[every]

There are no vetoes in a consensus system. One or more members may have a "concern". Until those concerns are successfully addressed there can be no consensus. And only with consensus can anything be advanced to policy or law. The Society of Friends makes use of this form of governance:

https://www.afsc.org/testimonies/decision-making

[int_19h]

That is exactly how a veto works. In other words, a consensus-based decision make system is a special case of a decision making system with a veto, in which everyone has equal right to veto.

[rasz]

Those are just feel good sounding semantics, reminds me of NATO, or UN.

[every]

If you are a close-knit religious community that has been practicing this form of governance for centuries, then no, it's not just semantics...

[jdeibele]

The Friends are more popularly known as Quakers. My wife is one. We were married almost 20 years ago in a Quaker ceremony.

There's a lot to like about their approach to things but consensus is difficult to deal with. Unreasonable people cause great stress on people who are trying to get simple things done.

There are different flavors of Quakers: my wife attends an "unprogrammed meeting" which means that there's not a minister. Instead, members sit in a circle (pre-COVID) and those who are moved to speak do so. But there's also programmed meetings, which have a minister. There's probably more variations.

Around the time the US was founded the Quakers were seen as good people to do business with, since they strove for honesty and transparency in business. There were many prosperous Quaker merchants. These days they seem to be more anti-capitalist.