Today we want to start a conversation about alternatives. Anarchists
tend to criticize, but often sentences are replaced by ellipses orawkward silence. And if we give any examples, we are talking about
Rojava and the Zapatistas. These examples are wonderful, but we are all
very far from creating something like this. And if something similar is
built in regions with poor economic, natural and political conditions,
then maybe it will work in territories with fewer problems.
We would like to start this conversation with making decisions. Let's
say right away that many examples are not without flaws. We all now
exist in a patriarchal, capitalist and state world, and it is impossible
to live in society without being completely free from it.
Now the world is dominated by a neoliberal democratic system. In most of
the world, everything is decided by elections, but even when we leave
the political field, we stumble upon problems in large parts of our
lives. The boss at work, the rector at the institute, the heads of NGOs
and NGOs. All this is an example of the problem when we give the right
to decide something to someone else.
In such a question, it will be easier to go from big to small, and
discuss problems using the example of large structures. Although, of
course, the examples that we give as alternatives have their own
vulnerability due to their scale.
1. Problems of representative democracy
Representative democracy is one big problem. The figure of speech "cast
your vote" speaks for itself. The state does not represent the people,
and the principle of "choose the lesser evil" does not work. The state
and the ruling class are not formed by us. They are formed by the
economic elite. And it is the economic elite who benefit from the
elections, while we have virtually no influence on our daily lives. Even
the most "progressive" states prohibit certain issues from being put to
referendum. It would be strange to imagine a referendum on sending
troops into a country or on switching to a different economic model.
In addition, democratic decision-making methods have not penetrated into
all areas. Just remember the bosses and directors. A separate topic is
education, but we will touch on it another time.
Now that we understand the problems of existing solutions a little
better, we can look at examples of projects with alternative, more
horizontal approaches to organization.
2. Social and cultural centers
One of the most striking examples of the use of consensus is social centers
Social centers are spaces where people gather to jointly conduct various
activities, for example, cultural, creative, political, human rights,
and so on. Often such spaces are also venues for events.
There are centers that have external public or private management, and
there are independent ones that are managed by an organizational
structure that you can often join.
There are also self-governing community centers, in which the
organizational core is inseparable from the visitors, where visitors can
directly participate in the life of the space and decision-making.
Both types of social centers have their pros and cons from the point of
view of management and self-government.
So, with the first option, it is enough for the organizational structure
to simply start dictating its terms, pursuing its own policies and
introducing censorship. This is especially true for social centers with
external management. On the other hand, such closeness can be a plus;
for example, it is quite well suited for political projects.
Self-governing community centers face the opposite problem, but they are
as close to anarchist principles as possible, and a relatively small
group of people with a certain level of charisma and amount of resources
can take over the project and begin to implement their own policies.
Both options can be balanced and eliminated the disadvantages. A social
center with a leadership team can more actively recruit interested
people and be more open to new people and ideas. A self-governing social
center can create rules and principles that cannot be changed. In this
case, any solution may be blocked due to non-compliance with them. It
also requires quite serious personal work. Everyone needs to have ideas
and a moral core to stand behind them.
3. Self-help groups
Another example of self-managed projects is self-help groups. They
differ from support groups in the absence of a hierarchy, which is
manifested, among other things, in the absence of professional workers
who are responsible for conducting them. The most striking examples of
such projects are Alcoholics Anonymous groups and Narcotics Anonymous
groups.
The main goal, as the name implies, is the mutual assistance of
participants who are connected by some negative experience. Group topics
can be very diverse - from addictions to domestic violence.
In self-help groups there may be a person with the role of facilitator,
but he is not the decision maker, but only monitors compliance with the
adopted order. Although even this principle may not be observed
everywhere, as a rule, the decision not to comply with it is made by the
group itself, which is precisely an example of a horizontal
organization, as well as jointly made decisions about attracting people
with any qualifications.
In the case of Alcoholics Anonymous, there is a set of rules that, among
other things, prohibit the creation of a rigid hierarchy, receiving
funding and other support from the outside, and also prohibits the
creation of authorities.
Despite the fact that such groups exist all over the world, they are not
very well known due to the narrow nature of the problems being solved,
as well as some distrust in such groups precisely due to the lack of
people with some qualifications, and the often overtly religious nature
of some groups.
