The Evolution Of Communitarian Ideas: History, Theory And Practice 3030265579, 9783030265571, 9783030265588

Table of contents :
Contents......Page 5
Lineage, Meaning and Significance......Page 6
Underlying Outlook and Key Elements......Page 12
Mutual Responsibility......Page 15
Cooperative Enquiry......Page 16
Citizen Participation......Page 17
Germinal Debates About Communities......Page 18
The Evolution of an Ethos......Page 26
References......Page 29
Rethinking Communities......Page 34
The Renaissance and Proto-Communitarian Trends......Page 40
The Quest for Mutual Responsibility from More to Winstanley and Penn......Page 45
The Quest for Cooperative Enquiry from Bacon to Wilkins and the Royal Society......Page 50
The Quest for Citizen Participation from the Levellers to Harrington and Sidney......Page 56
Hobbessian, Lockean, or Communitarian......Page 62
References......Page 63
The Transformation of Communities......Page 66
Empathic Communities: Shaftesbury and Hutcheson......Page 67
Critical Communities: Hume and Diderot......Page 73
Democratic Communities: Thomas Paine......Page 79
Enlightenment Through Learning: Condorcet, Wollstonecraft, and Jefferson......Page 86
References......Page 93
Robert Owen, Cooperation and Communitarianism......Page 95
Neither Gemeinschaft nor Gesellschaft......Page 102
Reforming Communities: The French Solidarity Advocates......Page 108
Reforming Communities: The British New Liberals......Page 113
Reforming Communities: The American Progressive Pragmatists......Page 117
References......Page 124
5 Critiques of Depersonalisation: 1920s–1980s......Page 129
The Threat of Depersonalisation......Page 131
Contesting the Depersonalising Market......Page 138
Critiques of the Atomistic Self......Page 149
References......Page 156
6 Communitarianism Articulated: 1989–2001......Page 159
Democratic Communitarian Responses to Market Forces......Page 163
Liberal Communitarian Responses to Moral Clashes......Page 172
Communitarianism: Towards a Progressive Synthesis......Page 182
References......Page 187
7 Tackling Community Disempowerment Post-2001......Page 191
Disempowerment and the Counter-Communitarian Stratagem......Page 193
Empowering Communities (1): Deliberative Participation......Page 200
Empowering Communities (2): Empathic Connection......Page 206
The Renewal of Community Cooperation......Page 213
References......Page 221
Tomorrow’s Personhood......Page 228
Tomorrow’s Economy......Page 232
Tomorrow’s Governance......Page 241
Tomorrow’s Education......Page 249
Conclusion......Page 256
References......Page 258
Index......Page 263

Citation preview

The Evolution of Communitarian Ideas History, Theory and Practice

Henry Tam

The Evolution of Communitarian Ideas

Henry Tam

The Evolution of Communitarian Ideas History, Theory and Practice

Henry Tam University of Cambridge Cambridge, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-26557-1 ISBN 978-3-030-26558-8  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26558-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: Venomxlr/Alamy Stock Vector This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 The Roots of Communitarian Ideas 1 2 The Emergence of Communitarian Challenges: 1400s–1600s 29 3 Towards Enlightened Communities: The Eighteenth Century 61 4 Beyond Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft: Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Century 91 5 Critiques of Depersonalisation: 1920s–1980s 125 6 Communitarianism Articulated: 1989–2001 155 7 Tackling Community Disempowerment Post-2001 187 8 Tomorrow’s Communities 225 Index 261 v

1 The Roots of Communitarian Ideas

Lineage, Meaning and Significance Communitarian ideas offer a distinct approach to dealing with the perennial challenges that arise from human interactions. Rather than characterising them as some third or fourth option alongside prevailing modes of thinking, we may understand their meaning and significance better by recognising them as the on-going adaptation and application of what is arguably the ‘first way’ in ethics—the way of reciprocal cooperation. The Golden Rule of treating others as one would have others treat one was not only implicit in the mutually supportive behavioural traits of early human communities (Bowles and Gintis 2011), it was also explicitly accepted as the core moral injunction in every ancient civilisation from Egypt and Persia to India and China (Kainz 1988, pp. 46–48; Neusner and Chilton 2008). A corollary of this ethos is that people are expected, not to refer exclusively to one’s own inclinations or defer routinely to others’ demands, but to explore with others on a mutually respectful basis how they should behave towards one another. However, as relatively simple community structures gave way to more complex forms of social organisation, the gap between the recommended norm and actual practices began to widen. © The Author(s) 2019 H. Tam, The Evolution of Communitarian Ideas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26558-8_1

