Re: Formal Consensus
From: Brian Bartholomew (bbstat.ufl.edu)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:06:07 -0700 (PDT)
I think it is comparing apples to apples to evaluate all the systems
of group decisionmaking being discussed with this question:

        What percentage of all residents have to consent, to impose a
        cost on what percentage of all residents who do not consent?

I tally the results into categories as follows:

     1. The laissez-faire, completely unregulated, free market values
        consent the most.  If you don't consent to buy that car, no
        group of shoppers or owners can override your nonconsent.  One
        person can make a nonconsent stick.  Only one person has
        mentioned that her forming coho group had no voting fallback.

     2. Two (unrelated?) people can make a nonconsent stick.

     3. The percentage to make a block stick depends on the
        circumstances of that meeting.  Some a% of the residents
        attend a meeting, where b% of the attendees agree that a
        nonconsent is "invalid", "unprincipled", "contrary to our
        values", etc.  The consent-overriders may not be a majority of
        residents.  In this situation the nonconsenter must continually
        marshal voting-style support for their position, and get
        enough block-supporters to attend each and every meeting.

        I think this analysis of power mechanics reveals cohousing
        consensus to be indistinguishable from the US Congress.
        Congressmen also claim to be "representing" those people whose
        consent they don't have, using shared values of Mom, apple
        pie, and pork.  If cohousings give nonconsenters more of what
        they want, it is because the participants do that by choice;
        it is not required by most processes I've read about here.

     4. At least one cohousing has CC&R's that say if quorum isn't met
        at a capital expenditure meeting, they can keep calling
        meetings, but with each meeting needing half the quorum of the
        preceeding meeting.

At this point, I'm quite disillusioned about "consensus".

                                                        Brian

Results generated by Tiger Technologies Web hosting using MHonArc.