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Title: On Organization Author: Tom Wetzel Language: en Topics: anarchist organization, organization, direct democracy, Source: Retrieved on April 20, 2017 from https://reallibertarianism.com/democracy-pages/on-organization/
“Consensus” has had a certain popularity as a decision-making method
among social change groups since the ’60s, especially within the
anti-nuclear movement but also in anarchist and radical feminist
circles. I think we can understand why if we consider what sorts of
organizations exist in this country. Mass organizations in which the
membership directly shape the decisions are hard to find. How often have
members been ruled “out of order” at union meetings by an entrenched
official? Most leftist political groups also have a top-down concept of
organization, as befits their preoccupation with “leadership.”
On the other hand, this sort of alienation and lack of control appears
absent in activities organized through small circles of acquaintances.
Those who engage in an action together typically reached a common
agreement after talking it over informally. This leads to the model of
the small, informal group — no written constitution, no chair of
meetings, no elections for delegated tasks, no careful definition of
jobs, no written minutes of meetings. Decisions are made by having an
unstructured discussion until consensus is reached.
But informality does not eliminate hierarchy in organizations; it merely
masks it. To the insiders, everything appears friendly and egalitarian.
But newcomers do not have the same longstanding ties to the group. And
having no clear definition of responsibilities, and no elections of
individuals who carry out important tasks, makes it more difficult for
the membership to control what goes on.
Fortunately, the “small, informal group” is not the only alternative to
the dominant hierarchical model of organization. It is possible to build
a formal organization that is directly controlled by its membership.
Being “formal” merely means that the organization has a written set of
rules about how decisions are made, and duties of officers and
conditions of membership are clearly defined. An organization does not
have to be top-down in order to be “formal” in this sense. A libertarian
organization would have a constitution that explicitly lays out a
non-hierarchical way of making decisions.
Sometimes people have the idea that setting up elected positions with
defined responsibilities is a “hierarchy,” as if any delegation of
responsibility creates a boss. Yet, informality does not avoid
delegation since some people will inevitably do tasks on behalf of the
group, such as answering correspondence or handling a bank account.
It is possible to elect people to perform delegated tasks without
creating a top-down organization. Here are a few guidelines:
secretary or treasurer, should be explicitly defined and delimited, so
that everyone knows what this person should be doing, and with the
requirement of regular reports to keep the membership informed.
should be subject to recall at any time by majority vote of the
membership (but with a requirement of adequate notice to ensure that
this is not “sprung” all of a sudden by those members least favorable to
the person currently doing the job).
rotation from office. This is especially important for any position of
acting as spokesperson or representative of an organization or body of
people. If an organization is very small, however, it is sometimes
difficult to rotate responsibilities. Even so, the person carrying out
responsibilities can report regularly to membership meetings and can be
thus directed by decisions of the membership.
to carry out those responsibilties that have been assigned by the
membership. The general membership meeting of the organization must
remain the supreme decision-making body and can over-rule any decisions
of elected officers.
The idea is that the main decision-making responsibility of the
organization is not to be delegated to some “steering committee” or
executive but is conducted directly by the membership through their own
discussions and votes; this is the heart of the libertarian concept of
organization.
Since many leftists define social change in terms of putting a
particular leadership into power — such as the Leninist concept of “the
revolutionary party taking state power” — it is no surprise that even
organizations formed, or influenced, by leftists may have a hierarchical
set-up where the power to make decisions is concentrated in some
executive board or steering committee. While libertarians oppose this
practice, and pose the alternative of direct decision-making by the
members or rank-and-file participants, it is, nonetheless, not necessary
to oppose all delegation of tasks or responsibilities.
The real question should be, “What is the relationship between those
vested with responsibilities and the rest of the membership?” If the
center of decision-making lies in the general meetings, and those with
responsibilities must report to these meetings, and are instructed by
them, and (where possible) jobs are rotated, then we do not have a
top-down structure, but an organization where decision-making is from
the bottom up.
