometry would be benificial. Because of the frequency of occurence of turbulence in both natural and engineering processes, the application of fractal engineering has endless possibilities. To envision the concept of engineered fractals in fluid dynamics, one needs only to look at the cardiovascular system's control of the flow of fluids within the body.
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Would you consider the paper below to be an appropriate application of the principles you are talking about?
Upon first read, no.
While the goals of RLS, as set out in the paper, are on target, their methods for attaining them exclude one critical factor; that being the involvement of the people affected by such programs. Instead the RLS framework aims to create a more convoluted bureaucracy within the existing framework of the current system.
This doesn't empower working people. Consumers maybe, but Joe Lunchbox would still be bustin' his balls for an uncertain future whether he be in Bangladesh or Bootlick Saskatchewan. (« fictional town - I hope)
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Finally, labor leaders may worry that this transparency and competitive regulatory scheme constricts the influence of organized labor, the principle political force behind improving conditions at work. Conventional regulatory approaches secure negotiating positions for labor in international or national bodies, or in firms themselves through collective bargaining, in which they demand stricter standards to benefit members. In RLS, by contrast, standards emerge from competition and public assessments of actual performance and so reduce labor voice (but also that of government and business) by de-emphasizing centralized negotiations in favor of diffused discussion and action. At the same time, however, RLS offers labor organizations potentially much more valuable opportunities and tools. Labor unions could use the public information generated by RLS to accurately identify firms that treat workers poorly and then lodge legal or direct challenges against them. Beyond this, RLS's encompassing knowledge-base would enable trade unions to enhance their own mastery of best labor practices worldwide and to constantly upgrade that capability as new trends emerge in sectors or regions. Unions could spread these in firms where they are influential or demand that local governments require these improvements. Finally, trade unions themselves could become monitors that compete directly with public regulators and private consultants. Organized workplaces might prove the most capable social monitors and agents of continuous improvement. These two features -- Knowledge generation and legally-backed challenges to exposed laggards -- enable robust trade union strategies for conducting corporate campaigns against the most egregious firms on the one hand, and for improving workplaces through the diffusion of best practices on the other.
Slek - obviously one thing that you would argue is that "labor leaders" and actual workers don't always have the same objectives. RV and others here have postulated that the reasons for this are imbedded in the current top-down labor structure. That is the structure founded on and designed for a system of elite-level bargaining, heavy government regulation and high levels of bureaucratic management on all sides.
The authors argue that this kind of system can't work anymore, at least in the context of globalized production. They want to replace it with a system based on free-flowing information, transnational advocacy networks, and heavy reliance on consumer market pressure (with some local-level regulation as well) to exert power over the corporations.
The quoted paragraph above is how the authors envision unions' potential new role in this system. It is one that de-emphasizes collective bargaining, of course, but it is one which (they argue) could still be equally or even more powerful.
Presumably, the "new unions" could only adequately fulfill their proposed role if they were also re-organized along networked, information-sharing, "heterarchial" and less bureaucratic lines. I may be making a logical leap here cuz the authors don't talk at all about this, but it's my best guess. If this restructuring were to take place as a part of implementing RLS, it would seem to me to be kind of like what people here are pushing for democracy/empowerment reasons. And this would provide the basis for workers' own participation in the system.
Does this change your opinion at all?
How appealingly technocratic.
As opposed to just asinine, JD.
Hey - I'm not the one who wants to transforms unions into lap-dogs of the new world order.
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understand from the above threads that what you are trying to do is build "networked" unions with a web/node structure and an emphasis on consensus decision making in small, localized, specialized units. This provides accountability, democracy and flexibility while achieving scale and power through network effects and efficient information-flows.
A system more ruthlessly oppressive than the "awful" hierarchy which preceded it.
At least in in the old workplace you had a home to go back to after work. The network, on the other hand, isn't bound by the factory walls, and reaches into every facet of life, including the domestic.
Somebody explain to me how this is an improvement.
Logical leap or not, RD, the result would still be the same:
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And this would provide the basis for workers' own participation in the system.
Back at square one.
A "basis for participation" is what workers have now and clearly isn't doing them any good. One could argue, as many have, that it's the members own fault for not participating but we have ample evidence, both factual and anecdotal, that workers have participated and have still come out with the short end of the stick if any stick at all.
Workers don't need another system or another framework, they need direct access to the power that these systems, existing and theoretical, have been designed to provide and, to date, have failed to deliver.
