Over the last few years, I have been involved in a developing cohousing community. The concept of cohousing first started in Denmark, but has now made its away across the pond, first popping up in the western U.S., and now a fledgling movement found in most of the country The idea is primarily one of designing for something called “intentional community.” At first glance it appears to be something old (“it takes a village”), but in the modern world, it’s really something fairly new . It is also not a commune nor condominium, but has certain characteristics of both.
Recently our community is going deep into the “weeds of governance” to see what possibilities there are to ensure the entity we design is the community we want and will prosper in the future. The first idea that comes to mind is to employ democratic governance to guide the way. Who could argue with that given U.S. history? Plenty of folks it seems. First there are two kinds of democracy, direct and representative. The U.S. in fact is not a direct democracy, nor is it what many might call a “republic.” Many of the founding fathers seemed to favor “representative democracy.” No matter how you cut it, however, human democracies currently have issues .
There’s an exciting book out, published in 2010, that every beekeeper should read. It’s called Honeybee Democracy, written by Cornell University’s Thomas Seeley. In the prologue, he writes: “We will examine the way that several hundred of a swarm’s oldest bees spring into action as nest-site scouts and begin exploring the countryside for dark crevices. We will see how these house hunters evaluate the potential dwelling places they find, advertise their discoveries to their fellow scouts with lively dances; debate vigorously to choose the best nest site, then rouse the entire swarm to take off; and finally pilot the cloud of airborne bees to its home.”
The experimental details developed by Dr. Seeley along with some of his collaborators are extremely creative. The results from a host of studies make a great case for understanding how honeybees generally make the wisest decisions. This is all the more remarkable given the size of individual bees, which would seem to set certain limits on their brain power via a reduced number of potential neurons.
In Chapter 10, Dr. Seeley discusses “swarm smarts.” He states that although honeybees should not necessarily be followed as “gurus,” several principles of their deliberations might “raise the reliability of decision making by human groups.” He looks at these within the context of New England town meetings, and comes up with the following “lessons”:
1. Compose the Decision-Making Group of Individuals with Shared Interests and Mutual Respect.
Humans rarely share a singularity of purpose like the bees in a swarm, so they are less inclined to be highly cooperative when tackling a problem together. One thing humans can do is remind members at the outset of a meeting that they in fact all have a stake in group’s welfare.
2. Minimize the Leader’s Influence on the Group’s Thinking
One of the most striking features of the swarm bees’ decision-making is that it is perfectly democratic, one where the power is evenly diffused among all the scout bees in a swarm. Thus, the swarm bees choose their home without a leader integrating information from different sources or telling others what to do. Mimicking the bees, a human group leader should act as impartially as possible, minimizing his or her influence on the process.
3. Seek Diverse Solutions to the Problem
The house-hunting process of a honeybee swarm is open to the widest possible array of choices, giving the bees the best start in selecting living quarters. Humans could also do the following just like the the bees do: 1) Ensure the group is sufficiently large for the challenge and consists of people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives; 2) Foster independent exploratory work and create a social environment in which the group’s members feel comfortable about proposing solutions.
4. Aggregate the Group’s Knowledge Through Debate
Most impressive about the bees’ social choices is the ability to distinguish good options from bad. This arises from an ingenious balance between interdependence and independence. In humans this can be fostered by open and fair debate to integrate information, encouraging good communication among the group, and ensuring that group members listen critically, yet form their own opinions and register views independently.
As a trained scientist, Dr. Seeley continually looks for gaps and inconsistencies in his data. He also reflects that honeybees are not humans, and so in his epilogue, is not ready to declare that both species can be fully compared:
“Unfortunately, it is difficult to apply the honeybees’ lessons about good democratic decision making to groups composed of individuals with strongly conflicting interests. In such adversarial groups, individuals will not behave like scout bees: totally honest and reliably hardworking. They are instead expected to issue lies and act lazily when doing so provides them with benefits even if doing so degrades the group’s success. Nevertheless, because many small democratic organizations are composed of people with strongly overlapping interests, I feel the lessons learned from the house hunting bees have considerable relevance to human affairs.”
