An issue comes up. The member depositors or Division Advisors in a community propose an issue for discussion and decision. Typical issues will include:
choosing the next Division Advisors
how to disburse the bank's profits to advance the common good
what will be the bank's lending priorities in the coming year
in what town will the next new branch be established
Discussion. Members meet to discuss the issue and generate options. Internet discussions may be used as well as in-person discussions (but not instead of them).
More discussion. If the issue requires more discussion, additional discussion sessions are held.
Question formulated. The Division Advisors formulate a written question and written options to be voted on, along with a brief explanation of each option. (See also "How Budget Options Are Chosen".)
Vote scheduled. The Division Advisors schedule and announce a period for voting. Typically voting will begin on a Monday and continue for seven days.
Voting. Members vote online or at the bank. Whether voting directly or by proxy, the member can change his or her vote anytime before the voting closes. For budget-type issues, such as how to disburse the profits or setting lending priorities, members use a penny vote. All other issues are multiple choice.
Results. The results are automatically announced online. Partial results are NOT disclosed while the voting is open, because that can lead to dishonest "strategic" votes and "follow-the-leader" votes -- both of which detract from the wisdom of the crowd.
Objections. If any winning option was "vetoed" by 5% or more of the voters, the Division Advisors invite those voters to voice their objections, and may schedule additional discussions and possibly a revote. (Members are encouraged to use their veto to express moral or ethical objections to a particular option.) Meanwhile, the winning option stands.
Even the concept of running the bank democratically was questioned: “If Joe has enough friends to vote funding for Joe’s business which will eventually fail, what good does for the community” or “Democracy is good as an oversight mechanism but operationally… how would be the army to operate democratically?”
The democratic process maybe can be changed from an active involvement, which is also very time consuming, to a passive way. I am thinking to ask members to allocate their money over a given set of areas of lending as they join. They can change the allocation as they want but at their own convenience thus avoiding a periodic voting process that can be very counter productive. The actual lending decisions will be left for lending professionals, trained to the bank rules.
We do not plan to make business (operational) decisions democratically. Depositors will set lending priorities, but will not decide on individual loans.
Depositors always have the choice whether or not to be actively involved in decisions that are in their domain. Taking away that choice would decrease democracy with no benefit to the depositors. It is important that SOMEONE think again about the lending priorities from time to time, because the situation in the community is always changing. The depositors should be allowed a voice in those discussions and decisions.
Post edited 8:21 pm - February 22, 2010 by wspademan
Ted Millich said:You need to find out about Dynamic Governance, or Sociocracy.
Sociocracy is a great way to govern an organization and we expect to incorporate principles of sociocracy in running the bank business. Depositors, on the other hand, will not be making decisions about an organization but rather about funding the common good; so some features of sociocracy would be unnecessarily cumbersome. Still, we expect that communities will use, in their in-person discussions, many principles of sociocracy and other disciplines such as varieties of Consensus, Deep Democracy, etc.
Philip Beard said:It's unclear how the multiple-choice preference example given (A+ABCDFNo) relates to the Condorcet paired-preference method. Aren't you conflating the two here?
Multiple choice grading is a way of expressing preferences. Condorcet is a way of analyzing data and calculating results.There is no conflict between them.
If someone grades option #1 "A" and option #2 "C", for example, it is clear that the person prefers option #1 to option #2. Similarly, if the person grades two options the same, then we can infer that the person has no preference between the two options. This is all the information that is required for Condorcet calculation.
Grading gives more information with less effort, than having to compare each pair of options individually.
It's unclear how the multiple-choice preference example given (A+ABCDFNo) relates to the Condorcet paired-preference method. Aren't you conflating the two here?
You need to find out about Dynamic Governance, or Sociocracy. It is a governance method that has been designed over many years using trial and error, and knowledge of technical disciplines like cybernetics, chaos theory, electronics, etc. The most amazing thing about this method is it keeps people equivalent in power. It works well and you can find out more about it at http://www.beyonddemocracythefilm.com
Please reply to me if you're from Common Good Finance.
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