A-Infos (en) Russia, Avtonom: Stop using hierarchy and start living - DIANA - Movements... (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Today we want to start a conversation about alternatives. Anarchists 
tend to criticize, but often sentences are replaced by ellipses or 
awkward 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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