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COMMUNITARIANISM LINKS
You need to know about communitarianism, even though it’s got a clunky name, and even though it sounds wishy-washy. That’s just the label, and what lies beneath is the Fabian agenda – this is the wolf in sheep’s clothing creeping nearer.
What’s the time Mr. Wolf?
- It’s nearly midnight!
This website calls you to take note of this theory, for it is becoming the global ideology, ‘worldthink’ – the Borg-like hivemind. It’s not at the grassroot level yet, but it’s being championed by the powers that be, the ultimate hypocrisy. Solidarity, oneness, collaboration is what they’re calling for – all for the global community.
Why would the elite be endorsing this so strongly? To facilitate world trade, of course. To iron out the hiccups, to capitalise on the developing world, just to make it that bit easier. It’s the corporations wanting global trade who have brought us to be bound by all the standards.
It’s clear that the better we get along, as a society, in our ‘communities’, the better control the corporations have of the global supply chain. Getting along means consensus (the quashing of dissent), one of the main principles of communitarianism. This is an ideology, a worldview, a guidebook for life, which is also known as the third way, because it occupies the middle ground. It is neither to the left, or to the right. We are all naturally selfish, but we know that working in partnership with each other will be self-beneficial, therefore it is only right that we should work towards the common good. This latter part is the dangerous bit. It’s becoming woven into company law, on a global scale, that corporations should serve the common good (they should ‘have regard’ to the ‘wider interests’ of all stakeholders). Legislating morals – ones that tell you what you must do/be like - is a very different matter to outlawing stuff that you shouldn’t do. The first is classed as positive rights, the latter as negative rights.
Do you consider that there is truth in the world – that you are born with rights? Or should someone ‘give’ them to you, as if they had the power to decide if you should have them or not?
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A massive amount of writing and quotes coming soon!
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PLEASE REFER TO NIKI RAAPANA – THE ANTI-COMMUNITARIAN LEAGUE
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The following was allegedly written by State Representative Mitchell Kaye from Cobb County, GA.
We, the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid any more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt-ridden, delusional and other liberal, bed-wetters. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that a whole lot of people were confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim that they require a Bill of No Rights.
ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.
ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc., but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.
ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.
ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.
ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, you're just not interested in public health care.
ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.
ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big- screen color TV or a life of leisure.
ARTICLE VIII: You don't have the right to demand that our children risk their lives in foreign wars to soothe your aching conscience. We hate oppressive governments and won't lift a finger to stop you from going to fight if you'd like; however, we do not enjoy parenting the entire world, and do not want to spend so much of our time battling each and every little tyrant with a military uniform and a funny hat.
ARTICLE IX: You don't have the right to a job. All of us sure want all of you to have one, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.
ARTICLE X: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to pursue happiness - which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights in the first place.
Are you born with unalienable rights to life, liberty and property; or are you
Positive rights are realised as laws which tell you what you can do, whereas negative rights manifest as laws which tell you what you can’t do. It’s the difference between telling you what to do all the time, and only intervening when things get bad.
Game theory – prisoner’s dilemma
Social contract
putnam
Added to this, the proliferation of social media has
Communitarianism says that we are products of society. It says that we form norms, which we must use as a standard to guide our behaviour. At first it’s all about being normal, politically correct, conforming. Over time, the urge (in CSR circles) to ‘go above and beyond’ and ‘raise the bar’ picks out the best. Normal is not good enough any more. Research into social networks reveals that people follow the people or movements which they perceive to have the most social capital, and certain ‘nodes’ in the network get stronger: these nodes are the most socially successful – they are ‘better’ than us because their social capital is high. The least successful, ‘weakest’ members of society are excluded: they become the new ‘not normal’. And always the principle of the common good prevails. The process, like the Hegelian dialectic, results in endless ‘refinements’ of the human race, endlessly picking off the weakest. This works in the same way as a competition – some get picked to go through to the next round, the others don’t, then there’s another round, and the best get picked but the others are excluded, and so on. This process will be hastened by the rise of social metrics, especially if social ‘currency’ becomes money, as many are predicting. The most worrying aspect, however, is the trend towards man-to-machine interfaces, which offer ‘augmentation’ of our natural characteristics, as well as what is possible through genetic ‘enhancements’.
The communitarian ethic, of balancing self-interest with the needs of the community (local or global), is being trumpeted by politicians, businessmen, and economists the world over. Wars are being fought in the name of ‘community responsibility’, taking the form of ‘the responsibility to protect’ (R2P). This is taking the moral highground, as though ‘we’ are intrinsically better, and right. And yet, this ethic is not at the grass root level – though a few shoots have appeared with the drive to being ‘social’ represented by entrepreneurism, employee volunteering, and games for social good, such as the World Bank’s ‘Wetopia’. The strong rhetoric being used by those in power amounts to flagrant social engineering.