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The divergence was accelerated when tribes and clans were increasingly merged into larger political entities. Some individuals were able to secure much more power than the rest in the name of organising for better production or protection. Amongst them would be those who, driven by selfish impulse or delusion of infallibility, declared that they were so ‘superior’ that it was unobjectionable for them to treat others in ways they would never expect or allow others to treat them in return. And because of the greater power they had acquired or inherited (to deceive, bribe, intimidate, harm), they could impose asymmetric treatment on those around them. In time, supporters and critics of the powerful would argue about what rulers should or should not do, by invoking notions such as the proper character of leaders, hallowed traditions, universal duties, the will of God, the glory of one’s nation, the size of the economy, the rights of individuals, or the sum of human happiness. These notions, whatever their merits might be under different interpretations, shifted the ensuing debates away from what was once the primary focus on cooperative human relations. Instead of looking to work out with others what would be appropriate under varied circumstances, people were directed to look at themselves—their own power, rights, desires, religious faith, economic interests, inherited loyalty—to establish what should be done. But the ethos of reciprocity was not entirely forgotten. In this book, we will examine how thinkers with communitarian ideas continued through the ages to contribute to theories and practices relating to the development of cooperative community life. Together, they have reminded us of the value of interdependence, and provided us with evolving guidance on how we should live as mutually supportive members of overlapping communities. Before we proceed with our detailed exposition, we should dispel a number of misconceptions of the term ‘communitarian’, which has only entered our political lexicon relatively recently. A key distinction should be drawn at the outset between casual usage and serious attribution based on historical understanding. The former comprises generic, rhetorical, and pre-conceived deployment of the term. Some people use ‘communitarian’ in a generic way to describe just about anything connected with the notion of community. For example, a book about communities is cited as a communitarian publication, a talk about the activities going on in a

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local community is described as a communitarian speech. Such usage is broad and may be considered unobjectionable so long as no one takes it as a pointer to what constitutes communitarian ideas. The rhetorical use is mostly found amongst commentators who associate the term ‘communitarian’ with their own personal vision of a good society, and are inclined to ascribe it to any public figure they wish to claim as backing that vision. Despite their contrasting approaches and policies, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barrack Obama have all been described in the US as ‘communitarians’ (Milbank 2001; Marshall 2012; Ferenstein 2013). In the UK, commentators in the media have applied the ‘communitarian’ label to politicians with vastly different agendas such as Labour leader, Tony Blair1 ; Conservative leader, Theresa May; and Green leader, Caroline Lucas (Gove 2017; Williams 2017). As for preconceived usage, this happens when writers associate any invocation of ‘community’ with certain socio-political features they have strong reservations about. Consequently, they express their opposition to ‘communitarian’ ideas because they assume such thinking must be, for example, naïvely idealising a form of community life that never actually existed and never will (Phillips 1993); inherently incapable of challenging communal prejudices and oppression (Frazer 1999); or crudely seeking to bring all aspects of community under the control of some big government (Frohnen 1995). By contrast, any serious attribution of ‘communitarian’ would fully take into account its affinity with what can be called the conceptual DNA to be found in the core formulations of ‘communitarian/communitarianism’. There are broadly five sets of such formulations that are found in the history of the concept, which are distinct from any generic, rhetorical, or pre-conceived usage. The first set of formulations appeared around the middle of the nineteenth century. They related to the ideas and practices of Robert Owen and people who wanted to apply these to the development of cooperative arrangements to facilitate better social and economic relations (Owen

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an analysis of the divergence between rhetorical references to Tony Blair as a communitarian, and actual policy attempts to advance communitarian objectives, see Hale (2006).

