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Chapter 12
Consensus Democracy

In simple majority-rule democracy, if over 50% of the members of a voting body voted “yes” on a given question, for example, Should the nuclear power plant be built?, then they would win the vote on the issue and those who voted “no” would lose. This “winner-take-all” style of democracy in which the simple majority wins the vote on an issue and the minority vote loses is not what would be practiced in the demos.

The demos would practice a new kind of democracy called consensus democracy in which there are no winners or losers. The votes of every member of the demos electorate would continuously “ride” and exert their influence on every issue in the demos. Every vote would always count. Under consensus democracy, it may be the case concerning a given issue that there is a majority view and a minority view. The majority view would have a proportionally greater but not a total influence on the current consensus on the issue, and the minority view would have a proportionally lesser influence. The consensus would always hang within a dynamic and just balance of all views, avoiding all extremes.

The word consensus is defined as 1) collective judgment or belief; solidarity of opinion, and 2) general agreement or concord; harmony. The usage of the word consensus in the context of the demos would be of this spirit but of a mathematical nature allowing calculations to be performed. Most social issues, particularly those of a “yes”-“no” nature, do not lend themselves to consensus democracy and are left to other areas of government and society. Fortunately, our nation’s most important political-economic issues do work well.

Although the members of the demos electorate would never need to make any mathematical calculations, each demos issue would be framed and treated in such a way that its current demos consensus is expressed as a simple numeric, percentage, or monetary value, or as a simple line on a chart. As members changed their votes over time, the current demos consensus on each issue, expressed as a numeric value or a line on a chart, would slowly change, sometimes increasing and sometimes decreasing.

An example issue will serve well here. This issue, which will be discussed in more detail later, would really be included within the demos: As a nation how much should we tax ourselves to finance the federal government?

Let us say that as a result of the current consensus of the demos we currently tax ourselves on average 22% of all private sector income and revenue to support the federal government. (This does not mean that every taxpayer would pay at this 22% tax rate, but that all of the taxes of private individuals, businesses, and corporations paying taxes at varying tax rates taken as a whole would average out to be 22% of all private sector income and revenue.)

Now imagine yourself to be a member of the demos sitting in front of a voting terminal screen. Although the issue, how much to tax ourselves as a nation, is very important to our society, the screen before you is very simple. The screen displays the information: By the taxes that we set upon ourselves, we currently pay on average 22% of all private sector income and revenue to support the federal government. Do you want this 22% tax rate to be increased, kept at the current amount, or decreased?

You mouse-click a button indicating your choice. Let us say that for a long time your choice has been “Keep at the current amount” which is currently highlighted on the screen. But you’ve changed your mind. You press the “Decrease” button which now becomes the highlighted choice. Whatever your choice, it is nearly instantly, electronically added into the rest of the electorate’s current votes. Notice that you didn’t have to write any numbers or do any math. All you did is press the “Decrease” button.

Meanwhile, a few other voters in the nation are also currently changing their votes on this issue. Under the hood the demos’ computers are calculating and recalculating at a furious pace. At the completion of every cycle of the calculations, likely every few seconds, the current result is by definition the current consensus of the demos. We’ll say that there has been a slight shift in the consensus toward “Decrease.” In response to this downward shift in the consensus concerning the national tax rate, the government will have less of our money in its coffer, and by constitutional law the legislative and executive branches will have to tighten the government’s belt a little bit.

The demos would contain about a dozen or so of our most fundamental social issues on which the demos electorate would maintain an ever-current, slowly-changing consensus which would serve as our “social contract” and set some parameters within which government and our nation must function. In this manner, the demos would practice its new kind of democracy, consensus democracy, and that democracy would project its limited sphere of power and will into our government of balanced powers and into our society.

In a previous chapter, the central importance of political power was discussed. Within that discussion, it was pointed out that one of the tactics used by the few to overpower the many is “divide and conquer,” playing on the already existing fears, hatreds, and divisions of the many to keep it divided and weak. In a larger sense it is not just the many which is divided but our whole society, the struggle between the rich and poor being just one more division to add to the several others that have been discussed. With its strong interest in gaining and preserving its wealth and power, the few manages to overcome its divisions well enough and long enough to achieve its goals. The many only rarely rises up to this level of coordination and cooperation.