Looking at cohousing groups in any detail, one thing usually pops out. There’s a lot of energy and thought being put into a system of governance called “sociocracy.” Many human groups have indeed adopted it wholesale with remarkable success.
As one wag put it, why do we need another “…ocracy”? The answer is because sociocracy differs in ways lacking in classical democracy that provide more opportunity for humans to operate as suggested by Dr. Seeley in his four lessons listed above.
The pioneers looking into another “…ocracy” were heavily influenced by the way Quakers made decisions. Those societies were successful because they were the product of groups that worked closely together for long periods, making decisions based on consensus of the group. What is required in many modern governance situations, however, is a method that can be implemented “among strangers.” There are a great many movements in human history where the concept of “full consensus” simply did not work as the organizers envisioned. The “Occupy Wall Street movement is a good example. In conclusion, a new way for humans to make decisions was needed.
The key to developing this comes from the field of cybernetics, the science of effective organization, or “how self-sustaining natural and mechanical systems govern themselves.” And where does much of the wisdom come from in cybernetics? From nature, biology and of course that superorganism, the honeybee. A simpler way to describe this might be that honeybees have a much longer history on planet earth than humans. Tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of years of evolution living together (honeybees) will trump only a few millions of years (humans) in terms of developing effective self-governance.
Study in cybernetics, therefore, has provided more tools to use as part of practicing sociocracy than are currently available in traditional human democracy. These include feedback loops, purpose, and especially aims. The latter are considered paramount with the word “aim” being specifically something that is measurable and can be exchanged or given to others. Without these to organize a system, it will respond randomly, perhaps not at all, and may simply cease to exist. The three principles underlying sociocracy are: 1) a different form of consensus; consent, defined as “no objections”; 2) deliberations in autonomous circles, rather than the usual top-down structure; and 3) employment of double feedback loops or links among the circles as ways to continually evaluate and refine the process.
All of the above brings into focus a final theme that sociocracy exploits, constant change. So-called “dynamic governance,” another term used for sociocracy, provides much needed flexibility as found in all biological organisms, particularly the honeybee. Extensive use of feedback loops provides the ability to shift quickly and smoothly, even while continuing necessary operations.
That brings us back to the central question, is honeybee democracy really sociocracy? Indeed the structure appears to be much closer to the honeybee version of democracy than that practiced by humans. Let’s not forget the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. The fact that this is written by a human cannot be ignored. We have no way to consult with our honeybees. And the reverse is also not possible. All we can do, therefore, is thank Dr. Seeley for his observations, and the honeybees themselves for providing us a potentially better way to make decisions.
The author drew heavily here from We the People: Consenting to a Deeper Democracy, by John Buck and Sharon Villines, 2017, Sociocracy.info, 6827 Fourth St. Washington, DC 20012.
Post Script: As noted elsewhere, one of the powerful techniques in sociocracy is the concept that consent is “not consensus,” but “no objections.” This provides important flexibility. In essence one can disagree vehemently, yet still have no objections and consent can go forward. An example here is the use of the word honeybee in Dr. Seeley’s work. Few entomologists would agree with this spelling, preferring instead the use of two words. Some folks won’t give an inch on this and have put it in writing. I too disagree, but it doesn’t affect me to the point that I refuse to read the book or this causes me to doubt the validity of Dr. Selley’s research. Thus, I consent to his spelling honeybee in one word, laying aside my objections, and even decided to use it throughout this article to maintain continuity. Luckily the editor of American Bee Journal agreed to the choice even though the magazine’s policy is to write it as two words as Apis mellifera are true bees.
Dr. Seeley provides a post script to using honeybee as a single word: “Actually, I use ‘honey bee’ in all my writing about this bee, except this book. The reason that I used the one-word form is simply that it makes the title sound and look balanced. Honeybee rather than honey bee seems appropriate given that both Honeybee and Democracy are generally spoken in single word units that appear to run together.”
Originally brought to you courtesy of American Bee Journal, the beekeeper’s companion since 1861. (September 2018) “Bringing you the latest in practical bee management and bee research.”