Often people who favor the “small, informal group” model of organization
also oppose the practice of electing someone to chair a meeting, even if
the meeting is a larger gathering. It is easy to understand what they
are afraid of. Consider union meetings where the chair is a paid
official. He has certain entrenched interests to defend. To serve his
ends, he may rule “out of order” motions from the floor on matters of
concern to the rank and file, or manipulate the meeting in other ways.
But here the problem is that there is an entrenched bureaucracy;
chairing meetings is only one of the ways they control the organization.
The situation is different if the chair is elected at the beginning of
the meeting by those present, and if the chair can be removed by
majority vote at any time. Being chair of a meeting does not convert
someone into a bureaucrat.
I’ve sat through chairless meetings where people interrupt each other,
voices get louder as people try to express themselves, discussions get
side-tracked into numerous tangents, and important decisions are put off
or hurriedly decided at the last minute. This experience has made me
rather frustrated with the prejudice against having a chair of meetings.
If a meeting only consists of a few people, then obviously it does not
need to have a chair. But once meetings achieve a certain size, a chair
becomes necessary in order to ensure that the meeting stays on track and
moves through the agenda in a reasonable amount of time, while making
sure that people have an opportunity to speak.
I’ve heard opponents of chairmanship argue, “It’s the responsibility of
each individual to make sure that the meeting stays on track and
individuals don’t get out of hand.” But even with the best of
intentions, this is difficult to achieve in practice. When you’re
thinking about what you want to say next, it’s hard to also be keeping
track of whose turn it is to speak and of what the agenda is.
The rationale behind having a chair is that we delegate to one person
the responsibility to concentrate on such things as the agenda and the
order of speakers while the rest of us are free to concentrate on what
is being said. Of course, it can happen that a chair is manipulative,
favoring one particular “side” in a matter under dispute. But in such a
situation, a motion to replace the chair would be in order.
In working out a libertarian concept of organization, we need to
remember that the individual members not only have rights that must be
respected by the organization, they also have obligations to the rest of
the membership. Since the majority have the right to control their own
organization, individuals must conduct themselves so as to respect this
right of the majority.
For example, if an individual makes public statements that claim to
speak for the organization, but state only the viewpoint of the
individual, not a viewpoint actually discussed and agreed to by the
majority, then that individual is acting irresponsibly and
anti-democratically.
There is, however, no reason why an individual should be required to
stay mum publically about disagreements within the organization. As long
as the individual makes clear that the stated viewpoint is his or her
own, public disagreement with the position of the organization is not
irresponsible.
A libertarian concept of organization must allow for diversity of
opinions. This means that members must try to maintain a climate of
respecting the opinions of others in the organization. But what happens
when members do not respect the rights of others? What happens when
members are threatening to others, or conduct themselves in ways that
are very disruptive to the life of an organization? In such a case the
majority may have to consider disassociating themselves from that
individual. In other words, the rights of the majority include the right
to expel individual members.
To some anarchists, expulsions are always a “purge.” The authoritarian
connotation of the latter term are meant to suggest that any expulsion
is a violation of freedom, an illegitimate act. But the position of
these anarchists is actually self-contradictory. For, it is a very basic
libertarian principle that the membership of an organization have the
right to directly control it. And this means that no individual has the
“right” to act in ways that prevent the majority from accomplishing the
purposes for which they got together. If the majority in an organization
did not have the right to expel disruptive indivdiduals, this would mean
that they couldn’t control the conditions of membership and direction of
that organization. Freedom of association implies the freedom to
disassociate.
On the other hand, the power to expel members should never be delegated
to officials. For, if elected officers can expel members ontheir own,
they can expel critics of how they are conducting their
responsibilities. Expulsion certainly is used by officials in
hierarchical organizations as a means of maintaining their top-down
control. What is illegitimate in such cases is not the act of expulsion
in itself, but the top-down way it is carried out.
The point here is that individuals have obligations to the other members
of an organization. And the majority have the right to ensure that the
responsibilities of membership are observed. But expulsion is a last
resort, and should not be used lightly. Expulsion is something that the
membership should decide on directly, in a general membership meeting or
convention. And it should always be required that accused individuals be
given advance notice and have the right to defend themselves before the
general membership prior to a vote to expel.
