The Common Good Bank voting system is a combination of many democratic methods, each of which has its own virtues (see "Where Is It Used") and shortcomings (see below). Here are some of those components and their shortcomings, in comparison to the Common Good Bank system:
Simple majority vote (first-past-the-pole plurality) gives voters no opportunity to voice their second choice. As a result, in multiple option votes, people tend to vote for an option that they think might win, rather than their top choice. Majority vote gives no voice to the minority and fails most voting criteria.
Approval voting, without ranked pairs, gives voters no opportunity to express a preference of one choice over another, unless one of those choices is completely unacceptable.
Condorcet voting, without vetoes, gives no voice to the minority's strongly held beliefs.
Hierarchical decision-making (for example, the president decides everything) disempowers and alienates people from the community. The Common Good Bank system empowers people and brings people together.
Representative democracy, without optional direct voting, dumbs us down by choosing one person to think and make decisions for a multitude, despite the desire and ability of many constituents to participate in such decisions. (Many heads are better than one.) When elected by majority vote, the representative cannot plausibly represent the constituents who voted for someone else.
Direct democracy, without optional representatives, leaves out everyone who doesn't vote directly.
In-person voting (such as in New England town meetings), without optional voting from afar, leaves out everyone who doesn't come to vote in person.
Internet-only discussion and voting misses out on the community-building experience of in-person discussions and visits to the voting site.
Budgeting by yes/no votes on line items proposed by committee, leaves very little choice to the voters.
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.
It can be difficult for people to really understand sociocracy because it is not in any way equivalent to "consensus, deep democracy, etc." If you don't understand that sociocracy is a complete system that is designed to restrict power centralization, you can make assumptions that are relevant to current domination-based methods, but not to sociocracy. Deciding to have depositors make decisions "about funding the common good" and not "making decisions about an organization" is perfectly compatible with sociocracy. I fear that your evaluation of "some features of sociocracy" being "unnecessarily cumbersome" is based on not really understanding it. Even people who have practiced sociocracy for years still find themselves thinking in terms of typical domination-based sometimes processes because we are all so conditioned to think that way. Every part of sociocracy was designed through trial and error and serves a purpose. If you leave "some features" out, you leave your group open to domination, even if it's unintentional, by one person or block.
I'm all for using many different techniques and disciplines. Sociocracy is compatible with that. My fear is that if you don't use all of sociocracy, you have problems (and might blame the method). It's like riding a bike and having only one hand on the handlebar. It may work for awhile, but you will not be able to use full capacities and will, at some point, fall down. I have never found any part of sociocracy to be "unnecessarily cumbersome" and wonder where you came up with that.
Perhaps the best benefit of sociocracy is not just a better functioning enterprise, but that fact that sociocracy shows us literally in front of our eyes how power works. It can be a long process. It sometimes takes years for a person practicing sociocracy to realize what
their own power is and to step forward and take it. Personally, now that I see so clearly how power flows, I am loathe to give up power by using consensus as the decision-making method (remember sociocracy is a lot more than just the consent decision-making method).
Sociocracy is not just a "discipline" or tool. It is a whole system that has been designed to do something no other social system in history has ever succeeded at (restrict power centralization) and that is no small feat. In fact, I believe it is key to our survival.
I would love to correspond with whoever is involved with Common Good governance - more for my learning than for more plugging of sociocracy. I would like to find out how you went about learning about different governance concepts and where you found out about sociocracy. teddidread at earthlink dot net
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.
print page
Login 
Register 
Search 
Home
Comment on this Subject 
Quote and Reply 
Print this Comment 
I have never found any part of sociocracy to be "unnecessarily cumbersome" and wonder where you came up with that.
In fact, I believe it is key to our survival. 
Topic RSS 