Most people might think that all this is only ‘talk’ – there’s no change on the ground, and they certainly haven’t made us into corporate communists. In this time of ‘austerity’ we all have to watch our own backs, and don’t have the opportunity to be philanthropic, like the Big Boys. Governments are being urged to implement ‘happiness’ surveys to “distract” us from the pains of austerity. Meanwhile, the rise of social analytics is adding to the value of social capital.
Creating responsible citizens of the future in the 'social investment state'1
Introduction
Responsibility has become the watchword of citizenship in many European welfare states in recent years. The focus of this paper is the construction of the responsible citizen in what has been identified as the newly emergent 'social investment state'. It is an instrumental construction in which citizenship is the servant of the economy and of social order and cohesion and in which policy prioritises children in order to create responsible worker-citizens of the future.
The starting point of the paper is the 'social investment state' itself. It can be understood on a number of levels. First, for a number of third way thinkers and politicians, it figures as a normative ideal in which children and the community stand as emblems of a future prosperous, cohesive and inclusive society. It is animated by the values of responsibility, inclusion and opportunity (RIO), as articulated by New Labour in particular (Lister, 2000a; 2002a). Second, at the same time the 'social investment state' represents a pragmatic response to the perceived economic and social challenges facing mature welfare states in the face of economic globalization and falling birth-rates. Social policy is accorded a central role but it is primarily an instrumental role. Through investment in human and social capital, the state can equip its citizens to respond to global economic change. Investment in young children takes on particular strategic importance. Moreover, in the third way, targeted investment represents a more politically acceptable language than traditional social democratic ‘tax and spend’. It can therefore function as a legitimating discourse.
More generally, the third way’s pragmatism lies in the way in which it draws upon conflicting earlier political traditions. Combining elements of social democracy and neo-liberalism, the emergent 'social investment state' can be described as a hybrid welfare regime. As such, it can be understood at a third level, that of analytical tool. Some political scientists have used the notion of the 'social investment state' as a way of making sense of contemporary developments in liberal welfare states.2
This paper explores all three aspects of the 'social investment state'. It begins with a discussion of both its evolution as a normative ideal and its key elements. This is followed by an examination of the emergence of the 'social investment state' as a hybrid form of welfare regime, most notably in Canada and the UK, and of the pragmatic instrumentalism that informs policy developments in these countries. The paper concludes with a critical analysis of the way in which the child as citizen-worker of the future has emerged as an icon of the 'social investment state' and some of the implications of this for adult citizens, in particular female citizens.
http://www.spsw.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/static/Espanet/espanetconference/papers/ppr.15A.RL.pdf
Why do shared societies make economic sense? Three theoretical approximations by Aldo Caliari.
Aldo Caliari is the director of Center of Concern’s Rethinking Bretton Woods Project
….. Since 2000 Aldo has been staff at the Center of Concern’s Rethinking Bretton Woods Project where he has focused on an array of issues such as global economic governance, debt, international financial architecture, human rights in international economic policy and linkages between trade and finance policy. He has done considerable public speaking for a variety of audiences that range from popular workshops to academia and closed government briefings. His writings have been published in books, academic and specialized journals and the media. He has been a consultant to several intergovernmental organizations – such as UNCTAD, UNDP, UN DESA, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights – in addition to governments, civil society networks and foundations.
Areas of Expertise:
Brannon P. Denning and Glenn Harlan Reynolds, It Takes a Militia: A Communitarian Case for Compulsory Arms Bearing, 5 Wm. & Mary Bill of Rts. J. 185 (1996), http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol5/iss1/5
"We join with those who read the Second Amendment the way it was written, as a Communitarian clause, calling for community militias, not individual gunslingers. "-The Communitarian Platform1
INTRODUCTION
Political discourse in recent years has been dominated by two topics that seemingly have little in common. One is the growth of a "Communitarian" movement among scholars; the other is the growth of a "militia movement" among citizens who, for the most part, are not very scholarly. The two movements would appear to be incompatible, to say the least.
Communitarians speak and write about the responsibility of government to foster virtue and responsibility among its citizens;' militia members speak ominously of the need to resist the encroachment of government. Yet appearances, in this case at least, are deceptive. As this Essay demonstrates, there is something of a nexus between the self-styled citizen-soldiers of the militia movement and the self-styled virtuous citizens of Communitarianism.