Within the demos all of us, rich and poor alike, are brought together in one cooperative body that produces a sufficient center to overcome our division and the many forces that pull us apart. The demos enables us to peacefully achieve a national consensus on our most fundamental issues.

Along with all else that they did, the founders created The Great Seal of the United States, which is the official symbol of the United States. On the seal’s face is an American bald eagle. On the eagle’s breast is a shield with thirteen vertical white and red stripes beneath a blue field, which represents the thirteen states joined in one solid compact supporting a chief which unites the whole. In the eagle’s beak is a scroll inscribed with the words, “E Pluribus Unum” which means “Out of many, one.”

That we may one day achieve at last true democracy, justice, freedom, and happiness, the entire American electorate as individuals must be brought directly together as a political whole. The demos is that whole. Out of many, one.

Such a united body could be a politically dangerous entity if it had unlimited power. However, in that this body would only have the power to deliberate and vote in a specified manner on a dozen or so specific, unchanging issues within a highly structured process, the danger would not exist that the demos could overstep its limited power and meddle in other political or public affairs.

One thing that would allow the members of the electorate to function well together as a whole within the demos is that they would not face each other directly and personally as members of differing classes, races, genders, etc. but more abstractly and universally, each as a member of the same electorate. As issues were democratically deliberated, ideas and the ability to peacefully persuade would reign supreme over individual personalities.

Near the beginning of this current chapter, it was stated that, unlike majority-rule democracy in which there are winners and losers, consensus democracy would have no winners and losers. Instead, consensus democracy would result in the consensus of the electorate on the demos issues. But in a very real sense, in consensus democracy everyone would be a winner in that consensus democracy would result in a more stable society and maximize justice, freedom, and happiness.

In his book “Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny” Robert Wright discusses a concept involving a nonzero-sum game or relationship verses a zero-sum game or relationship. An example of a nonzero-sum relationship would be between two players on the same team playing a tennis doubles match. As teammates, their relationship is not as winner and loser. By both of them cooperating and working hard together they may both be winners of the match. A zero-sum relationship exists between two players playing a tennis singles match. They are competitive opponents. One player wins the match while the other player loses.

Majority-rule democracy is a zero-sum game which produces winners and losers. Consensus democracy would be a nonzero-sum game in which everyone, participating cooperatively as members of the demos electorate, would win the game.

Some among the founders believed there to be in essence only three basic forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Modern thinkers suppose there to be more forms than that. But settling for the founders’ universe of political forms, they created a new republican form constituted of a supposed mixture of these three. However, in that their government is populated by an elite class which never represents the entire electorate, what the founders created was really just another plutocracy, something the world has already seen all too often.

To the previously existing universe of governments we now add another: Consensus government, a government possessing a branch or body constituted of the entire electorate participating in consensus democracy as described in this work. Consensus government is not a pure democracy and not a pure republic but a justly balanced merger of the two. Consensus government is the means by which the human race may move beyond dominance by the few and beyond plutocracy.

Given that the demos proposed in this work would take every advantage of our electronic, computerized, networked age, one might question the negative tone taken toward the founders, their constitution, and their government. Isn’t it unfair to expect them to have created a consensus democracy given their horse and sailing ship modes of communication and transportation?

One can readily see that if no one in their time (or, for that matter, anyone else at any other time in history) had ever envisioned or conceived of a consensus-style democracy, then they can hardly be held blameworthy for not having created one. However, majority-rule democracy had been known for a very long while. The founders could have created and implemented some limited form of true democracy within the government that they created involving majority-rule, direct voting of the entire populace on specific issues had they elected to do so. But, of course, they did not. As for the electronic speed of a demos functioning in our times, a cycle of calculations being completed every few seconds, that would have been impossible during the time of the founders. But a demos-like body could have functioned very well, cycling at the speed of horses and ships. It is with conscious intent that the few within nations have always excluded the many from possessing any real power and from participating meaningfully in government.

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Chapter 12 Consensus Democracy

Chapter 12
Consensus Democracy