Sociocracy: Democracy as It Might Be

March 23, 2023 11:37 AM

Peace activist and educator Kees Boeke (previously) wrote Sociocracy: Democracy as It Might Be, a Quaker-inspired view of what democracy could look like.

Sociocracyforall.org gives its more concrete interpretation of sociocratic organization.

posted by a snickering nuthatch (15 comments total)

Thought that said: “a Quake-inspired view of what democracy could look like”. Not sure I want to see what that could look like, but then again, probably still better than the capitalist-hellscape we're currently trapped inside of.
posted by Fizz at 11:56 AM on March 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

But back to the topic on hand.

The fact is that we have taken the present system for granted for so long that many people do not realize that the party system and majority rule are not an essential part of democracy.

This. Our party system has become such a cult-like thing.

Thanks for linking to this, going to dig into this more later this weekend. Great share.
posted by Fizz at 11:58 AM on March 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

This looks really interesting, at first glance (although I'm going to need to read more, and more carefully, to understand things like the difference between the 40-person groups of www.sociocracy.info vs. the 4-8 person circles of www.sociocracyforall.org).

I'm also curious about how this could scale (if at all) to much larger groups (of thousands or millions of people), and what about assholes - or if, perhaps, this is only intended for implementation with smallish groups of people who share a specific goal.

Even if it's not more widely applicable to larger groups, it's still a very interesting practice, and I'm curious to know more about it.

Thank you so much for posting this, Jpfed!
posted by kristi at 12:17 PM on March 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

I grew up going to a Society of Friends meeting, and I sat in on a meeting very much like what's described. All I can say is that, in a Quakerly-democratic meeting where a new paint color was to be decided upon for the meeting house's interior, I sat listening to a group of adults talk for three or four hours before they eventually decided on green, but slightly darker than the current green.
posted by UltraMorgnus at 12:56 PM on March 23, 2023 [9 favorites]

(although I'm going to need to read more, and more carefully, to understand things like the difference between the 40-person groups of www.sociocracy.info vs. the 4-8 person circles of www.sociocracyforall.org)

My impression is that sociocracy was heavily influenced by Quaker practices, as Boeke did become a Quaker early in the 20th century. But different people have reacted to it and made their own spins on it, like Gerard Endenburg's circle model that sociocracyforall.org seems to be based on. (sociocracy.info talks about both Boeke and Endenburg and links to sociocracyforall.org; sociocracyforall.org gives only an exceedingly brief mention of Boeke and does not link to sociocracy.info, as far as I can tell.).

There is even a "sociocracy 3.0" but I didn't include it in the post because I couldn't get a good overview of what it was, how it differed from other ideas of sociocracy, etc. What I did see was hidden behind a login screen.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 1:05 PM on March 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

majority rule [is] not an essential part of democracy

Unfortunately there’s more than enough historical example, and present day threat, to show the feasibility of minority rule.

The Friends are nice, cool people. They’ve got a peaceful Christianity and a decent intellectual tradition. What they don’t have—and actually existing democracies do—is a practice to deal with other groups of people who just fundamentally disagree with you, maybe even hate you, and will never ever come to the table to be convinced, let alone unanimously.

The irony of it is that they’re themselves a dissenting sect! In early modern England and America they found they couldn’t work with the established church so they split. That’s the unspoken essential part of decision systems that demand consensus or unanimity, it’s splitting or kicking people out.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:01 PM on March 23, 2023 [8 favorites]

Fiasco, you could have gone further and said the few examples of Friend heritage in ackshewerl positions of power include Richard Nixon.

I guess few lived examples but appealing principles is empirical example enough to discount it. I was thinking this about Communisim just as the most-recent boom and bust cycle of Capitalism made me poorer.

(Friend, I will now cede the floor and continue my meditation.)
posted by k3ninho at 2:17 PM on March 23, 2023

I grew up going to a Society of Friends meeting, and I sat in on a meeting very much like what's described. All I can say is that, in a Quakerly-democratic meeting where a new paint color was to be decided upon for the meeting house's interior, I sat listening to a group of adults talk for three or four hours before they eventually decided on green, but slightly darker than the current green.

That is way faster than any time I've ever had to decide, all by myself, on paint colors!
posted by eviemath at 4:04 PM on March 23, 2023 [8 favorites]

This reminds me a lot of Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language, or at least the chapters on societal organising. It’s a bit hazy because I’ve not read it in a decade or so.