Seen as an attractive alternative to the "radical individualism" of our society, Communitarianism appeals to those on the left' as well as the right.' Communitarianism is touted as a viable third way between a societal egocentrism and a more dangerous collectivism. Along with interest in "civic republicanism" among legal academics like Frank Michelman, Cass
Sunstein, and Mary Ann Glendon," Communitarianism promises to mediate between the desires of the individual and the good of the larger community. Communitarians believe that, properly employed, the government not only can influence moral behavior among its citizens but that it has an obligation to do so." In other words, Communitarians believe that not only can government legislate morality, but that in many settings it ought to.'
http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj
A Third Way to a Good Society, by Professor Amitai Etzioni (Director of the Center for Communitarian Policy Studies of the George Washington University, Washington, DC)
"The good society is a partnership of three sectors: government, private sector, and community. Each one reflects and serves a distinct facet of our community. ... While these partners may differ in terms of their respective roles, and these may change with social condition, in a good society the three sectors seek to cooperate with one another." [page 24]
"In order to encourage communities' role in social services, all state agencies should have citizen participation advisory boards. Their talks would be to find ways for citizens to participate as volunteers in delivering some services currently carried by the state. They should also play a role in providing timely, relevant and informed feedback on the performance of service providers."
"Third Way governments do best when they resist the rush to legislate good behavior. When there is a valid need to modify behavior, the state should realize that relying on informal community-based processes is preferable to relying on the law."
The PROCESS: Group dialogue to consensus
"At the core of the Third Way ought to be the recognition that a good society combines respect for individual rights and fulfillment of basic human needs with the expectations that members live up to their responsibilities to themselves, their family and friends, and to the community at large. Responsibilities from all means that a good person, a member of a good society, contributes to the common good. No one is exempt...."17
http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/reinventing-government/third_way.htm
Consensus Democracy: Phases for building a consensus - Shared Vision. "Once an effort is under way to develop capacities in a local community which will lead to a new 'framework for the future' a second component part of the Consensus Democracy system can be evolved. There is a need to understand that citizens will feel ownership of decisions made in their community only when those interested have had an opportunity to help identify key issues and help develop and vote on strategies to resolve the issue. The Consensus Democracy concept of community decision making is built around three phases of citizen involvement:
http://www.crossroad.to/glossary/communitarianism.htm
MacIntyre has often given the impression of a robe-ripping Savonarola. He has lambasted the heirs to the principal western ethical schools: John Locke’s social contract, Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative, Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.” Yet his is not a lone voice in the wilderness. He can claim connections with a trio of 20th-century intellectual heavyweights: the late Elizabeth Anscombe, her surviving husband, Peter Geach, and the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, winner in 2007 of the Templeton prize. What all four have in common is their Catholic faith, enthusiasm for Aristotle’s telos (life goals), and promotion of Thomism, the philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas who married Christianity and Aristotle. Leo XIII (pope from 1878 to 1903), who revived Thomism while condemning communism and unfettered capitalism, is also an influence.
MacIntyre’s key moral and political idea is that to be human is to be an Aristotelian goal-driven, social animal. Being good, according to Aristotle, consists in a creature (whether plant, animal, or human) acting according to its nature—its telos, or purpose. The telos for human beings is to generate a communal life with others; and the good society is composed of many independent, self-reliant groups.
There are strong, albeit derivative, echoes of these ideas in the policies of Phillip Blond, David Cameron’s “Red Tory” guru. In the US, policy wonk Lew Daly pays tribute to MacIntyre and papal social teaching as he advises Barack Obama on how to create a national health service without state domination. MacIntyre differs from all these influences and alliances, from Leo XIII onwards, in his residual respect for Marx’s critique of capitalism.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/alasdair-macintyre-on-money/
"Social Norms: Internalization, Persuasion, and History." Law & Society Review, Vol 34, No. 1 (2000), 157-178
Epstein captures the importance of social norms, in a few well chosen phrases:
Even persons whose own world views are widely divergent often share one common belief about their preferred norms: they all believe the norms should be legally enforced. The set of purely social norms is often regarded as falling in an awkward no-man's land between the world of purely subjective preferences (vanilla against chocolate ice cream) and the law of fully enforceable legal norms. The older term, "imperfect obligation," refers to obligations enforced by conscience and social pressures but not law, and was thought in classical natural law theory to represent the correct way for society to implement norms of benevolence.(7)
Tracey Meares puts it succinctly: "It is time for us to take seriously the notion that social norms are better and more effective constraints on behavior than law could ever be. It is time to give norms a chance."(8)
In short, the study of social norms is of considerable importance for full study of the law.
