From: Kathryn Aegis (aegis@igc.apc.org)
Date: Tue Apr 15 1997 - 13:27:28 MDT
Lee Daniel Crocker:
>Minority interests are always protected better by a free market
>than by any consensus-based system.
While I appreciate Lee's fuller explaination his point, this statement
has not been definitively proven and remains a point of questioning
and debate among libertarians and groups that use consensus
processes. The point has been raised in detail on many political
discussions on this list, so I will not attempt to elaborate further.
Regarding consensus, most of my facilitation training has focused on
this type of process, as I worked with nonprofit groups. Consensus
processes were developed for the very purpose of accomodating highly
heterogeneous group meetings, which experience severe slowdowns due
to the wide variety of viewpoints represented. These processes have the
advantage of allowing heterogenous groups to make decisions quickly on
areas of general agreement and concentrate their time on the issues that
need more debate. Concensus also provides an excellent system for
registering lone objections, which can prevent defections or one of
those blowups that can shut down a meeting.
Sin,
Kathryn Aegis
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