Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1999 01:02:57 -0800 (PST)
From: Jamal Hannah <jah-AT-iww.org>
Subject: The Myth of the Tyranny of the Majority


I am an anarcho-syndicalist from Boston, MA and I think that all this talk
of "tyranny of the majority" that I hear from some anarchists (and it's a
term I have mostly heard from the radical right) has some problems.

For one thing, consensus has some serious faults too.. as many as a
democratic, majority-rule system.  If the people in a group do not know
and trust each other almost intimately, they can waste tremendous amounts
of time arguing over an issue with just a small handful of peopel who
block consensus/  It is very inneficient if you need to get something
done.  I have seen consensus destroy movements such as the Clamshell
Alliance- the anti-nuke movement in thr 70's.  I've also seen it wreak
havoc on a local group, called Bread and Jams (a feed-the-homeless group,
like Food Not Bombs), where people screamed at each other in meetings and
had terrible fights and never accomplished anything.

Consensus has worked well in indiginous people's groups - indian tribes,
where people grow up together... but in modern society people have ego
problems, neurosis, fears, and power-games that make it difficult to come
to agreements.  It would be diasterous if the solution to disagreements
was for a group to just keep splitting and splintering untill there were
hundreds of bickering groups.

I think the solution is to use consensus when majority-rule does not
work, and to use majority-rule when consensus does not work.

 - Jamal H.