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…… Cass Sunstein writes "...we can understand a norm--with respect to choice--as a subsidy or a tax."(19) Sunstein elaborates:
Hence the emphasis on social norms should not be seen as an attack on rational choice approaches to social and political problems. From the standpoint of an individual agent, norms provide a part of the background against which costs and benefits are assessed; more specifically, they help identify some of the costs and benefits of action. From the standpoint of the individual agent, this is hardly irrational, and it is hardly inconsistent with self-interest. (Whether certain norms are rational for society as a whole is a different question. Undoubtedly some of them are not.) http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/etzioni/A277.html
http://www.culturemagic.org/PDF/c1Classifications%20of%20Communitarianism.pdf
The famous academic communitarian, Michael Sandel, has endorsed stem cell research: “stem cell research to cure debilitating disease, using unimplanted blastocysts, is a noble exercise of our human ingenuity to promote healing and to play our part in repairing the given world.”[1] Sandel has held a series of public lectures this month for Radio 4, endorsing communitarian public policies regarding university tuition, bankers v nurses pay Epilogue to "The Case Against Perfection" (Harvard University Press) quoted in ‘ The Hubris of Genetic Enhancement’ by Yuval Levin, May 16, 2007.
available at http://www.nysun.com/arts/hubris-of-genetic-enhancement/54604/
PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNITARIANISM
Including an analysis of the text of the Bolivian Communitarian Constitution
The United Nations
The European Union (Acquis Communautaire)
Pre-cautionary principle
Plurality
Unity in diversity
Responsibility to protect
This list is not finished!!!
NORMS:
International Bacclaureate
Healthy eating and lifestyle advice
Corporate norms asserting dominance with ESG codes via the co-opting of public services in the form of ‘the fourth sector’.
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This paper will also closely analyse the policies and practise of Microsoft (in terms of ‘setting the standard’, the depth of detail in the CSR/ESG policies of Microsoft could be said to model what is now required of companies to stay within the law).
It will also look at some of the controversy surrounding Syngenta, whose CSR policies are said to be hugely hypocritical, in the light of its behaviour.
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‘’The left needs a new language to differentiate between good and bad capitalism; a radical, shared conception of fairness – based on equity rather than equality – can underpin an economy of reciprocity, proportionate reward and mutual ownership’’. BY WILL HUTTON
The first thing to understand is that international law is now communitarian. So what does that mean? A better term for communitarian is New Capitalism. Yes, there is a new form of capitalism emerging. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, fear it. The spin is all about ‘caring’ – for the earth, and for humanity.
COMMUNITARIANISM_GMS
Central to the communitarian philosophy is the concept of positive rights, which are rights or guarantees to certain things. These may include state subsidized education, state subsidized housing, a safe and clean environment, universal health care, and even the right to a job with the concomitant obligation of the government or individuals to provide one. To this end, communitarians generally support social security programs, public works programs, and laws limiting such things as pollution.
A common objection is that by providing such rights, communitarians violate the negative rights of the citizens; rights to not have something done for you. For example, taxation to pay for such programs as described above dispossesses individuals of property. Proponents of positive rights, by attributing the protection of negative rights to the society rather than the government, respond that individuals would not have any rights in the absence of societies—a central tenet of communitarianism—and thus have a personal responsibility to give something back to it. Some have viewed this as a negation of natural rights. However, what is or is not a "natural right" is a source of contention in modern politics, as well as historically; for example, whether or not universal health care, private property or protection from polluters can be considered a birthright.
Alternatively, some agree that negative rights may be violated by a government action, but argue that it is justifiable if the positive rights protected outweigh the negative rights lost. In the same vein, supporters of positive rights further argue that negative rights are irrelevant in their absence. Moreover, some communitarians "experience this less as a case of being used for others' ends and more as a way of contributing to the purposes of a community I regard as my own".[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communitarianism#Social_capital
The Europe 2020 Strategy aims to tackle sustainability challenges by transforming the European economy into a smart, sustainable
and inclusive system. Part of the strategy is the flagship initiative for a resource-efficient Europe, which creates a policy framework to promote economic progress while decreasing the use of resources.
The rapidly changing international context does not exclude that states will once more develop a common sustainability framework, which can include divergent perspectives and interests. It is most likely, however, that the coming years will see a shift from traditional government-based regulation and standards to an approach that motivates collective action from all stakeholders.
In this shift away from state-centered arrangements, cooperation will be inter-national, inter-agency, interest- and capacitybased. In this new type of governance, different actors, including governments, relevant international organizations, the private sector and civil society, will act together as drivers of more sustainable consumption and production patterns.
…. International policy makers will need
to look for ways to steer international relations in the direction of cooperation. Shared interest and growing interdependence, however, make cooperation among states likely….
…Businesses and civil society
The nature of global environmental policy has changed significantly due to the growing importance of non-state actors and international arrangements. It is expected that this trend of transnationalized governance with nonstate
actors operating on various levels will continue into the future.