The partisans of informality also tend to be averse to voting as a way
of making decisions. They prefer the process of talking until agreement
is reached (or not reached). In my experience, this process tends to
encourage informal hierarchy. That’s because this process tends to
heighten the influence of the more articulate and self-confident
individuals, and tends to disenfranchise the shy newcomer, and the less
articulate. Voting has the advantage that it is an equalizer. The shy
and the aggressive, the articulate and the not-so-articulate, all can
raise their hands, and each has only one vote.
Advocates of consensus sometimes say that hierarchical organization is
the only alternative to consensus. But there is also the alternative of
direct democracy where decisions are made by majority vote. Direct
voting by the members puts the majority of members in control, and
control by the majority of members is the opposite of hierarchy. In a
hierarchical organization, it is not the majority of members who are in
charge but a few leaders at the top — that is what “hiearchy” means.
The libertarian idea of direct, democratic voting is quite different
than the official concept of “democracy” in this society. “Democratic
voting” typically means electing officials who then have all the power
of making decisions. But that is really elective autocracy, not genuine
democracy, which requires direct decision-making by the rank and file.
Though “talking until agreement is reached” is the natural method of
decision-making for “small, informal groups,” not all advocates of
consensus decision-making are averse to formal organization. However,
making the organization formal — a written constitution, definition of
membership and so on — does not eliminate the basic problems of the
consensus process.
The requirement of unanimity means that disagreements have to be talked
out until verbal consensus emerges. This means that even a formal
consensus system tends to heighten the influence of the more talkative,
self-confident participants. Also, the requirement of consensus often
leads to prolonged, marathon sessions, or meetings where nothing is
decided.
This aspect of consensus tends to make the movement less conducive to
participation by working people, and tends to reduce participation to
the hard-core activists. When people have other demands on their time
(job, children, spouse), they will tend to be frustrated by meetings
that are unnecessarily long, indecisive, or chaotic. Most people will
want to have some sense that something will be accomplished, a clear
decision made, and in a reasonable amount of time.
In his pamphlet Blocking Progress, Howard Ryan describes a nightmarish
example of what can happen with consensus.[1] Many people in the
Livermore Action Group — an anti-nuclear action group here in the Bay
Area — were uncomfortable with the first point of LAG’s action
guidelines which stated: “Our attitude will be one of openness,
friendliness and respect toward all people we encounter.” “A common
sentiment”, Ryan points out, “was that oppressed people often do not
feel these things towards police or authorities and should not be
required to feel them in order to join the [Lawrence-Livermore
Laboratory] blockade.” In 1982 there was a month-long discussion of this
issue, followed by two full days of informal open debate. At the second
of these assemblies it was proposed to replace the “friendly and
respectful” language with “non-violent.”
Coming towards the end of this long process of discussion, there was a
suggestion by one of the participants in the second meeting that a straw
poll be taken to determine the general opinion in the room. This was
itself considered so controversial that two hours were consumed in
debating whether it was even okay to take a straw poll. Finally a poll
was taken and the vote was 74 to 2 in favor of changing the non-violence
code to remove the “respectful and friendly” language. One of the
participants has described what then took place:
One of the two people [a doctrinaire pacifist] blocked it. He was asked
repeatedly to stand aside, to leave, to die. People were just so upset.
He wouldn’t budge and it was blocked.
This is a good example of the elitist coercion that consensus permits.
The requirement of unanimity is anti-democratic. A small minority does
not have the right to prevent the majority of members from doing what
they want to do. Organizations are not of value in themselves but only
as a vehicle for cooperation and collective activity. Insofar as
consensus thwarts the majority from doing what it wants, it makes the
organization an ineffective vehicle for them. This can lead to splits
and fragmentation — exactly the result that the advocates of consensus
say they want to avoid.
The rules of an organization can — and must — protect the rights of
individuals and minorities. If one studies the situation in the
AFL-CIO-type unions, and major political organizations, it is true that
the rights of individuals and political minorities are often in a sorry
state. But these are hierarchical organizations. It is the hierarchy,
not “majority voting,” that is the problem.
