Letter to Amherst Charter Commission requested by Gerry Weiss From Joshua Hornick, Amherst MA Martin Luther King, Jr Day 2017 Dear Commissioners, This is exciting! On January 5, I shared an academic article with the Charter Commission, entitled “From Competition and Collusion to Consent-Based Collaboration: A Case Study of Local Democracy”, from The International Journal of Public Administration. The article is about the implementation by a town in Holland of new participatory governance techniques. I hoped this might inform and inspire the Charter Commission. Three days later, I ran into Meg Gage at a mutual friend’s house where we discussed it a bit. Two days after that, I heard back from Gerry Weiss asking if I could summarize the important points. I told him that I would. Two days later, I heard back from Andrew Churchill who had excerpted a few points from the article that seemed especially useful to him. Thanks to all of you for taking on this important work and for being so responsive to what I hope you find as exciting as I do. To understand this letter, it is important to have a big-picture, socio-psychological-historical perspective. Amherst has the opportunity, I believe, to become the cutting edge for creating a better world. And, I think that we are just smart and gutsy enough to do it. While the details are beyond me, I will summarize the rationale and the contours for a government based on sociocratic principles. I appreciate your giving them consideration. Democracy was a big step up from monarchy and other forms of totalitarian rule. The growth of democracy, starting with the establishment of the United States of America, is the greatest political trend in human history. But, democracy as we practice it still has big problems. The fundamental problem of democracy is that it still creates the autocratic leader, the “King” if you will. In democracy, a majority elects the king. The minority is left, more or less, without power. (Thank goodness for the wisdom of checks and balances. Still. .) As a result of this structure, and this is the second fundamental problem, most of us people put most of our political energy considering “who” we want to elect to be king, rather than on “how” we should be addressing issues. An effective town meeting avoids the problem of an autocratic leader, but it does--with majority rule--consign a large part of the population to minority status, i.e., “powerlessness.” And, Amherst’s town meeting has not been particularly effective. It has not been efficient, and it empowers those who have the time and inclination, which is far from representative. I want to stress that the problems of both representative government and town meeting are structural. People develop a strong “us” versus “them” mentality because the structure of the Letter to Amherst Charter Commission -1- Joshua Hornick January 15, 2017 government demands it. A different structure can focus people on pulling together rather than against one another. In recent times, organizations have utilized structures with the intention of empowering the individual (“power with” rather than “power over”) and making the organization more effective and efficient than common democratic forms. They are guided by what are called “Sociocratic principles” and utilize very particular sociocratic structures. Many of these have met with substantial success. There are not a lot of examples of this in government. If Amherst develops a sociocratic charter, like our (political) ancestors, the early settlers in New England who created America as a beacon, we will be creating something new, building a City on a Hill. I don’t know exactly how Amherst would organize its sociocratic government, but there are several key elements of successful sociocratic “technology” that would guide us. First, sociocracy involves a hierarchy of dual-linked circles. A circle is a group that has between one and 40 members (ideally under 20). There is a top circle. We might want to call our top circle the town council. The top circle makes the highest level decisions. The top circle appoints the “leaders” of the second set of circles. That appointment constitutes half of the “dual”-linking. The other half of the dual-linking is that each of the second-tier circles sends a representative to the top circle. So there are two people, one from the top going down and one from the bottom going up between each circle. It is important to understand that the “representative” does not carry a “vote” from its circle to the top circle. We do not vote in a sociocratic circle. This takes us to the second element of sociocratic technology, consent. To people that don’t know better, consent looks a lot like consensus, but it’s not. It’s difference from consensus has as much to do with attitude as it does with structure, so it is important for people operating in a sociocratic organization learn to foster a different attitude. Remember that we are creating a new structure not only to get more efficient, but significantly to encourage a more inclusive, loving, and cooperative attitude. When a proposal is made in a circle, after it is clarified, the facilitator of the circle asks for consent. Each member of the circle says, “I consent because. .” or “I don’t consent because. .” When someone does not consent, that is good news because it gives the circle an opportunity to avoid problems in the future. Objections are not only welcome but sought out. If policies are made and actions are taken when people still have serious reservations (as is typical in our democracies), the result is at worst a bad decision (not taking into account important information) and at least friction. Bad strategic decisions result when important concerns are not addressed. Even if the result is strategically good, the defeated minority is resentful and the policy is not easily implemented. Sociocratic structures minimize that kind of friction. It makes efficiency and good will a lot easier, and it results in better, more creative decisions. My greatest concern envisioning sociocracy as our governmental system in Amherst is that I can hardly imagine consent not leading to debilitating gridlock and bad feelings at times. The Utrechtse Huevelrug government in the Netherlands, the subject of the article, that has been integrating sociocracy into its municipal government lets the Town Council make the decision whenever a second-tier circle cannot reach consent on an issue. I expect we’d do something like that. Letter to Amherst Charter Commission -2- Joshua Hornick January 15, 2017 A third element of sociocratic technology that makes reaching consent on tough issues easier is that circles are given broad authority regarding their own domain. We might call it effectively delegating decision-making and action. Everyone in the circle knows its authority and its responsibility. The members of the circle all have leadership authority for strategizing as well as for carrying out their mission. A sense of single-focused team (as opposed to warring factions) is fostered by the structure. Sociocratic debate focuses on addressing the issue, not on the majority opinion. The smaller the circle, the easier it usually is to have consensual understanding. That wisdom could inform an Amherst approach which remains basically Town Meeting in format, by making decisions only in small sub-circles of the full meeting. There is a lot more I could say about sociocratic technology. It’s more important that I reiterate that most sociocracy has been successfully applied in businesses, including non-profits and co-ops as well as more traditional businesses, schools, residential care facilities, and intentional communities. We have used it with great success at the Pioneer Valley Cohousing Community on Pulpit Hill Road. The article by Romme, et. al., is the only piece I’ve read about using dynamic governance in an actual town government. I hope that this letter and the article I sent will whet your appetite to further explore options along these lines for Amherst. If I can help by meeting with you or connecting you with other resources, please let me know. I believe that this could dramatically improve our life here in Amherst, but it could be much more than that. We might be leading the way to a much more democratic world. Sincerely, Joshua Hornick 94 Summer Street Amherst, MA 01002 [email protected] 413-549-6182 (h) 413-695-2509 (m) Letter to Amherst Charter Commission -3- Joshua Hornick January 15, 2017 .