A meta-analysis of foresight studies confirms that sustainability is likely to be implemented from the bottom up by businesses and civil society.This trend is part of the transformation of the entire system as a whole, including the behavior of companies and individuals.
….. new types of governance are
emerging to move the sustainability agenda further. In this new model, the state continues to play an important role, but rather than being the
dominant actor, it plays the role of a partner to businesses and civil society.
In the multi-actor governance model, the private sector, NGOs and consumers are important drivers of the bottom up implementation of
sustainability policies.
http://www.hcss.nl/reports/sustainability-challenges-and-trends/96/
Crime prevention (eg community policing; behaviour modification) and restorative justice
Communitarianism and law and order
Abstract
This paper engages critically with the major variants of contemporary communitarian thought on crime and disorder. It begins with an assessment of the moral authoritarian communitarianism of Etzioni and Dennis. It is then argued that there are different and more radical appropriations of community associated with the work of intellectuals in Europe and Oceania beyond that of moral authoritarianism.
In particular, the development of radical re-imaginings of community and social justice are identified in communitarian work on ( 1 ) local governance and the re-constitution of civil society, (2) basic income and the common good and (3) restorative justice. In conclusion, it is argued that there are progressive as well as the already widely recognized regressive potentialities in contemporary communitarian discourses on law and order.
http://csp.sagepub.com/content/16/49/17.abstract
A Communitarian Approach: A Viewpoint on the Study of the Legal, Ethical and Policy Considerations Raised by DNA Tests and Databases, by Amitai Etzioni Ph.D.
Article first published online: 16 JUN 2006
DOI: 10.1111/j.1748-720X.2006.00028.x
Issue The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics
Volume 34, Issue 2, pages 214–221, Summer 2006
A communitarian approach is applied to DNA testing and databases. It concerns itself both with individual rights and the common good. It finds that DNA testing, although it is highly intrusive, often advances both individual rights (for instance, helps exonerate suspects) and the common good (for example, acts as a deterrent). However given its high level of intrusiveness and the insufficient level of oversight provided by existing checks and balances, the author argues for a national civil review board to provide still more accountability.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-720X.2006.00028.x/abstract
Washington Research Library Consortium – several articles by Etzioni (Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies)
The Intergenerational Contract: Rights and Responsibilities, Amitai Etzioni and Laura Brodbeck (1995)
THE COVENANT: CONTRACTS MUST BE OBSERVED
The Communitarian movement was born in 1990 out of the recognition that too many of our fellow citizens were all too keen to have their rights respected but unwilling to shoulder the personal and social responsibilities that are corollaries of these rights. Young Americans were found to feel strongly about the right to be tried before a jury of their peers if charged with having committed a crime-but when called to serve on a jury, often sought to evade serving.' Most Americans still favor less government and lower taxes but also demand more of every government service to be had. Generally, the language of rights abounds and is indeed beyond reproach, the cornerstone of our free society, but responsibilities are considered onerous if not oppressive. The Communitarian movement argues that rights cannot be sustained without responsibilities because each right lays a claim on some one, and if that person does not honor the claim (that person's responsibilities), there will be no regimes of rights. In short, rights presume responsibilities and the Communitarian movement calls for shoring up the neglected personal and social responsibilities. Many others have picked up this theme-fiom President Clinton and Vice President Gore to Jack Kemp and Lamar Alexander.
We turn today to examine the other side of the same equation: it follows from the same
basic communitarian moral thesis that if people have lived up to their personal and social responsibilities, if they have kept their part of the social covenant, that they are entitled to collect
whatever the society explicitly and implicitly promised them; that is now their right. Thus, if
people did work all their lives, raised their children the best they could, paid taxes, saved, voted regularly, and did volunteer service-the society owes them the assurance that they will not be destitute in old age, abandoned when they are infirm, unprotected from those who prey on the frail and failing.
….
We clearly have a moral obligation not to leave elderly people vulnerable to criminals or fraudulent insurance schemes, homeless and without food, and bereft of compassion and love. Our basic argument is that these commitments ought to be honored, because it is the
ethically appropriate thing to do, because if one violates such commitments the social and
moral order of a society is diminished.
http://aladinrc.wrlc.org/bitstream/handle/1961/264/1995_intergenerational_covenant.pdf?sequence=1
Tikun Olam in a Halachic Framework: A Comparative Analysis of ...
