Makhno writes:
Fetishizing Process
Mark Lance
If one were forced to explain consensus process in five minutes, one might begin with a
brief pitch about the kind of discussion that should precede the group taking a decision.
Such a pitch would be fairly vague, and would deal with such things as listening, including
all points of view, critical discussion and argument, and creativity in the formulation of
possible compromises and syntheses. But one would quickly switch from the topic of
discussion to the specific procedure that is used to take a formal decision. Here the
account is not at all vague, as precise as any sort of voting procedure. One would explain
how a position is proposed, how people have the choice of supporting, standing aside, or
blocking, how a position can only be adopted by the group if no one blocks, etc. (It is
likely, and relevant, that the majority of people who have been part of decision making
under the banner of "consensus process" have little more than such a five minute
understanding of what is involved.)
If one had much more than five minutes to explain consensus process, one would say little
more about the formal procedure for taking decisions. This part really can be defined in a
few minutes. One would, however, go into far more detail on the complex, less precise, more
deeply contextual business that precedes actually taking a decision. That is, one would
focus on the process of discussion, option formulation, argument, etc.
In what follows, let us call the complex process of discussion — a process about which much
can be said, but the proper functioning of which is unlikely to be definable via a set of
precise rules — "practice". The set of formal rules that define a method of taking a
decision will be referred to as "procedure". This distinction, in itself, is nothing
surprising or new, but I want to argue that it is of great import to the debate between
majority voting and consensus. Such debates are central to anarchist theory as they concern
the form and content of democratic inclusion. Indeed, if anything is essential to
anarchism, it is the idea that social decisions are to be taken by everyone affected, and
that this inclusion must involve substantive participation of each in deliberation and
decsion-making. Thus a dispute on the nature of such participation is a dispute about the
very essence of anarchism.