Anarchists of the more individualistic persuasion argue that consensus
is necessary to avoid “tyranny of the majority.” But where in the real
world does the majority have real power? The real tyrannies that people
are fighting around the world are tyrannies of entrenched minorities, of
governments and bosses. I don’t want to claim that “majorities are
always right” but I do believe that people have the right to make their
own mistakes. The issue here is whether people have the right to control
their own movements and organizations. To give a single individual or
small minority the right of veto on decisions is to have a system of
minority rule.
Even when individuals or minorities do not actually threaten or use a
block to keep the majority from doing what it wants, everyone is aware
that they could, if the organization is run by consensus. The structural
requirement of unanimity puts pressure on the majority to placate small
minorities in order to accomplish something. Often this leads to
decisions that paper over disagreements and leave everyone dissatisfied.
Rudy Perkins has described this problem, based on his experience in the
Clamshell Alliance in New England in the late ’70s:
Majority rule is disliked because amongst the two, three or many courses
of action proposed, only one is chosen; the rest are “defeated.”
Consensus theoretically accommodates everyone’s ideas. In pactice this
often led to:
of one side or another was actually implemented through committees or
office staff.
In other words, within the anti-nuclear movement ideas are in
competition and some do win, but under consensus the act of choosing
between alternatives is usually disguised. Because the process is often
one of mystification and subterfuge, it takes power of conscious
decision away from the organization’s membership.[2]
Consensus puts pressure on minorities not to express misgivings or
disagreements because their dissent would prevent the organization from
making a decision. Thus it actually becomes harder for minorities to
state dissenting opinions because dissent is always a disruptive act.
When decisions are made by majority vote, on the other hand, there is
not this heavy “cost” to dissent and minorities can freely state their
disagreement without thereby disrupting or blocking the organization
from reaching a decision.
Consensus also means that it becomes very difficult, if not impossible,
to change an organization’s orientation even when it is clear to most
members that the current direction is failing. That’s because there will
almost always be a minority who will be against change, because the
current direction of the organization may have been what attracted them
to it, or because they may simply prefer what they are used to.
“Simple majority” is the requirement of one vote more than half the
votes cast in order to make a decision. A simple majority is the
smallest number of votes needed to guarantee that a decision is made.[3]
Advocates of simple majority sometimes hear the retort: “But do we want
to have a major decision made with 51% for 49% against?” Decisions that
organizations make in the course of conducting their affairs vary a lot
in their relative importance to the participants. For some decisions, a
narrow majority won’t matter because those who voted “no” may not have
really strong feelings one way or the other. If it is an important
issue, though, it is clearly a problem if an organization is closely
split.
Sometimes, in organizations that are based on membership participation
and democratic voting, close votes will lead the group to stop and
reconsider the issue in order to find a proposal that accommodates
objections.
More often, this process happens before it reaches a vote. When it
becomes clear in the course of the discussion on a proposal that the
membership are closely divided and have strong feelings on the issue,
there is likely to be an effort to find a proposal that mitigates
objections. For one thing, it is to the advantage of the proposal’s
partisans to have as much support as possible within the organization.
The work of the organization is bound to suffer if it is badly split —
dissatisfied members may drag their feet or drop out.
When a union conducts a strike vote, for example, the partisans of a
strike will want to get the largest possible majority for a strike. If
the vote for a strike isn’t overwhelming, if there is only a narrow
majority for striking, the union will be less likely to actually go out
because the division among the workforce undermines the chances of
winning a strike.
Such considerations have at times led people to propose decision-making
based on larger majorities, such as two-thirds or three-fourths. But the
problem with this is that most of the decisions that organizations make
are not so crucial that large majorities are needed.
Moreover, stipulating a majority larger than 50% plus one means that
decisions can be blocked by minorities. Though the minorities required
to “block” a majority are larger than under consensus, this still
permits minority control. A cohesive minority could exercize undue
influence on a group due to its potential for blocking what the majority
wants. Thus the arguments against consensus also apply to some extent
against a formal requirement of two-thirds or three-fourths majority.