Tikun Olam can be found in over a dozen sections of the Talmud, so in order to ... claimant, and therefore the current owner has a responsibility to protect it. 3.
www.canfeinesharim.org/learning/torah.php?page=11361
Mishpacha: Fixing the World
Tikkun Olam is the Jewish way of saying "the world needs fixing, and it's our job to fix it." In the words of the Talmud: "It is not upon you to finish the work, but you are ... All of humanity are descendants of Adam and Eve; we are all responsible to ... Anonymous giving is valued as it protects the feelings, through protecting the ...
www.mishpacha.org/tzedakah.shtml
Tikkun Olam: Repairing the World - My Jewish Learning
Tikkun Olam in Judaism has come to connote social action, community service, social justice, and often, a liberal social agenda. ... Talmud · Mishnah · Midrash · Halakhah ... There, it refers to social policy legislation providing extra protection to those ... Their emphasis is on acts of social responsibility, not the larger realm of ...
www.myjewishlearning.com/practices/Ethics/Caring_For_Others/Tikkun_Olam_Repairing_the_World_.shtml
Equity in health care and institutional trust:
a communitarian view Gavin Mooney 1
Shane Houston
http://www.scielo.br/pdf/csp/v24n5/24.pdf
This book critically investigates the complex interaction between social media and contemporary democratic politics, and provides a grounded analysis of the emerging importance of Social media in civic engagement. …… Whilst acknowledging the power of social media, the contributors question the claim it is a utopian tool of democracy, and suggests a cautious approach to facilitate more participative democracy is necessary http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415683708/
Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% ByJoseph E. Stiglitz May 2011
Alexis de Tocqueville once described what he saw as a chief part of the peculiar genius of American society—something he called “self-interest properly understood.” The last two words were the key. Everyone possesses self-interest in a narrow sense: I want what’s good for me right now! Self-interest “properly understood” is different. It means appreciating that paying attention to everyone else’s self-interest—in other words, the common welfare—is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being. Tocqueville was not suggesting that there was anything noble or idealistic about this outlook—in fact, he was suggesting the opposite. It was a mark of American pragmatism. Those canny Americans understood a basic fact: looking out for the other guy isn’t just good for the soul—it’s good for business.
http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105
Us Before Me: Ethics and Social Capital for Global Well-Being By Patricia Illingworth
“social capital is also communitarian: of the people and for the people ….. social capital is important for individual happiness and for collective happiness. If we do not promote social capital, we forfeit a significant opportunity to maximise the general happiness” Fitoussi
… the Center for Economic and Social Justice, which claims to attempt to refine Marxist principles through the application of the Kelso-Adler theory of economic justice
http://foundersten.wordpress.com/tag/george-soros/
good overview of communitarianism here:
http://what-when-how.com/sociology/communitarianism/
Communitarian Ethics: An Alternative Perspective
The basic underlying principle of a communitarian ethic is that each individual
should be integrally concerned not only with the pursuit of his or her own personal interests but also with the promotion of the well-being of as many others as possible. There is thus a fundamental difference in this approach from
the completely self-interested stance of mainstream economics, as discussed in
the preceding section. Communitarianism as so defined is, in fact, inherent in
many of the great religious systems and philosophies of the world. Although
space does not permit a detailed discussion, we may adduce some revealing quotations, beginning in the West and working our way progressively Eastward:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The structural edifice of social life [in Islam] is pervaded by very deep and sincere feelings of love, goodness, and brotherhood. The whole social life is a true picture of cooperation and mutual help … The Holy Prophet said: “None of you is a true believer in Islam until and unless he
loves for his fellow men what he loves for himself.”
Love … is identifying yourself with all beings in the world. When we accept that all the world is the One Supreme Self, we must love all beings
literally as ourselves.
To study Buddhism is to study oneself. To study oneself is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to realize oneself as all things [in the world].
The cultivation of the self … requires an unceasing struggle to eliminate selfish and egoistic desires.
…………………………
walzer and sandel and adler and Putnam and sen
The Collective Entrepreneur: Social Enterprise and the Smart State, by
Professor Kevin Morgan and Adam Price (March 2011)
(Kevin Morgan is Professor of Governance and Development at the School of City and Regional Planning at Cardiff University. Adam Price is the former Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr and is currently a Fulbright Scholar at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.)
Foreword by Ian Hargreaves, Professor of Digital Economy,Cardiff University
(Former Member of the Social Investment Task Force):
The authors of this pamphlet argue that in the political journey of two decades from Margaret Thatcher’s “no such thing as society” through New Labour’s Third Sector to David Cameron’s Big Society, something fundamental has changed. Events, from the global banking crisis to the pursuit of a credible response to global warming, have finally destroyed the case for a monoculture of shareholder-owned enterprises.
From this has flowed a revival of interest in mutuality in the financial sector, but also a flowering of many other manifestations of the power of collaboration: open-source software and the “crowd-sourcing” of solutions. Social enterprises are growing in every sector of the economy. New financial instruments are being devised to reward social rather than financial impact.
