(I originally wrote this 28 Feb @ 17:45 but left it in the drafts to gather cobwebs til now.)
So you want to politely ask for a small say in the direction of the open source project you’ve dedicated your entire career to?
Maybe you’ve come across some of the following arguments that supposedly mean that democracy is for governments (well, maybe) and “publishing” but definitely not collective projects (or contributors or workers).
Democracy is (Too) Slow
This argument against democracy functions to end debate or discussion with an either/or fallacy.
I’m always shocked how frequently I hear this whenever I suggest a modicum of community-based decision making. It’s also felt emotionally charged every time I’ve come across it; usually coupled with some biting sarcasm.
The problem is, “democracy is slow,” assumes a really specific form of democracy, that of a direct, majority vote. The unspoken expectation is that if one thing is to be voted on, everything must be voted on, and using the same voting process. So, you can just forget about democratic voting at a strategy level, if you’re not prepared to have the minutiae of every tactical and implementation-level decision be made by equal and direct suffrage.
This is a strange one-size-fits-all approach to democracy. Yes, of course if every tactical-level decision was decided by majority, the open source project might as well be run by Twitch chat. But strategic planning shouldn’t be a black box system. A collaborative approach to deciding which projects to prioritize and goal-setting is completely reasonable. Tactical decisions can be left to implementers of a directive. And it’s up to each group how they decide where to draw that line between strategy and tactics.
I’ll share two concrete examples of this flexibility in structure. In one democratic group I’m in, a general body might vote to “create literature around X topic,” citing a bulleted list of what to include, but crafting the specific language would be deferred to a small ad-hoc committee. However in another group I’m in, specific language would be of interest to the full general body, so that would be drafted asynchronously and presented as a resolution (including any amendments) to the general body.
Additionally I’ve contended with the assumption that by “voting,” I specifically mean a synchronous poll. (Not really sure why that’s the first assumption tbh, as even the slow machinery of national governments have asynchronous voting.) Additionally, most people don’t even know there are different types of voting systems beyond majority voting or consensus-based voting.
The People Will Make The Wrong Choice
This argument functions to cast doubt/stoke fears/de-legitimize the will of the masses. It can appear based in reality, but obscures the fact that often individual decision-makers make the wrong choice. Plus it’s honestly a pretty blackpilled opinion that doesn’t see humans as simultaneously living in the world and creating the world they live in (see also: Fanon).
This argument is a bit more understandable when it comes from people who follow the US national political dumpster fire. At least on the outside, it appears as though US voters love to vote for candidates that are actively hurting them. (But of course if you take a deeper look, you’d see that voter suppression and carefully crafted systems has a lot to do with that.) But I digress…
The necessary ingredient for a group of people to come to a sound conclusion together is constructive and open debate. This can’t happen if the culture of the group is not one of mutual respect, because “debates” in an unhealthy culture divulges into personal attacks and weak arguments (like strawman).
Criticism and self-criticism are necessary for decision-making and for building communities of trust. But besides that, this argument against democracy implies that bad decisions are not ever made by individuals, which we can all agree is a silly assumption to make.
As most software engineers, marketers, and SEO or accessibility specialists know, the best way to reduce risk in decision making is to have an iterative approach. So the question of poor decision making really is less about who makes the decision (a group or individual) and more about the approach to correcting poor decisions.
We Can’t Have “Design by Committee”
If I had a nickle for every time I heard this strawman argument… This argument also comes with a bit of emotional charge when I hear it – equating one’s worst committee/meeting experience with democracy as a general concept.
This is an obtuse statement that implies that democratic decision making (ie voting) will be made on an implementation or tactics-level rather than a strategic-level, as clarified above.
Besides, when was the last time you were on an actually democratic “committee?” Most committees I’ve been on (outside my democratic organizations) have the conversations dominated by 1 or 2 voices and asking if we could vote on a decision would’ve raised eyebrows.
So, yeah! Correct, we shouldn’t have “design by committee” if we’re considering how committees typically are typically run in an extremely undemocratic way.
Parting Questions
- Who is most vocal about democracy being ineffective?
- What do they have to lose?
- Is changing our decision-making structures given the same airtime as other topics we discuss?
- When you ask for a change to how decisions are made, who gets defensive?