Full Description
In The Origins of Collective Decision Making, Andy Blunden identifies three paradigms of collective decision making - Counsel, Majority and Consensus, discovers their origins in traditional, medieval and modern times, and traces their evolution over centuries up to the present. The study reveals that these three paradigms have an ethical foundation, deeply rooted in historical experiences. The narrative takes the reader into the very moments when individual leaders and organisers made the crucial developments in white heat of critical moments in history, such as the English Revolution of the 1640s, the Chartist Movement of the 1840s and the early Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. This history provides a valuable resource for resolving current social movement conflict over decision making.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
Collective Decision Making
Realist Historical Investigation
PART 1. MAJORITY
The British Trade Unions in 1824
Anglo-Saxon England
The Guilds
The Methodist Church
London Corresponding Society
The Chartists
The Communist Secret Societies
The General Workers Unions
The End of Uncritical Majoritarianism
PART 2. CONSENSUS
English Revolution and the Quakers
The Quakers in Twentieth Century Pennsylvania
New England Town Meetings
The Peace and Civil Rights Movements
Myles Horton and the Highlander
The African and Slave Roots of the Black Baptist Churches
Eleanor Garst and Women Strike for Peace
The Quakers and Movement for a New Society
Anarchism and Decision Making
PART 3. THE POST WORLD WAR SETTLEMENT
The Negation of Social Movements
The Negation of Negation ‒ the rise of alliance politics
Alliance politics
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
INDEX