Robert Putnam has used the concept in a much more positive light: though he was at first careful to argue that social capital was a neutral term, stating “whether or not [the] shared are praiseworthy is, of course, entirely another matter”,[19] his work on American society tends to frame social capital as a producer of "civic engagement" and also a broad societal measure of communal health.[20] He also transforms social capital from a resource possessed by individuals to an attribute of collectives, focusing on norms and trust as producers of social capital to the exclusion of networks.
Mahyar Arefi[21] identifies consensus building as a direct positive indicator of social capital. Consensus implies “shared interest” and agreement among various actors and stakeholders to induce collective action. Collective action is thus an indicator of increased social capital.
…. …. Through the social capital concept researchers have tried to propose a synthesis between the value contained in the communitarian approaches and individualism professed by the 'rational choice theory.' Social capital can only be generated collectively thanks to the presence of communities and social networks, but individuals and groups can use it at the same time. Individuals can exploit social capital of their networks to achieve private objectives and groups can use it to enforce a certain set of norms or behaviors. In this sense, social capital is generated collectively but it can also be used individually, bridging the dichotomized approach 'communitarianism' versus 'individualism' (Ferragina, 2010:75).[41]
The Global Third Way Debate, by Ronald Dworkin (2001)
http://digilib.bc.edu/reserves/sc352/leac/sc35236.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way_(centrism)
Giddens states that ‘the cultivation of social capital is integral to the knowledge economy…Like financial capital, social capital can be expanded – invested and reinvested’ (2000: 78).7
…….. Myles and Quadagno:
if Third Wayism has a soft spot, it is for children. The soft spot comes less from benign spirits than from hard-headed economic considerations about the longer-term implications for economic performance of a large number of children growing up poorly educated or in poor health. Children matter because ‘human capital’ formation matters (2000: 166).
……. Education is reduced to a utilitarian achievement-oriented measurement culture of tests and exams, with little attention paid to the actual educational experience. As the children’s author Philip Pullman has warned, in what amounts to a critique of the social investment state’s construction of children, the Government wants ‘to turn children into bright little units of production and consumption’. That, he responds, is ‘not what education is about; education is about developing the whole. It’s not like investing in a company where you expect a regular dividend…It ought not to be regarded in costs and benefits, price and profit terms’ (quoted in The Observer, 19 October 2003).
http://www.spsw.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/static/Espanet/espanetconference/papers/ppr.15A.RL.pdf
The Just Third Way:
Basic Principles of Economic and Social Justice
Louis Kelso (the philosophical father of the “Just Third Way”) and Mortimer Adler (the Great Books philosopher and Aristotelian scholar who once taught the Philosophy of Law at the University of Chicago Law School) articulated a classical definition of “justice”:
“Justice, in its most general formulation, imposes the following moral duties or precepts upon men who are associated for the purposes of a common life: (1) to act for the common good of all, not each for his own private interest exclusively; (2) to avoid injuring one another; (3) to render to each man what is rightfully his due; and (4) to deal fairly with one another in the exchange of goods and in the distribution of wealth, position, status, rewards and punishments.” [1]
Dr. Robert D. Crane, a global strategist, prolific writer on Islamic jurisprudence and another co-founder of the Center for Economic and Social Justice, has authored a brilliant paper published on the web site of the Global Justice Movement. His paper discusses how the seven fundamental principles of maqasid al shari’ah offer a “paradigm- for a spiritual renaissance in all faiths that can transform the world.” [4] Dr. Crane’s writings are aimed toward mobilizing “a minority of courageous Muslims determined to fill the intellectual gap that has weakened the Muslim umma for more than six hundred years.” These fundamental principles of Islamic law are, in my opinion, consistent with the “Peace through Justice” vision of our center, the founding ideals of America, and the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Many aspects of the Just Third Way will be determined by reforming tax and banking laws that affect the process of democratizing productive credit. How this democratization is brought about – the timing, priorities and procedures – are social issues best discussed in an open and democratic fashion by people aspiring to build a free and just future for themselves.
We have reached a rare moment in history. Having discarded the failed systems of socialism and communism, many nations are now struggling to protect their citizens against the loss of economic sovereignty under the Wall Street capitalist model of economic globalization. Before the pendulum swings back to socialism, all nations of the world have a chance to implement for their citizens a new and bloodless economic revolution. This positive global revolution would be consistent with the unrealized ownership vision and ideals of America’s founding fathers and the ancient principles of justice expressed in Islam, Christianity and Judaism. It could enlist the poor of the world to help win the war against global terrorism.
