Comparative analysis of decisionmaking models consensus meritocracy democracy

From: jimruttshow8596

Forrest Landry, a thinker, writer, and philosopher, presents a comparative analysis of three archetypal decision-making models: Consensus, Meritocracy (or Executive), and Democracy. These models are argued to span the total space of human governance and coordination of choices [00:06:22].

Archetypal Governance Models

Consensus

• Definition: A model where all individuals are at the same level, communicating as peers, and coming to a common understanding and uniform agreement on a problem and its solution [00:06:49]. This is a horizontal communication process [00:06:51].
• Strengths: Produces very high-quality choices [00:11:04] and ensures high coherence within the group [00:11:21]. Decisions made by consensus are “very sticky” because they require everyone’s agreement to change [00:38:58]. It’s ideal for defining internal group values and norms, where mutual exclusiveness of values isn’t an issue [00:21:43].
• Weaknesses: Requires very high communicative bandwidth [00:09:20]. If the group becomes too large, there might not be enough time to arrive at any decision, as too many choices might be needed too quickly [00:09:23].

Meritocracy (Executive/Hierarchical)

• Definition: A conventional top-down structure where a single person (or a defined group) is elected or appointed to a leadership or executive role, delegating specific functions. Choices are spread out in a role-specific way based on defined bylaws or delegated authority [00:07:40]. An example is a for-profit corporation with a CEO and a hierarchy [00:08:11].
• Strengths: Can respond very quickly to a large number of choices [00:09:39]. It is relatively simple and robust for emergency situations [00:09:44].
• Weaknesses: Highly vulnerable to corruption, where choices are made for private interests or “first circle concerns” (self, family, friends) rather than the group’s benefit [00:09:50]. This is known as agency risk or the principal-agent problem [00:10:04].

Democracy

• Definition: A model that combines elements of equality within subgroups and hierarchical structures between them [00:07:02]. It involves reification of choices, debate, and a vote to make distributed choices on a smaller, simpler set of options [00:08:48].
• Weaknesses:
  • Hidden Power: Susceptible to covert forms of corruption, particularly in how choices are framed, what appears on a ballot, or the wording of proposals [00:11:02].
  • Divisiveness: Voting is an efficient way to divide a group into two equally sized subgroups, limiting its effectiveness and resilience. This can lead to political polarization [00:11:25].
  • Corrupting Force: The institutional structure of democracy itself can corrupt how ideas are discussed, framed, and how rhetoric is employed [00:12:40].
  • Inability to Address Fundamental Issues: Democracy, as currently implemented, does not fundamentally address the core issues of corruption and bandwidth limitations inherent in meritocracy or consensus alone [00:12:05].

Landry’s Small Group Practice: A Hybrid Model

Landry proposes a hybrid model that uses all three archetypes as checks and balances against one another [00:16:18], addressing the fundamental human propensity for inequality and the need for a group to act wisely [00:16:37]. This model is designed for small groups, ideally 9 to 12 people, and optimally up to about 16 [00:01:54].

The model distinguishes between internal (group-focused) and external (world-focused) processes [00:17:22].

1. Consensus for Internal Processes:

   • Function: Internal communication and decision-making for core group matters like membership, identity, values, and purpose [00:19:25].
   • Process: The group focuses inward, achieving uniform agreement on its fundamental basis of choice. This ensures high coherence and shared understanding of “what we care about” [00:20:20].

2. Meritocracy for External Actions:

   • Function: When the group needs to act in the external world (e.g., farming, governmental relations), it appoints individuals (or teams) with specific skills to take on defined, scope-limited roles [00:23:23].
   • Appointment: The consensus process determines who has the skills, is willing, and available for a particular task, effectively “electing a leader by consensus” for that specific function [00:24:10]. The scope of authority and the person/team appointed are decided by consensus [00:25:40].
   • Purpose: This creates a “single mind” or “single point of contact” for external communication, ensuring coherence and preventing contradictory messages [00:41:16]. Information flow and reporting requirements can be stipulated during the consensus phase to enable oversight [00:44:40].

3. Democracy as a “Red Button”:

   • Function 1: Vote of No Confidence: Democracy is used for one purpose only: to transition the group from a meritocratic process back to consensus if issues like misrepresentation, incompetence, or corruption are perceived by the group [00:27:54]. This acts as a “red button” to fully collapse that specific meritocratic structure, forcing a fresh start by consensus for that role [00:30:35]. The vote requires a true majority (half plus one of the total membership), ensuring the “losers” of the vote are then empowered in the subsequent consensus process [00:33:00].
   • Function 2: Suspend Consensus: Democracy can also temporarily suspend the internal consensus process if the group is unable to function (e.g., “tempers are hot” and convergence is not happening) [00:34:44]. This acts as a relief or escape valve, allowing the group to cool off before returning to internal deliberation [00:37:22].

This layered approach allows the strengths of each model to compensate for the weaknesses of the others, creating a balanced and robust system [00:49:01].

Limitations and Scalability

While effective for small groups (6-16 people), Landry’s thinking on scaling up has evolved. He initially explored “groups of groups” or multi-layered systems, but found them to be “dead ends” for general, long-term solutions [01:28:06].

Landry identifies an “uncanny valley” in group size, specifically between approximately 16 and 200 people (around the Dunbar number) [01:02:08]. This “no man’s land” is where the pressures of evolution and human dynamics, particularly the powerful exponential effects of recombination in evolutionary processes, make traditional scaling unstable [01:00:16]. Existing institutional forms (businesses, schools, governments) operate within this range but exhibit significant “disk capacities” when facing complex, large-scale problems like existential risks [00:58:03].

Challenges of Scaling Up

• Evolutionary Bias: Human biological heritage has a strong propensity for hierarchically organized structures, making true horizontal processes difficult to maintain at scale [00:57:22].
• Bandwidth Limitations: The communication bandwidth required for market-based systems or traditional hierarchical institutions is insufficient to address the complexity of global problems spanning multiple generations and cultures [01:04:54].
• Ossification and Corruption: Over time, any fundamentally hierarchical structure can ossify, becoming non-adaptive, or lead to covert diversion of resources due to corruption [01:31:42].

A New Vision for Large-Scale Governance

Landry argues that addressing civilizational problems requires a fundamentally different approach, a “next viable solution” that doesn’t start working until a group size of at least 200 people [01:02:29]. This approach must go beyond incremental improvements to existing systems (e.g., quadratic voting, new financial instruments like cryptocurrency or NFTs) [01:06:06].

The goal is to create a form of “collective wisdom” or “collective intelligence” that can implement holographic communication [01:07:01]. This requires balancing evolution (change) with sustainability (changelessness) [01:08:12]. It cannot be a representative model due to the principal-agent problem [01:09:47]. Instead, it involves the whole community in choice-making without overloading individuals with information [01:10:03].

This new governance must start with “culture first,” ensuring healthy human dynamics and the group’s conscious awareness of its values, which then informs its vision and strategy [01:11:14]. This meta-systemic approach recognizes the interconnectedness of ecology, culture, infrastructure, and finance [01:16:16].

Ultimately, the challenge is to design governance that fosters “conscious sustainable evolution” and balances humanity’s relationship with technology and nature [01:19:00]. This necessitates a level of wisdom and discernment that is currently beyond human capacity, requiring an “upgrade of imagination” to recognize genuinely novel solutions [01:28:28].