Question for the anti-authoritarians against direct democracy

[Red And Black Sabot]

So, as of late, with what's been going on in Spain, Israel, and Greece and the assemblies being planned in new york and etc, I hear more and more anarchists and anti-authoritarians who are critical of these events coming out as saying that they are "against democracy" or "against direct democracy." Is this specific to insurrectionary ideologies? Because I know this isn't the case for platformists and syndicalists and etc.

I'm thinking about essays like this one: http://www.russellquinn.com/blog/2009/12/01/the-problems-with-direct-democracy/
It points out flaws but offers no alternatives.

Or this one from crimethinc:
http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/recentfeatures/barc.php
Great argument against direct democracy but again, pointing out flaws while being very vague when it comes to pointing out alternatives.

So the question I pose is this:
How would an anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian society function if not democratically. Do other models exist and how do they function?

I don't disagree. At this poing I'm growing more and more convinced that direct democracy isn't what I used to think of it, however I'm having a hard time envisioning how anti-authoritarians or left communists or anarchists who agree with this line of thinking would solve certain larger social issues without some sort of directly democratic process.
How would two or three or four communities who share a watershed for example manage that resource among themselves if not through some sort of federated bottom up, directly democratic system as I'm sure all four communities who get their drinking water from said watershed would have a serious objection to yet a fifth community coming in and dumping their waist there.
How would communities delegate responsibilities and identify specific tasks if not through some form of direct democracy?
At the vary least neighborhood assemblies could take care of a lot of this but what alternatives are there?
Is this just differences in the language?

[The Douche]

Consensus decision making.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making


I can't remember being in any anarchist organizations that used democracy actually. But, thats because of the kind of anarchy I prefer perhaps.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

For non-technical positions, demarchy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarchy) seems like a viable alternative. Actually, even technical positions can be decided in a demarchic manner from a pool of qualified candidates.

[The Idler]

How about anti-authoritarian but in favour of direct democracy a la SPGB?

[Die Neue Zeit]

For non-technical positions, demarchy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarchy) seems like a viable alternative. Actually, even technical positions can be decided in a demarchic manner from a pool of qualified candidates.

Demarchy is the only framework in which the debate on (statistical) representation vs. delegation can be properly argued.

[Jose Gracchus]

Consensus decision-making is a great way to allow an organized minority to hijack every decision-making process and force it along their preferences, and demarchy is some total bourgeois academic's invented-in-the-brain abstraction. I'll take the spontaneous forms of revolutionary democracy historically any day of the week, vulgar anarchist whining set aside.

[The Douche]

Consensus decision-making is a great way to allow an organized minority to hijack every decision-making process and force it along their preferences, and demarchy is some total bourgeois academic's invented-in-the-brain abstraction. I'll take the spontaneous forms of revolutionary democracy historically any day of the week, vulgar anarchist whining set aside.

I have never seen consensus wreck an organization. I understand it has the potential to disrupt them, but only people who seek to wreck an organization will do that, and those people will be excluded if they continue their actions.

Anarchism is based on free association after all, if somebody is disrupting an organization they're gonna get kicked out.

And I've seen consensus practiced in organizations with 75+ members.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

I have never seen consensus wreck an organization. I understand it has the potential to disrupt them, but only people who seek to wreck an organization will do that, and those people will be excluded if they continue their actions.

Anarchism is based on free association after all, if somebody is disrupting an organization they're gonna get kicked out.

And I've seen consensus practiced in organizations with 75+ members.
How would that scale into a community of, say, 1000 people?

Not trying to poke holes or get a rise out of you, I'm genuinely curious to alternatives to democracy.

[Kotze]

I have never seen consensus wreck an organization. I understand it has the potential to disrupt them, but only people who seek to wreck an organization will do that, and those people will be excluded if they continue their actions.Ah, and with that rule against wreckers, what could possibly go wrong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox) :P

[Jose Gracchus]

I have never seen consensus wreck an organization. I understand it has the potential to disrupt them, but only people who seek to wreck an organization will do that, and those people will be excluded if they continue their actions.

Anarchism is based on free association after all, if somebody is disrupting an organization they're gonna get kicked out.

And I've seen consensus practiced in organizations with 75+ members.

I can't help but laugh at the irony of a consensus-decision-making organization's majority deciding to expel minorities they judge as "disruptive". Congratulations, you let majoritarianism in through the backdoor, but don't have the chutzpah to call a spade a spade.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Demarchy is the only framework in which the debate on (statistical) representation vs. delegation can be properly argued.

Could you elaborate (preferably with a short summary, if not a link will suffice)?


Consensus decision-making is a great way to allow an organized minority to hijack every decision-making process and force it along their preferences, and demarchy is some total bourgeois academic's invented-in-the-brain abstraction.