As they search for a better life, the citizens of developing and transforming economies – as well as those living in the developed countries themselves – need something better than the outmoded and dehumanizing systems of traditional socialism and capitalism. Nations now have the power to create new property for the poor, without taking existing property from the rich. Leaders who believe in Peace through Justice now have in their hands a new model for economic globalization, a true and just third way forward.
http://www.cesj.org/thirdway/paradigmpapers/pressclub-nkmgdb-ppr.htm
…..What happened in Kauai, while conspicuous in scope, is not anomalous. From Colorado Springs to New Orleans local governments have established “BYOM” (“Bring Your Own Mower”) programs where residents are assuming responsibilities previously undertaken by parks department employees. Privatization of services has certainly been one response to over-committed governance, but many fiscally-challenged municipalities are inviting volunteers to keep libraries open, support local police departments with neighborhood watch efforts, and tutor local school kids.
…. While Goldsmith can be dismissed by some as an opportunistic conservative, an increasing number of liberals are reaching the same conclusion. In a startling opinion piece, for the Los Angeles Times, entitled rather bluntly, “We must shrink city government,”
….This retreat towards “core services” has become the major imperative of local governments throughout the country. Public sector offerings like muni golf courses, museums, convention centers and parking built and maintained during the “fat years” of the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s are, of course on their way to auction and privatization, but as the “new normal” makes itself more apparent even the “core services” like public safety, education, and sanitation are being pared back. In Douglas County, Colorado, the City Council recently voted to charge kids $.50 each for their school bus rides. Here in Los Angeles, the Council is voting to turn back the responsibility for sidewalk repairs to residents – a move that could cost some tens of thousands of dollars.
What does this all mean for communitarians?
First, it signals that the oft-decried “crowding out” by local, state, and federal governments of community-building local tasks – from educating our kids to public works projects – is receding…maybe forever. Even raising revenues will not overcome the coming fiscal tsunami of pension and benefit burdens accruing due to the retirement of Baby Boomers. In San Francisco, for example, over half of the city’s workforce is due to retire in the next five years. Like never before, city and state governments are making decisions between current services and pension obligations. While some libertarians ruefully celebrate the deracinating of the Leviathan, only communitarians can develop the common sense civil society solutions to supplement services that the public legitimately wants, and, in many cases, needs.
Related, municipal governments are increasingly seeking public participation in service provision. This is a new leadership skill for our local and state government leaders accustomed to have all the answers and service solutions. Born in the Progressive Era, this mentality is slowly, but surely changing.
…. In some significant ways we are returning to the comparison depicted famously by Tocqueville over 170 years ago: “Everywhere that, at the head of a new undertaking, you see the government in France and a great lord in England, count on it that you will perceive an association in the United States.” These sharp differences have waned since Tocqueville penned them, but the need to re-awaken the distinctly American trait of self-governance has never been greater. Will communitarians be ready? http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2010/06/the-new-normal-a-communitarian-moment/?wpmp_switcher=desktop
This vital support provided by the U.S. military assets and troops serve in no small measure to put back on track the U.S.-Japan alliance that has recently suffered from Japanese political turmoil.
Instead of turning inward, we need to collaborate closely with the international community. A global communitarian spirit has been demonstrated by the emergency relief teams dispatched from 20 countries/territories and the teams from the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination, IAEA and WF. http://munkschool.utoronto.ca/articles/view/35
From its very inception the use of stealth and deception was laid down as a fundamental procedure of the Fabian Society. The Society adopted the name “Fabian” as a symbol of a plan “formulated to penetrate civic and social units and to find means to disseminate contemporary social ideas, concentrating on concrete objectives rather than on doctrines.” The Fabians did not constitute themselves as a political party as such but developed the technique of “socialistic ‘permeation’ of existing political institutions.”
The prominent figures began rolling in: H.G. Wells, Annie Besant, Graham Wallas, Emmeline Pankhurst, Virginia Woolf, Edith Nesbit, Sydney Olivier, etc…And, at the center of it all were Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, and George Bernard Shaw–the essays and studies these three produced have been un-matched by subsequent Fabians regarding the “gist” of the group and its aims.
Shaw contrasted the difference between his group and “other” radical groups by alluding to the appearance of respectability. From one of his essays: “The Fabian Society got rid of its Anarchists and Borrovians, and presented Socialism in the form of a series of parliamentary measures, thus making it possible for an ordinary respectable citizen to succumb to a religious lawlessness, exactly as he might profess himself a Conservative and belong to an ordinary constitutional club.” http://www.thenationalpatriot.com/?p=2510
there is so much more to come in this section - the whole website is a rough version of what is to come, and contributions are most welcome
[1] Epilogue to "The Case Against Perfection" (Harvard University Press) quoted in ‘ The Hubris of Genetic Enhancement’ by Yuval Levin, May 16, 2007.
available at http://www.nysun.com/arts/hubris-of-genetic-enhancement/54604/