Current Reading

One of the books left with me after the party last month was called "Power, Chaos and Consensus", and was written by a New Plymouth acquaintance, Ted Wells. Ted is a planner, and we have been running across each other at meetings and social events over many years.

Ted's big idea is that the world would be better if we were to improve the way our democracy works by insisting that all decision-making bodies used consensus as the decision-making process. Consensus is the system used for juries: everyone has to accept the conclusion, not necessarily to vote for it but at least to abstain.

I have also long felt that such a stipulation would produce more government decisions which everyone could buy into, and in particular that minorities would not feel they were being overruled every time a decision is made. This would produce greater harmony in all societies. Ted wants this to go all the way to the UN.

His book is very detailed. It lists all the major types of decisions that should fall into this category: economic, environmental, family, and so on. He provides suggested actions for each which would take us the first step along the way, and be the basis for ongoing discussion and consensus.

For anyone who is interested in politics, economics, the environment, ethical issues, and so on, it is worth having a look at.

My support for consensus decision-making comes from my experience as a member of the regional ethics committee a decade ago. The regulations for these committees included a provision for consensus decision-making; I felt it was one provision to help prevent a recurrence of the disaster at National Women's Hospital which has been dubbed "the Unfortunate Experiment" and which was the subject of the Cartwright Inquiry. It was one of three or four provisions which made the new Zealand ethical review system a level more robust than some others.

Anyway, find a copy of the book and see what you think!