Note that the article refers to unions more as a business type organization rather than a collective of working people - this fact alone, while respecting the current state of organized labour, points out a fundamental flaw in the authors assessment of a unions' place and purpose.
The authors do, however, catch their mistake and try to cover it up with this little tidbit:
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Finally, trade unions themselves could become monitors that compete directly with public regulators and private consultants. Organized workplaces might prove the most capable social monitors and agents of continuous improvement.
(Emphasis added)
"Might prove"? Sorry, but that scores a 
A third party (or maybe even a fourth or fifth party according to the RLS framework) cannot assess the conditions of a firms working environment better than those affected by it and working within it. Period. Every new party given the reigns introduces a host of problems much like the ones we have in any system available today: the two most obvious would be corruption and accountability.
Give access to the information directly to the workers, free of the intrinsic bureaucratic filtering, and let the workers decide amongst, and be accountable to, themselves.
So, no. It doesn't change my opinion at all.
If RLS stopped at simply developing a system for gathering and disseminating information provided by workers themselves, as opposed to disseminating information through third, fourth and fifth parties, and proposed measures that would enable the workers to act immediately on that information legally, I'd be all over it like a fat kid on a hershey bar.
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Give access to the information directly to the workers, free of the intrinsic bureaucratic filtering, and let the workers decide amongst, and be accountable to, themselves.
So that's why you banned Scott?
Not even remotely analogous for the same reasons discussed in the original thread.
Stop trolling.
i'm not trolling. you banned scott, free of the intrinsic bureaucratic filtering. the decision was entirely up to you. no committee discussed it. it was not voted on.
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discussed in the original thread.
Do the world a favour and read it.
JD: What's in your head? What do you think the workplace will look like in 10, 20, 50 years? What should it look like?
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posted by <John Doe>:
Hey - I'm not the one who wants to transforms unions into lap-dogs of the new world order.
If I recall correctly, JD, you get quite agitated at any mention that you might "lead". Then you jump on this thread with the notion that people here are "leading". You demand a system with strong leaders. Then you dump on those whom you think are leading. I sense you are crapping on the past and embracing it at the same time. At the same time, you are preparing a bucket of doo-doo to dump on the future.
What you seem to be arguing is that evolution is circular as opposed to linear. The Tyrannosaurus Rex used to show up dressed as a plant eater and now the wolf shows up dressed like a sheep--same events, different species.
As I see evolution, the world will always be; it just might not have human beings running about as we know them to be. We care about the earth only as much as in relation to its ability to support human life as we know it.
JD, some days I think your just throwing pebbles into the flock to watch them fly up and land. You love to stir things up, and that's good for debate, and keeps the wings in shape too.
Rest assured that it's the status quo that's killing unions. The status quo presents us with unions that have long been the "lap dogs" of industry and capitalism. They were legitimized in law by the political and industrial elite. The rules (laws) governing them ensured that they could roam the land only if they were domesticated and only if their reproductive systems were severely compromised.
You're right, JD, evolution will indeed present us with a new "wolf" dressed in the equivalent of a sheep, and the masses will be used by the elite for their selfish purposes. However, the Tyrannosaurus Rex ain't coming back. It's finished, it's time is past.
We must understand where the world is headed, and don't think for a moment that anyone here is leading it in that direction. One doesn't screw with evolution, one simply adapts or dies.
We're talking about adaptation. The fear of revolution will drive the new elite. What I read here is a group of people pointing out the evolution is moving us away from the status quo and that we must be vigilant so that we can recognize the new 'wolf' and devise ways and means to keep the fear of revolution real and alive.
The union is dead! Long live unionism!
Mainstream unions do not need to evolve or change to become "lap dogs of the new world order" as JD puts it. They will become just that if they do not evolve. The mainstream unions are lap dogs of the existing order. The best they can achieve in their current state is to continue this role in the future.
I'm not sure why JD and others think that MFD is trying to create new unions or networked unions or leaderless unions or whatever. We are not creating anything. We are simply encouraging people to think about and discuss possibilities that defy conventional thinking. They will decide for themselves what they want to create. Maybe this is what bothers the proponents of convention so much - what the people create may or may not include a role for them - not one that makes them get all excited anyway.
In JD's defense I think the "lapdog" comment might have been specifically aimed at Fung et al's proposal to integrate labor regulation into the WTO/GATT framework.
