Word: consensus
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Consensus Democracy...
...could remain truly democratic. In a large country, one big faction might blot out the rights of a slightly smaller faction by means of a simple majority. The New Leftists, accordingly, believe that the United States has grown too large to rely on the simple majority alone and that consensus politics must return if justice is to be maintained...
...theory, an SDS education supplies the common viewpoint which makes such a consensus possible, but the theory clearly breaks down in practice. At a two day regional meeting of SDS last December, the large assembly failed to take a position on a proposal to carry the war protest to groups off campus. The program did take place during the spring semester, but not in the organized fashion the leaders had envisioned...
...problem is that consensus arises only when the issue is personal and emotional. The injustice of the Southern racial system or napalm bombs falling on South Vietnamese villages invokes immediate indignation, while the many important questions of urban renewal, for instance, call for more cautious politics. The consensus theory thus imposes a limit on the number of concerns upon which a New Left group can focus. The young Democrats (YD's), by contrast, were able to discuss such issues as foreign aid and birth control as well as the standard SDS topics of Civil Rights and Vietnam during the current...
...then, real power resides not with the people, but with interest groups far outside the increasingly angry and nationalistic consensus. The largest landowners and old-family capitalists still hold the balance of domestic economic power. The American exporters and AID maintain overall control of the economy, and of any government seeking to avoid utter poverty and bankruptcy. Finally, the reactionary and fabulously oversized military presents any elected government with a virtually unmovable obstacle to genuine social change...