Anarchy Works.pdf - Infoshop.org

decisions
Anarchy Works
made the decisions necessary to organize spaces and events, reach
out to the surrounding communities, bring in new participants,
raise money, and resist attempts by local government and business
leaders to shut them down. What's more, it seems like the number
of projects using consensus in the us is only growing. Granted,
consensus works best for people who know one another and have a
common interest in working together, whether they are volunteers
who want to run an infoshop, neighbors who want to resist
gentrification, or members of an affinity group planning attacks
against the system-but it does work.
A common complaint is that consensus meetings take longer, but
are they really less efficient? Authoritarian models of decision-making
(including majority voting in which the minority is forced to conform
to the decision of the majority) hide or externalize their true costs.
Communities that use authoritarian means to make their decisions
cannot exist without police or some other structure to enforce
these decisions. Consensus precludes the need for enforcement and
punishment by making sure that everyone is satisfied beforehand.
When we take into account all the work hours a community loses
maintaining a police force-a huge drain on resources-the hours
spent in consensus meetings seem like a good usage of time after all.
The rebellion in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca offers
another example of popular decision-making. In 2006, people took
over Oaxaca City and much of the state. The population of Oaxaca
is over half indigenous, and the struggles there against colonialism
and capitalism go back five hundred years. In June 2006, seventy
thousand striking teachers gathered in Oaxaca de Juarez, the
capital, to press their demands for a living wage and better facilities
for the students. On June 14, the police attacked the teacher's
encampment, but the teachers fought back, forcing the police out
of the center of the city, taking over government buildings and
evicting politicians, and setting up barricades to keep them out.
Oaxaca City was self-organized and autonomous for five months,
until federal troops were sent in.
After they forced the police out of the capital city, the striking
teachers were joined by students and other workers, and together
they formed the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca
(Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca). The APPO became a
coordinating body for the social movements of Oaxaca, effectively
organizing social life and popular resistance for several months
in the vacuum created by the collapse of state control. It brought
together delegates from unions, non-governmental organizations,
social organizations, and cooperatives across the state, seeking to
make decisions in the spirit of indigenous practices of consensusalthough
most assemblies made decisions with a majority vote.
APPO founders rejected electoral politics and called for people
throughout the state to organize their own assemblies at every
level." Recognizing the role of political parties in co-opting popular
movements, the APPO banned them from participating.
According to one activist who helped to found the APPO:
So the APPO was formed to address the abuses and
create an alternative. It was to be a space for discussion,
reflection, analysis, and action. We recognized that it
shouldn't be just one organization, but rather a blanket
coordinating body for many different groups. That
is, not one ideology would prevail; we would focus on
finding the common ground among diverse social actors.
Students, teachers, anarchists, Marxists, churchgoerseveryone
was invited.
The APPO was born without a formal structure, but
soon developed impressive organizational capacity.
24 Wikipedia, "Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca, [viewed
November 6, 2006]
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