Edited to add:
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I'm not sure why JD and others think that MFD is trying to create new unions or networked unions or leaderless unions or whatever. We are not creating anything. We are simply encouraging people to think about and discuss possibilities that defy conventional thinking. They will decide for themselves what they want to create. Maybe this is what bothers the proponents of convention so much - what the people create may or may not include a role for them - not one that makes them get all excited anyway.
Yeah but I think part of that discussion should include concrete proposals. I find it gets a little to esoteric and hard to follow through from, otherwise. That was what I was trying to accomplish on this thread, as opposed to the other two.
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Yeah but I think part of that discussion should include concrete proposals. I find it gets a little to esoteric and hard to follow through from, otherwise. That was what I was trying to accomplish on this thread, as opposed to the other two.
It's not a far stretch to imagine the current union/workplace structure able to change within the short term.
Some simple and very viable workplace applications could begin the breaking out process. Now workers are held captive while waiting for an mr (rep) to handle a workplace issue.
While some workers are encouraged to act on their issue, they are seldom prepared to do so. Labour education is all but non-existent to the general membership. Workers' power seems usurped by employers and reps alike. (See; Toolkit )
Effective approaches and possibilities are a dime a dozen when information is made available to the workers. Already existing education centers could immediately be put to appropriate use to this end. For instance; Small groups of empowered workers able to address any issue at anytime throughout the workday. Every workplace would be a continuous chain of stewards.
mr's (Reps) would function as information go-fers and in time be obsolete. The savings to the organization would be phenom.
The overall effect could see the employer/management structure and the worker organization structure change dramatically.
Concreting or pre-determining a structure (or stuctureless-ness) would end us all back to square one.
Free the information and each community will rise and function from their needs, IMHO.
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We are not creating anything. We are simply encouraging people to think about and discuss possibilities that defy conventional thinking
I don't know how many times I have to repeat this until it sinks in, but there is plenty that is conventional about the ideas advocated on MFD. If you could just once acknowledge this, you all might be capable of some critical appraisel of the ideas you've mistaken for shibboleths.
Listen to Naomi Klein on the political paralysis in Argentina and the arrested adolesence of the anti-globalization movement.
http://shout.thinkbank.com:8000/content/lbo/Klein_16.mp3 (streaming)
http://shout.thinkbank.com/lbo/Klein_16.mp3 (downloadable)
the relevant section is 25 minutes in and you can only fast forward the downloadable version.
Unions are not the lapdogs of the existing order. They were the lapdogs of the old Taylorist industrial order. What they are now is in a state of crisis. That crisis is an opportunity. If they emerge from it under thrall to the new order, the opportunity will have been lost. The point is that a knee-jerk rejection of leadership and political processes can only end in a new form of servitude.
I'm glad you brought up Naomi Klein. In her book, Fences and Windows, she says:
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The irony of the media-imposed label 'anti-globalization' is that we in this movement have been turning globalization into a lived reality, perhaps more so than even the most multinational of corporate executives or the most restless of jet-setters. At gatherings like the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, at 'counter-summits' during World Bank meetings and on communication networks like www.tao.ca and www.indymedia.org, globalization is not restricted to a narrow series of trade and tourism transactions. It is, instead, an intricate process of thousands of people tying their destinies together simply by sharing ideas and telling stories about how abstract economic theories affect their daily lives. This movement doesn't have leaders in the traditional sense-just people determined to learn, and to pass it on.
In his article, THE NEW ANARCHISTS David Graeber says:
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Over the past decade, activists in North America have been putting enormous creative energy into reinventing their groups' own internal processes, to create viable models of what functioning direct democracy could actually look like. In this we've drawn particularly, as I've noted, on examples from outside the Western tradition, which almost invariably rely on some process of consensus finding, rather than majority vote. The result is a rich and growing panoply of organizational instruments-spokescouncils, affinity groups, facilitation tools, break-outs, fishbowls, blocking concerns, vibe-watchers and so on-all aimed at creating forms of democratic process that allow initiatives to rise from below and attain maximum effective solidarity, without stifling dissenting voices, creating leadership positions or compelling anyone to do anything which they have not freely agreed to do.
The basic idea of consensus process is that, rather than voting, you try to come up with proposals acceptable to everyone-or at least, not highly objectionable to anyone: first state the proposal, then ask for ‘concerns' and try to address them. Often, at this point, people in the group will propose ‘friendly amendments' to add to the original proposal, or otherwise alter it, to ensure concerns are addressed. Then, finally, when you call for consensus, you ask if anyone wishes to ‘block' or ‘stand aside'. Standing aside is just saying, ‘I would not myself be willing to take part in this action, but I wouldn't stop anyone else from doing it'. Blocking is a way of saying ‘I think this violates the fundamental principles or purposes of being in the group'. It functions as a veto: any one person can kill a proposal completely by blocking it-although there are ways to challenge whether a block is genuinely principled.