The advantage to “simple majority” as a decision-making method is that
it is the only way to formally preclude minority rule.
There may be circumstances when it would be desireable to have a larger
majority than 50% plus one — as in those cases where the organization is
closely split on important issues. But instead of trying to make a
formal rule for this, I think this should be dealt with by the
membership using good sense in such situations. Not everything that is
desireable for an organization can be created by formal rules.
The conditions required for the healthy and democratic functioning of an
organization go beyond the formal rules. Whether the rights of members
are respected also depends on the climate in the organization. How
people treat each other is an informal factor but it is just as
important as clauses in constitutions.
There is usually some sort of underlying, informal consensus in almost
any organization. To take an obvious example, there needs to be a
consensus that disagreements are not settled by punching someone out.
So, there does need to be a consensus on some things, on certain basic
assumptions that underlie the unity of the organization. The advocates
of “consensus decision-making” are correct in perceiving this, but where
they go wrong is in trying to elevate this into a general principle of
decision-making so that everything requires a consensus. The consensus
system puts day-to-day decisions, on the one hand, and the most
important decisions, fundamental purposes and ways of treating each
other, on the other hand, all on the same level.
However, consensus does often work reasonably well in small groups,
especially where the participants have a common background and shared
assumptions. Some people might maintain that small, independent groups
are all that is needed.
Indeed, some partisans of the small group have argued that “bigness”
inevitably brings bureaucracy in movements and that only small,
independent groups can be genuinely controlled by their members. This
ignores the methods that libertarians have developed for avoiding
top-down control in mass organizations (such as the guidelines I
mentioned earlier), and the examples of libertarian mass unions that
functioned through assemblies, without an entrenched bureaucracy;
organizations like the Industrial Workers of the World back in the ’10s
or the Spanish National Confederation of Labor (CNT) in the ’30s.
If the “bigness means bureaucracy” dogma were true, a libertarian
society would be impossible. To have a society organized along anarchist
lines means that there must be a means by which the whole populace can
participate in making crucial decisions affecting society as a whole.
For this to happen it must be possible to have large organizations,
organizations spanning vast areas, such as the North American continent,
that are able to function in a non-hierarchical way, directly controlled
by their rank and file participants.
If the whole society could be organized to make decisions through direct
democracy and mass participation, as anarchists advocate, then surely it
must be possible for people to build mass organizations that are run
this way today. If not, then how could a libertarian society be brought
into existence? Only a mass movement that is itself organized
non-hierarchically could create a society free of top-down,
bureaucratic, exploitative social relations.
This brings us to the clearest problem with the “small groups” doctrine:
Small groups have no power. The power to change society requires a mass
movement, and the development of solidarity among working people on a
large scale. To unite people from a variety of backgrounds and cultures,
to coalesce the various groups into a real movement, to pool resources,
mass organizations are needed. In the absence of a larger movement,
small groups can be discouraged by their own lack of resources and sense
of isolation.
Unless working people can organize their solidarity into mass
organizations, they will not be able to develop the power to challenge
our very powerful adversaries — the corporations and their government.
Without a mass movement, most people will not develop a sense that they
have the power to change society. Our ideal of social change in the
direction of democratic participation and workers control will appear to
most people as merely a “nice idea, but impractical.” Only the strength
of a mass movement can convince the majority that our vision of a
society run by working people is feasible.
[1] Howard Ryan, Blocking Progress: Consensus Decision Making in the
Anti-Nuclear Movement, 1983, published by the Overthrow Cluster of the
Livermore Action Group. Ryan’s pamphlet makes a number of the same
arguments against consensus that I am making here.
[2] Rudy Perkins, “Breaking with Libertarian Dogma: Lessons from the
Anti-Nuclear Struggle,” Black Rose, Fall 1979, p. 15.
[3] If we were to allow a decision to be made when half vote for a
proposal, then it might happen that half vote for proposal A and half
vote for proposal B. And what if A and B are conflicting proposals?
Requiring one vote more than half guarantees that a single solution is
decided upon.