Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Work or Pay Systems

[Brian Bartholomew (bb]

Tim Mensch writes:

> At [community] they still use consensus, but they added a very clear
> voting-override procedure. The previous procedure turned out to be
> ill-defined and hard to know how to invoke; the new procedure makes
> things much more straightforward if there's a clear need for the
> community to make a decision and there are objectors.
>
> For urgent decisions, they also have an instant-fallback if they can't 
> reach consensus: At an "Impurgent" meeting (Important AND Urgent), if 
> consensus isn't reached, the decision can fall back on a simple majority 
> vote. Sometimes you just need to make a decision and don't have the 
> luxury of convincing everyone.

I don't see much difference between that process and the one street
gangs use to select from victims who live in the neighborhood.  What
democracy approves is limited only by the personalities of the
majority.  If democratic decisions are wise and caring, it's because
your people are gentle, not because your process can restrain ugliness.

-----

Sharon Villines writes:

> The sociocratic standard is that consent decision-making requires a
> defined group of people who have agreed to make decisions together.
> When the definitions are blurry, in commitment or in bodies, it
> doesn't produce good results.

Consider if the apparent successes of Sociocracy are because those
groups think of themselves as a tribe facing a common problem, and are
actually making decisions using instinctual-emotional bonding that
appears in human groups of that size -- not because Sociocracy
constrains them to good behavior.  Sociocracy may be a great
brainstorming or communication tool for people who are already
policing misbehavior by some other means.
                                                        Brian