[Consensus] fwd: Occupy the US: Musings on Horizontal Decision-Making and Bureaucracy

Dennis Fox denfox at gmail.com
Fri Mar 2 15:33:49 EST 2012


Interesting article by Marianne Maeckelbergh, a Dutch anthropologist/activist, relevant to many aspects of our ongoing discussions:

http://stirtoaction.com/?p=1069


The first two paragraphs:

The year 2011 has breathed new life into horizontal models of democratic decision-making. With the rise of the take-the square movement and the occupy movement horizontal decision-making became one of the key political structures for organising responses to the current global economic crisis. While this decision-making process has arguably never been as widely practiced as it is today, it has also never seemed as difficult and complicated as it does today. At its height there were 5,000 people at the general assemblies in Placa Catalunya in Barcelona and even more in Madrid. It is no longer just activists trying to use and teach each other these decision-making processes but it is hundreds or thousands of people who have a far greater disparity in terms of backgrounds, starting assumptions, aims and discursive styles. This is incredibly good news, but it is not easy.
 
The current historical juncture requires reflection on these decision-making methods and here I explore a few of the important lessons that seem to stand out after participating in these processes in Barcelona, New York and Oakland. First, more awareness of the political values that underlie these seemingly practical meeting procedures referred to as “process” would be helpful. Second, the link between these political values and the social relations of economics could use some analysis: in order to create new political structures we actually have to let go of certain economic relations which we take as given. For example, horizontal decision-making does not work when we assume a) that resources are scarce, b) that we therefore need to compete with each other and c) ownership is an exclusionary relation – a proprietary relation. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the more we try to set the rules in stone, to find the ‘golden key’, the ideal set of procedures, the more we disengage from the central political questions of how we decide – a terrain of politics that has to remain open if it is to remain horizontal. In order for a ‘general assembly’ to be productive, effective and empowering to participants, the procedures have to maintain a certain degree of flexibility as the circumstances in which we find ourselves shift. Let me explain what I mean…


Dennis

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