First, Consensus
My little dictionary says authoritarian means favoring obedience to authority instead of individual freedom. Actually to most of us, authoritarian means favoring coercion in human relations and that’s what is opposite of individual freedom. The only real authority is one who is “all-good” and Jesus said none are good except God. Indeed, our one authority, God, wants us to have individual freedom, so we’re being obedient to true authority by supporting such freedom. The Bible is called God’s Word and James called the Bible the perfect law of liberty. And Jesus said his followers would not exercise dominion one over another, but would serve each other in loving brotherhood [Mat. 20:25–28, Acts 2:44 etc.].
If we’re not to dominate anyone, or exercise dominion, then we can’t have majority rule, except for 100% majority rule. That’s called unanimous rule, or consensus. Quakers figured that out over 350 years ago. I don’t know when the Jesuits did, maybe even earlier. American juries have used consensus since our founding. Numerous groups and some societies have practiced it, including ancient Israel and apparently the early Christians – also the early Anglo-Saxons and modern Japanese at the local level and probably many Native American tribes, at least in earlier times.
Consensus seems to be gaining wider acceptance in recent years. According to Endenburg and John Buck in an article on Sociocracy [their term for scientific consensus], consensus has been studied by scientists, e.g. Prigogine and Haken, in efforts to understand “self-organizing systems” and their advantages. Some of the advantages the authors list for consensus in all kinds of organizations [not just political ones] are:
- Greater creativity and problem solving throughout a group or organization;
- Win-win-win for investors, management, staff;
- Faster adaptation;
- Higher quality products and services;
- Higher staff commitment to and identification with the organization;
- Fewer, better meetings;
- Less sick leave;
- Better safety record;
- More awareness of costs;
- Improved client orientation;
- Very little burnout;
- Program self-discipline;
- Greater practice of leadership among peers;
- Better organizational continuity when many volunteers are present;
- Better support of fund raising.
Is it any wonder that Jesus advised his followers to return to the practice of consensus, i.e. non-dominion? If one is truly libertarian, i.e. non-authoritarian, how can one condone majority rule? We have condoned it, because consensus is widely unknown or poorly understood. Thus it has some undeserved reputation for being impractical. With the recent scientific improvements, consensus is found to have most of the above benefits for most groups. By having groups divide into smaller groups of 15 or fewer members each, it’s much easier to achieve consensus. By “double-linking” groups together and using efficient meeting formats, consensus is much more effective and rewarding than other kinds of decision-making. Consensus is the ultimate win-win method. Emotionally mature people prefer win-win relationships instead of win-lose [except maybe in entertainment or sport].
Then, Unity – Progressives and Libertarians Unite!
I grew up conservative. I supported the Vietnam War initially, because I thought it was about stopping Godless Communism. When I was in Thailand during that war, I met a fellow Air Force guy who had gone AWOL and had come back to the base opposed to the war. He said the U.S. was in Vietnam unjustly. I didn’t believe him, but I decided to look up Vietnam history in an encyclopedia at the base library, just to make sure he was wrong. Except that the encyclopedia confirmed what he said. Wow!
So I became a liberal [now they’re called progressive] and voted for McGovern in ’72. Shortly thereafter a little zine [edited by Fred Woodworth] called “The Match!” [“for light and heat”], persuaded me against authoritarianism. The philosophy was called anarchism, meaning non-use of coercion. In a Q&A booklet of his on anarchism, one question was: Why not call the movement a more palatable term, like libertarianism? Answer: Libertarians usually favor limited government, but governments never stay limited for long. But I later came to favor the term libertarian anyway, as I became more optimistic that government could be kept limited [by improving on majority rule]. I was politically inactive for many years, but an FDR liberal, Anton Chaitkin, persuaded me by his book, Treason in America, that people need to be politically active for the common good of the people, which is based on Jesus’ gospel of love of neighbors and enemies. I’ve been involved with progressives against war since late 2002, after Bush first started crafting excuses to avenge Saddam.
Having played on both sides of several political fences, my strong sense is that progressives and libertarians share a lot of the same basic anti-authoritarian sentiments. I have a sense that they have great potential for cooperation and would have a lot to gain by doing so.
What to Unite on
Peace/non-authoritarianism/freedom/human-rights would seem to be our best basis for cooperation. I think progressives and libertarians can cooperate most effectively by adopting consensus rule. In fact, logically, consensus should be a defining trait of both groups. Both should support it, because it’s most consistent with and would most effectively support our basic non-authoritarian principles.
Other Issues
Crime – Both groups seem to be greatly opposed to criminalizing anything but murder, extreme abuse and major theft. Both seem to oppose the abusiveness of modern prisons and would favor restitution over imprisonment, except for dangerously compulsive abusers or murderers.
Government Regulation – This covers taxes, infrastructure, property rights, environment, education, social security, abortion etc. Progressives and libertarians tend to be opposed on these issues, but, because both groups tend to be non-authoritarian, it should not be too hard for both to be able to come to agreement on taxes and the things taxes pay for. Both should be able to see that compulsory taxes are coercive, i.e. authoritarian, and that the only just “taxes” are voluntary. When taxes are agreed on in any group, community, or region, by unanimous rule [consensus], libertarians should have no objection to them. This is the kind of “taxes” ancient Israel used under God’s direction. And it’s what Jesus implicitly advised.
Abortion would be somewhat of a sticking point, except that both groups generally favor not criminalizing most human behaviors. I imagine most libertarians would consider it impractical to criminalize abortion, except maybe for doctors who perform partial-birth abortions and maybe very late-term ones.
Both groups would seem to oppose compulsory military service and favor war only for genuine self-defense. Troops who object to war should not be required to participate, even if they previously signed a contract. Both, progressives and libertarians, might agree that long-term war, beyond a few weeks, would have to be proven necessary in a high court of law before funding and declaration could be continued [if it’s declared on an emergency basis in the first place]. Both would likely want an end to covert military operations and experiments.
Progressives seem to be panicking over environmental doomsday hype, but I’d hope that they are somewhat skeptical of much of the supposed threat of global warming [and cooling] since the Pentagon and big oil are behind much of the research. The neocons appear to be coralling the public by this hype into supporting [down the road] further exploiting of other countries and increasing U.S. military strength to supply our “needs” in the face of increasing competition over diminishing resources. Hopefully, both of our groups may come to agree that science [like medicine] needs to be drastically revised to decouple it from government and big business manipulation. [The CO2 greenhouse gas theory seems to be based largely on the unexpected discovery in the 60s of high heat on Venus under its CO2 atmosphere. There is much better evidence that the heat there is caused by its young age, not by its atmosphere trapping sunlight. It’s also known that earth was much warmer a thousand years ago when the Vikings had colonized southern Greenland, which is now frozen over. There was no high CO2 then to make it so warm before the freeze. The heating and cooling of the earth very likely comes from outside the earth, not from CO2 gas in the air. The military seems to have considerable ability to manipulate weather etc. via HAARP, chemtrails etc., but doesn’t seem to be involved much in global warming or cooling as yet].
With so much in common and so much influence to gain from unity, isn’t it time for progressives and libertarians to unite? And if they can unite, what label could they call themselves? Anyway, let’s do it!
November 23, 2005
