The Practice of Direct Democracy
(in “Webs of Power:
Notes from the Global Uprising” by Starhawk)
Starhawk’s essay, “The Practice of Direct Democracy,” displays her vision for a world free of hierarchies of power. Power is organized hierarchically when it is directed up and down like the branches of a tree – each person has power over smaller branches of the tree above, and each person is controlled by the larger branches below. Hierarchies are familiar to us all. Universities, corporations, governments, and militaries all are structured hierarchically. But to Starhawk, hierarchies bring only injustice and harm to the people caught at the tree’s branches: “Hierarchies run on power-over: the entitlement and ability of some groups to control others, extract their labor or resources, and impose sanctions and punishment.” (170, emphasis added)
Starhawk’s preferred alternative is a web-like organization of power. In this structure, some people at the web’s center might have power over everyone else, who themselves can have power over everyone else too. Power is flexible and complex, exerted here and there throughout the web, shifting direction as circumstance demands. With power organized in this web-like fashion, Starhawk envisions a form of direct democracy that represents everyone’s interests better than in a hierarchy. In this system, “Empowering leadership is not based on power-over, on the ability to control or punish others. It draws on a different sort of power that I call ‘power-among.’ . . . It’s based on respect, on people’s assessment that what I’m saying is worth hearing, perhaps because I have more experience or skill or knowledge in a certain area.” (174-5)
In Starhawk’s vision for direct democracy, leadership is empowered by power-among, not power-over. Starhawk knows, however, that the difference between power-over and power-among is subtle. Power-over is forced upon people under its control, while power-among must be desired by those under its control. Power-over is wielded and enforced by punishments or rules; power-among exerts control only for as long as people want to be controlled.
But when decisions need to be made, or when action needs to be taken, sometimes power should be organized hierarchically. When it matters to the group that something is done quickly and correctly, it is often best that some leaders have power-over the others in the group. When a surgeon is operating on her patient, the patient’s life or death can depend on the quick execution of what the surgeon alone thinks should be done. The surgeon – the person who can decide better than anyone else in the operating room what actions should be taken – must exert power-over her assistants, whether they agree with her decisions or not. A professor must hold some power-over his students. Because students often do not want to do the homework or readings they are given, the professor should be able to compel them to do the work or reading whether they like it or not, because doing the work might in the end be good for the students.
Starhawk has observed how in her own earth-based spirituality and Witchcraft community, hierarchies develop naturally to make decisions about how the group would function. Starhawk sees the virtues of hierarchies when some people have knowledge or expertise that others do not have: “There can . . . be a positive benefit to some hierarchies that establish quality control. We can assume that a licensed doctor has a certain body of information, that a licensed mechanic has certain experience and abilities.” (177) But she has watched how easily one’s power-over another can be resented. Eventually, people do not want others to tell them how best to do things; they want to make decisions for themselves.
Starhawk believes that even in situations where hierarchical power structures arise naturally, it is possible to accomplish everything without hierarchies. Even if knowledge and expertise are held by a privileged few, decision-making can still be left for the whole group. Her own organization created a “Spokescouncil” of teachers and organizers representing individual communities, which meets face-to-face or online once a year. The Spokescouncil, however, is not “empowered”, since major decisions must go back to the communities for consensus. (173) She asserts, “Sharing information, sharing skills, supporting the creativity of others, networking, and communicating spread power throughout a group and therefore increase its effectiveness and intelligence. . . . Through the practice of direct democracy, we can develop forms and models that establish a true contrast to hierarchy and domination.” Then she concludes that this new form of organizing power “may eventually become a way to organize society on a large scale so that each person has a voice in the decisions that affect us.” (178)
Allowing the entire group to make collective decisions will work excellently in groups of people who already tend to agree on how things should be done, like the spirituality and Witchcraft group Starhawk has organized. But when members of the group do not tend to agree, collective decision-making becomes arduous and difficult. Starhawk noticed this in her own affinity group meetings: “Originally, we were an open collective: anyone could come to meetings, get involved in the work, and participate in decisions. We shortly realized the pitfalls of this openness when we found ourselves dealing with . . . people who had strong opinions but no interest in the work. Also, with everyone involved in every decision, meetings were long and often tedious.” (172-3) These problems would only be magnified if collective decision-making ran society on a larger scale. More people would tend to disagree, group meetings would take even longer, and reaching compromises between opposing sides might never satisfy anyone involved.
This inefficient collective decision-making process would hurt the group once it becomes important that decisions be made quickly and wisely. Businesses, governments, militaries, and universities cannot succeed if they function inefficiently, slowly, or too erroneously. It is exactly in these kinds of large-scale, society-wide organizations where power must be organized hierarchically. Hierarchies overlook the input and opinions of many, but in return, hierarchies operate efficiently and effectively when their leaders know what should be done. Starhawk’s vision for web-like organizations of power-among is one we should not overlook, because in many situations, this power structure will benefit everyone. Nevertheless, we also should not overlook the cases where hierarchies and power-over are preferable to webs of power and power-among.