I think that distance is covered by approaching these issues in an entirely different manner, which you could call “from the bottom up”, that is to say that people in any locality or interest group define their own situation and organise their sharing accordingly. This stands in strong contrast to approaches that attempt to derive some sort of universal scientific method with which human beings can be understood within a one-size-fits-all method.

The anti-capitalist movements and the workers’ assemblies are models for this. It doesn’t actually matter that much how “human nature” can be understood in theory and abstraction, what matters is how well and harmoniously an actual, real, living community can organise on their own terms, in their own locality (or geographically disperse interest group) without centralising power – or rather, view a conscious view to the way in which power tends to centralise in decision making processes. Any science – if anyone likes to indulge in that sort of brain candy, ought to be based on ethnographic observations of such practices. Theory without involvement, just won’t cut the mustard.

Maeckelberg (2009) writes about the contemporary anti-capitalist movements’ processes of decision making. Weaving narratives of resistance and reflections on social organisation derived from ethnographic participation in social movements she writes that a “… 1960s activist would be surprised by the procedural paraphernalia that accompanies democratic decision making [in movements] today. There are formal roles in the process . . . and sophisticated hand signals. . . . models for egalitarian forms and deliberative styles are simply available to activists today in a way that they were not for 1960s activists …” (Poletta in Maeckelberg 2009: 19). “But, of course, these models and structures are not “simply available”. Today’s decision-making practices and the increased connectivity of global networks have been actively built by activists and are being continuously and intentionally developed” (Meackelberg 2009: 19).

Specifically about the Dissent! network, centrally instrumental in the organisation toward the G8 meeting in Scotland, 2005, she writes:

“The most important aspect to highlight about decision-making in the Dissent! network, is that decisions are taken at meetings. As such, the kind of decision most valued is the collective decision. Sometimes these are small working group meetings, sometimes local or regional meetings, and sometimes national and international Dissent! gatherings. Within the Dissent! network there is a direct relationship between the importance of a decision and the number of people needed to make a decision. For any decisions affecting the entire network in a fundamental way, as many people as possible need to be involved from as many different subgroups and strands of the network” (Maeckelberg 2009: 152).

She also notes that “the movement enacts the construction of a cumulative process in which
diverse ideas are merged into single, if complex, proposals as one of the mechanisms through which decision-making is transformed away from adversarial debate between competing ideas towards constructive cooperation, even when those proposing the ideas perceive themselves to be at odds” (Maeckelberg 2009: 153).

These are just beginnings and just reflections and analyses of one movement of the global movement of movements, but this approach is a social and human approach that will capture much more of the ambiguities that surround human intentions, will and collective processes than any scientific and universalistic approach ever can (because such approaches are inherently reductionist and somewhat anti-social).