Also, as a child of Quakers, and an irregular attender, I would point out that quakers are not strictly Christian. Things might be different in the US but British Quakers have a much wider spread of beliefs, don’t usually follow a creed, and will use terms like light rather than referring to a divinity. Your individual experience might vary; I’m aware that the meetings I used to go to were very cerebral.
posted by The River Ivel at 5:33 PM on March 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

As another child of Quakers, I have met people who were wiccan Friends, and also atheist Friends. This was in Canada.
Not having read the original link (I know, bad me) I love the Quaker decision making process, but have concerns about scaling. Also about bad actors, as mentioned above.
posted by PennD at 6:34 PM on March 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

There is even a "sociocracy 3.0"

Hopefully this is nothing at all like Web 3.0.
posted by sheax0r at 6:53 PM on March 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

That’s the unspoken essential part of decision systems that demand consensus or unanimity, it’s splitting or kicking people out.

This is a great point and I'm glad you brought it up. The promise of a consensus- or consent-based model is one where minority concerns aren't just voted over; they are (hopefully) dealt with. But if that doesn't or can't happen, what is a member of a minority to do? At least in a system with voting, there is some hope for a minority member that they may one day be in the majority (or sufficiently aligned with a majority). That sort of hope might help solidify the participation of all voters (compare the longevity of American political parties before and after they adopted primaries in the progressive era).

This is just a half-formed thought, but one could imagine a multi-layer system of decision-making depending on what the level of community cohesion allows. A consensus- or consent- based system might be a first resort, but if it threatens to split the community, it might be possible to temporarily revert to a voting-based system- with the understanding that the need to do this may indicate some deeper rift that might need further attention.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:27 PM on March 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I grew up Catholic and converted to liberal unprogrammed Quakerism several years ago, after we sent our kids to a Friends school and had a pretty great experience, especially in the younger grades. I also live just outside Philadelphia, which was the historical center of the Friends movement in the US.

Seems to me like Boeke's life experience as someone from The Netherlands is an important piece of context for his argument. The Dutch political phenomenon of pillarisation (which predates Boeke's life and was still in effect into his adulthood) is fairly unique and might be formative in reading his work, since it basically forces multiparty coalitions and precludes the possibility of any sustained tyranny of the majority. There's also the fundamental need for collective decision making and action in a country that has such a complex relationship with the sea.

For anybody who wants to go really deep on Quaker decision making, the book Beyond Majority Rule offers some interesting perspectives - and from a Jesuit scholar, no less. There's also some great work out there highlighting the post-WWII experiences of activist groups using Quaker-inspired decision making.

My own experience has been that Quaker decision making has some struggles of its own with intractable arguments from a vocal minority. Also, in the absence of shared creed-level beliefs, which others highlighted above as a common feature of liberal Quaker meetings today, there are some complications related to spiritual discipline that are hard for groups to overcome.

The US Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s was heavily influenced by Quaker decision making via Bayard Rustin and others, but many of the leaders at the center of the movement had a shared Protestant spiritual core that helped their collective discernment processes. Those starting conditions would have also been true in Boeke's time. We are simply way more pluralistic in Western democracies today than we were 50+ years ago. I think on balance that's really good, and more reflective of reality. We just need to stay aware of all the implicit structures that would have supported concepts like sociocracy.
posted by sockshaveholes at 8:58 PM on March 23, 2023 [8 favorites]

i took a sociocracy workshop (with a startup intentional community i'm part of) and it was great. they didn't talk a lot about quaker influence, more about the electrical engineer who designed it for his company and put in a lot of feedback loops based on his engineering experience. it resonated a lot for me and i introduced some of it's principles and practices to my engineering company. in general i was impressed with the method and the workshop. super practical.
posted by danjo at 11:44 AM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

> This is a great point and I'm glad you brought it up. The promise of a consensus- or consent-based model is one where minority concerns aren't just voted over; they are (hopefully) dealt with. But if that doesn't or can't happen, what is a member of a minority to do? At least in a system with voting, there is some hope for a minority member that they may one day be in the majority (or sufficiently aligned with a majority). That sort of hope might help solidify the participation of all voters.

sortition.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:04 PM on March 24, 2023