4. Capitalist agreements?
Another example is cartel agreements. In fact, we have several
equivalent or almost equivalent players in the market who enter into
communication (perhaps not only commercial) with the goal of **dictating
to the market** their terms for the sale of goods in order to increase
revenue. As a rule, in such conspiracies there is no direct intermediary
or leader who dictates to the players on what terms they should agree,
since the conspiracy itself gives its participants increased profits
from the sale of their goods until the regulator intervenes, etc. ..
this can also be called an example of a horizontal organization, because
it is difficult to imagine a third party who will benefit from this
conspiracy. Of course, voluntariness is the basis of consensus.
So even in a horizontal organization you can find disadvantages, because
it is just a tool that anyone can use for any purpose. But the fact that
it is used in this way may speak in favor of its effectiveness in
certain circumstances.
5. Cooperatives
Cooperatives are an autonomous association of people for a common
activity. It can be both industrial and consumer. Depending on the
chosen charter, decisions in cooperatives can be made either by
consensus or by direct or representative democracy.
Now the cooperative movement is not exactly blooming. But we can name a
few examples. Such as Fasinpat, formerly known as Zanon, an Argentine
tile factory, or the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation, which has
questions about the decision. The basis of the latter is majority voting.
We will discuss the topic of cooperatives in more detail next time.
6. Assemblies
When it comes to direct democracy, the most radical and striking example
in the 21st century was the Occupy Wall Street movement. At assemblies,
people divided into groups and made decisions by consensus, and this was
quite effective.
There is also an example of self-organization during the 2001 crisis in
Argentina:
In 2001, the economic crisis and widespread popular protests in
Argentina led to the overthrow of 4 governments one after another.
International media reported these events in light of the food battles
and looting that began as a result of the uprising. However, at the same
time, many examples of self-government and cooperation in these harsh
conditions emerged. The jobs abandoned by the owners were taken over by
workers and turned into cooperatives. The same thing happened with many
other organizations: from schools and newspaper editorial offices to the
huge Zanon ceramics factory.
The collapse of the currency provoked the active creation of barter
clubs. In the absence of the state and departments, people gathered for
weekly quarterly discussions on urgent issues and organized support for
community members, in particular, issues were brought up on the
organization of public kitchens and resistance to the eviction of
workers from squatted buildings. These meetings were then divided into
committees that dealt with specific issues, such as the organization of
the health care system. Every Sunday, representatives from each assembly
met in plenary session to exchange information about current events in
each locality. These meetings discussed strategies to mobilize an entire
city against the government.
From the book "Handbook on Consensus" from the collective "Seeds For
Change"
In history, examples of assemblies were not only ancient Greek
assemblies, but also examples of ancient Russian veche, such as Novgorod
and Pskov. However, they were quite limited, and were subsequently
disbanded by Moscow.
7. Electronic democracy
Electronic democracy is quite new and is now used mainly for organizing
and holding referendums. The main problem can be called the imperfection
of its tools. It is very difficult to check and verify identity, and if
it is possible, then the fact of vote substitution cannot be ruled out.
Plus, behind you there may be an uncle with a baton, a boss, a teacher
or an overseer who will force you to vote the way they need. Also, the
e-democracy system can create an entire bureaucratic apparatus, and is
not without problems inherent in any democracy in general.
Voting pits people against each other instead of finding a common
solution that would satisfy everyone, and more often than not forces the
minority to comply with the decision of the majority. Making a decision
democratically is easier and faster than by consensus, but it is far
from certain that such a decision will be correct and ethically correct.
A decision made by consensus has a better chance of being successful
because it involves collective discussion and attention to all objections.
However, in any case, in current conditions, any form of direct
democracy is just a toy of the ruling class, although compared to
representative democracy, of course, they represent a better method of
representation. Only after the destruction of the state and capitalism
will we be able to test different forms of decision-making, build and
make work a system that will fully express our opinion, satisfy our
needs and requirements.
Conclusion
The consensus is not without its flaws. For example, it requires the
interest of all participants in the discussion in achieving and time;
they will not be able to make an emergency decision, which can be
corrected, for example, by adopting a plan of action in a certain
situation by consensus in advance or by creating committees with an
imperative mandate, delegating some powers to them. Consensus is also
difficult to scale, while it works very well in small groups.
If you are interested in learning more about the topic of consensus and
direct democracy, we can recommend the book Consensus: Decision Making
in a Free Society by Peter Gelderloos, as well as a website in English,
there are links to a book about consensus from this team, which was
translated into Russian publishing house RTP.
https://avtonom.org/freenews/perestan-ispolzovat-ierarhiyu-i-nachni-zhit
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