You’re right that cooperatives above a certain size can’t be direct democracies. I do think we need to be able to cooperate at scale in a democratic way, like representative democracy - otherwise how do countries work? (Not very well some might argue) but if we don’t develop an alternative to the googles and amazons of the world then we’ll never outcompete the current system.
I’m sure there are certain issues where direct democracy would be appropriate, regardless how big the cooperative is. But technological reasons aren’t the issue. A manager is delegated authority to make decisions because it’s inefficient to involve members in every single matter.
There are also a lot of things where not everyone in a society needs to vote on something. Do men need to have a vote on the type of tampon that is stocked in the bathroom? Do the other departments need to weigh in on the butcher’s scheduled hours?
It really does have a limit where once you go more than a couple layers decisions get made by people who are not involved or invested in whatever is being decided.
perhaps it should be treated like a priority list: direct democracy for every single thing won’t work, but perhaps if there’s a monthly vote on the top 10 issues people have (as prioritised by the members of the coop somehow: maybe you get 5 votes to spend however you like in the issues list?) and the rest is delegated
You’re right that cooperatives above a certain size can’t be direct democracies. I do think we need to be able to cooperate at scale in a democratic way, like representative democracy - otherwise how do countries work? (Not very well some might argue) but if we don’t develop an alternative to the googles and amazons of the world then we’ll never outcompete the current system.
Direct democracy is possible at scale with technology.
I’m sure there are certain issues where direct democracy would be appropriate, regardless how big the cooperative is. But technological reasons aren’t the issue. A manager is delegated authority to make decisions because it’s inefficient to involve members in every single matter.
The problem is one of scope. I think we’ve historically delegated more than we should because we couldn’t do direct voting well.
For example, I feel that people should have an active say into which categories their tax money goes.
For managers, they don’t need to be given the same control they have now
There are also a lot of things where not everyone in a society needs to vote on something. Do men need to have a vote on the type of tampon that is stocked in the bathroom? Do the other departments need to weigh in on the butcher’s scheduled hours?
It really does have a limit where once you go more than a couple layers decisions get made by people who are not involved or invested in whatever is being decided.
perhaps it should be treated like a priority list: direct democracy for every single thing won’t work, but perhaps if there’s a monthly vote on the top 10 issues people have (as prioritised by the members of the coop somehow: maybe you get 5 votes to spend however you like in the issues list?) and the rest is delegated