That is quite literally a meaningless criticism that could be applied to any proposal for democratic structure. Do you have any specific problems with demarchy, or are you just using ideologically-correct platitudes to dismiss something that does not fit into your pre-concieved notions?

[Jose Gracchus]

I'm sorry, you'll have to show me where the struggle against capital took the form of never-before-attempted organizational forms thought up in some bourgeois academic's head, and then properly evangelized to the struggling masses. Right.

[syndicat]

I have never seen consensus wreck an organization. well, it wrecked the Livermore Action Group...a very substantial anti-nuke movement against the nuclear weapons labs in the bay area in the '80s. read Howard Ryan's pamphlet "Blocking Progress" about how a tiny number of doctrinaire pacifists used consensus to impose their rigid ideology when experience showed that a new direction was needed.

Consensus decision making is inevitably conservative and rigid because there will always be a minority in an organization who remain committed to the original purposes & direction...even in the face of evidence of a need to change or deepen the critique.

Consensus decision making follows logically from extreme individualist premises about protecting "the autonomy of the individual". the ego of the individual takes precedence over the needs of the mass.

the Crimethinc piece cited earlier contains no arguments against direct democracy. it uses "democracy" uncritically in the same way it is used by bourgeois propaganda.

the anarchist criticisms of the assemblies in the Spanish towns are just sour grapes because things haven't developed in a way they would like. their view is not shared by the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists (CNT and CGT) who are highly supportive of the acampada and town assembly movement.

there can be no end to hierarchical, bureaucratic structures and class domination without direct democracy as a basis for making collective decisions. if they aren't made collectively, they will be made by minorities and imposed on the rest.

[DaringMehring]

Someone told me their experience with consensus decision making in a large-enough context of semi-strangers, that is to say, in a dorm, was that, because meetings could not be ended until the issues had been settled, and there was no way to force settlement, they would go forever, through the night. They would become battles of waiting-the-others-out. The most stubborn won. And the result, was that people stopped coming to the meeting, because what was the point? In the end, the decision would be that of the die-hards who stuck it out to 5 AM, and other people's input was meaningless.

It does not seem like a model that can work outside of small groups of people with similar beliefs and objectives.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I'm sorry, you'll have to show me where the struggle against capital took the form of never-before-attempted organizational forms thought up in some bourgeois academic's head, and then properly evangelized to the struggling masses. Right.

1) That something is untested is no reason to dismiss it. Indeed, if something is untested then it behooves us to test it.

2) The usefulness of an idea is independant of the class position of it's originator. Engels owned a factory, but that did not prevent him from producing useful ideas.

3) As for evangelisation, I prefer to use reason, myself. You should try it.

[The Douche]

I can't help but laugh at the irony of a consensus-decision-making organization's majority deciding to expel minorities they judge as "disruptive". Congratulations, you let majoritarianism in through the backdoor, but don't have the chutzpah to call a spade a spade.

Like I said, I have literally never seen consensus destroy an organization, and I have never seen somebody removed from an organization because of their use of blocking to disrupt the organization.


Do you think majority democracy is somehow qualitatively better or more democratic or more effective than consensus? What if your 51% or 75% majority vote to remove all gay people from an organization? Its perfectly possible, but its not a valid criticism, for the same reason that consensus rarely results in wreckers:


People involved in anarchist groups which are using consensus have a vested interest in the success of the organization, so even if they can not reconcile an issue that arises they choose to "stand aside", because they don't want to wreck the organization. And people in anarchist groups which use simple or 75% democracy don't eject certain groups or use the vote to restrict the abilities of certain groups, because they to have a vested interest.


Consensus works because the people involved want it to work.

And post-revolution we will be able to use consensus because people will want it to work, and if they don't, I don't see how we could've gotten to revolution. If we're faced with the question of how to organize production/society after revolution then there clearly has already been a change in the way people think, and they desire to cooperate, not wreck each other.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Could you elaborate (preferably with a short summary, if not a link will suffice)?

IIRC:

Representation is about those chosen being allowed to do their work, in accordance with the (mainly strategic) mandates of those who chose them. Representatives can be recalled for things like abuse of office and violation of strategic mandates.

Delegation means that delegates can be recalled not just for abuse of office, so this includes the possibility of recalls due to things like cultural prejudice. Delegates must vote every time in accordance with the at-the-moment majority wishes of those who chose them, regardless of personal preferences, and regardless if those localized majorities are in a minority opinion. In other words, delegates really don't have strategic mandates.

Also, moonlighting (having non-political jobs or ventures on the side) is encouraged under delegation and under today's systems of faux "representation" (owning businesses on the side). I'm on the side of class representation because, among other things, job security is properly addressed (i.e., how to transition from political jobs to non-political ones). Without this, there are the extremes of bourgeois-style moonlighting and hefty paychecks and benefits "at taxpayers expense" - and poor performance going with poor incentives under delegation.