wspademan said:

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

http://www.directrep.org is a site about Direct Representation.

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.

Have a great day!