There are different sorts of groups. Spokescouncils, for example, are large assemblies that coordinate between smaller ‘affinity groups'. They are most often held before, and during, large-scale direct actions like Seattle or Quebec. Each affinity group (which might have between 4 and 20 people) selects a ‘spoke', who is empowered to speak for them in the larger group. Only the spokes can take part in the actual process of finding consensus at the council, but before major decisions they break out into affinity groups again and each group comes to consensus on what position they want their spoke to take (not as unwieldy as it might sound). Break-outs, on the other hand, are when a large meeting temporarily splits up into smaller ones that will focus on making decisions or generating proposals, which can then be presented for approval before the whole group when it reassembles. Facilitation tools are used to resolve problems or move things along if they seem to be bogging down. You can ask for a brainstorming session, in which people are only allowed to present ideas but not to criticize other people's; or for a non-binding straw poll, ere people raise their hands just to see how everyone feels about a proposal, rather than to make a decision. A fishbowl would only be used if there is a profound difference of opinion: you can take two representatives for each side-one man and one woman-and have the four of them sit in the middle, everyone else surrounding them silently, and see if the four can't work out a synthesis or compromise together, which they can then present as a proposal to the whole group.
Naomi marvels at the effectiveness of the leaderless model of activism. I do too. However, that being said, I don't think for a moment that there will be no leaders or places for leaders in the future. I think that leaderless models and structures will be much more prevalent than in the past because technology will facilitate such.
Yes, but what you are unable to grasp is that the odds are that the consensus model will be even more oppressive than what preceded it.
And, JD, what you fail to grasp is that we aren't driving it. It's happening, with us or without us.
I'll go as far as to say that when it comes to oppression, we ain't seen nothin' yet. Those who will buy, sell, own, hoard and withhold information will enslave us. We are oppressed to a huge degree, but we just don't realize it.
That's what I was talking about in This thread
JD, it's upon us, and the shift is happening. There are good leaders and despots. Leadership has its positives and negaitves. Consensus where ever possible is best. If you think consensus is oppressive, then explain yourself.
In some arenas leaderless is better 'cause leader means head and the head can be removed. When the head is removed, the body collapses. Sometimes a starfish model is very effective. There is no head and when you cut off the arm, a new one grows in its place and a new starfish grows from the severed arm.
JD, the "you're wrong and I'm right" stance ain't gettin' us nowhere. You haven't articulated why you might be right. You just keep making statements with nothing to back them up with, and with no explanation or reasoning as to why we should move closer to consensus or to stroll all the way over to your camp.
You say we (or I) can't grasp your point. Well, make one, and perhaps I could.
I think we may be runnin' on parallel tracks here, JD, it just that you aren't doin' a good job of 'splainin' yerself.
I'm not explaining myself, I'm describing you, and you lack the facility to understand the description.
Read Timothy Bewes "Cynicism and Postmodernity" last chapter: "On Self-Belief" especially section 4.
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Then you jump on this thread with the notion that people here are "leading". You demand a system with strong leaders. Then you dump on those whom you think are leading.
Nobody here is leading. You are quite wrong. All there is is misleading.
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I sense you are crapping on the past and embracing it at the same time. At the same time, you are preparing a bucket of doo-doo to dump on the future.
Exactly. If you're not willing to trash the world as it is given to you, why bother getting out of bed.
By the way, there's more than one way to interpret "I've seen the future and it isn't there".
Uhh, no JD. You lack the facility to make a coherent point.
IIRC we've been through this before, many times - ie: people asking you to explain your position in a clear manner as opposed to your usual obfuscated vitriol.
The only clear points in you've made in this entire thread are the personal attacks on the people who have opposing opinions.
Take it as constructive criticism. Well, take it however you like, I don't really care but do understand that, to many folks here, you make no sense whatsoever. As is the case, I'd suggest that you consider that the problem doesn't lie in other people "facilities" but in your own communication skills or lack thereof.
beautiful: a coherant [sic] point.
sleK thinks a dictionary is a user's manual. there's no poetry in you, boy: you shouldn't have corrected your mistake.
Beat ya by 3 minutes smart guy. Citing spelling errors in arguments is weak anyways.