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1991). ‘Communitarian’ emerged as a common term for describing Owenite efforts to set up new forms of enterprise, work communities, and associations of workers, and it became widely used by subsequent historians to refer to their development (Bestor 1950; Harrison 1969; Claeys 1989). While a common aspiration was to realise the age-old potential for collaboration and solidarity, the strategies that were tried out pointed, not to a return to some idealised past, but to new rules and structures to deal with the prevailing reality. Not all the experimental models worked, but one notable success was the cooperative group that came to be known as the Rochdale Pioneers (Holyoake 2017). Formed in 1844, this group of worker-owners pooled their resources to buy goods needed by local people and sell them at a reasonable price with any profit to be shared amongst members of the group. Customers and workers alike could become members and everyone had an equal vote in determining how the group was run. This approach proved highly effective in terms of its social impact and economic sustainability, and most importantly, was generally replicable not just in the grocery business in England, but in all sectors across the world. The communitarian ethos of the Rochdale Pioneers became a key influence over the development of the cooperative movement, and led to the founding of the International Co-operative Alliance in 1895. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, around 1 billion people in 96 countries belonged to a cooperative.2 The second set of formulations of ‘communitarian’ came via the commentary on the writings of Alasdair MacIntyre (1981, 1988), Michael Sandel (1982), Michael Walzer (1983, 1987), and Charles Taylor (1985, 1989), all of whom had penned critiques with a common target—the ideas of John Rawls. Despite significant differences in their epistemological and political views, these four philosophers came to be considered as sharing a ‘communitarian’ stance in opposing a form of liberalism that is premised on what they deemed a deeply flawed conception of the self (Avineri and de-Shalit 1992; Mulhall and Swift 1992; Frazer and Lacey 1993; Bell 2 According

to a 2012 report by the Worldwatch Institute (Jha and LaSalle 2012). There were other influences on the proliferation of cooperatives. For example, F. W. Raiffeisen and Franz H. Schultz-Delitsch formed credit unions in Germany in 1862, and inspired the growth of financial co-operatives across the world. Charles Fourier raised interest in associative forms of working in France, though his approaches were to have less impact in the long term (Riasanovsky 1970).

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1993). The culprit in question is the notion of an atomised individual, with no ties to anyone else, no preferences based on practical concerns or prior obligations, supposedly capable of calculating in the abstract what should or should not be done from one’s point of view. Furthermore, it is not the deliberative interactions between these individuals which are expected to play a role in determining the rules and principles that will govern their behaviour, but the assumption that these will be defined by the identical conclusions each individual will in isolation arrive at. It could be argued that Rawls was only making a hypothetical case to indicate how people, unencumbered by ‘incidental’ factors, would converge on a very similar set of moral guidelines. But the communitarian objections dismiss this as misconceived on two levels. First of all, a person conceptually stripped of all relational connections with others is not the ‘real’ person with the utmost clarity of thought, but an isolated entity with no sense of belonging, obligations, or concerns, without which there can be no meaningful moral reflections. Secondly, even the narrowest ‘rational’ calculation of what one would rather have in a hypothetical world could not be assumed to lead to the same conclusion for everyone, unless a universal disposition towards the same degree of risk-taking and desiresatisfaction is built into the assumption. Otherwise, while some people might routinely stick with low stakes and tolerable odds, others would much prefer to gamble on getting lots or nothing. Significantly, all four of these philosophers’ aversion towards the atomistic self is reflected in their objections to economic individualism and the consequent rise in inequality in society.3 The third set of formulations came from a number of writers who drew on the cooperative ideals of solidarity and reciprocity in putting forward theories of communitarianism. David Miller’s Market, State and Community (1989) argues for a communitarian form of market socialism that can avoid the pitfalls of top-down socialism and laissez faire capitalism. 3 Despite the widespread use of the term ‘communitarian’ amongst academics to refer to Taylor, Walzer, Sandel, and MacIntyre, none of them was inclined to adopt that label which, as we have seen, could be casually and mistakenly used in some quarters to denote negative conservative views in support of oppressive community structures, or presented as fundamentally at odds with all forms of liberalism. Other writers, however, were more determined to affirm the progressive roots of communitarian ideas and defend its correct usage.

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Jonathan Boswell’s Community and the Economy (1990) puts forward his theory of ‘democratic communitarianism’, which explains why neither an over-reliance on the market nor the state can solve the problems facing society, and how mutually supportive human relations sustained by multiple communities at different levels should be cultivated through cooperative institutional practices and public policies. Robert Bellah had argued for similar views in The Good Society (Bellah et al. 1991), and he endorsed Boswell’s ideas in his article, ‘Community Properly Understood: a defense of “democratic” communitarianism’ (1996). Like Boswell and Bellah, Charles Derber was explicit about the need to dissociate communitarian ideas from casual usage of the concept of ‘community’ that might be linked to any idealisation of reactionary communities or complicity with prevailing power relations. He believed that combining the Scandinavian model of state-citizen cooperation and the inclusive approaches of cooperative enterprises exemplified by the Mondragon Corporation and others, could hold the key to the development of what he called ‘left communitarianism’ (Derber 1994, 1995). The fourth set of formulations were put forward by a group of public intellectuals who wanted to use the ‘communitarian’ banner to champion a different approach to public policy development. Amitai Etzioni (1998), Etzioni et al. (2004), and William Galston (1991) were the main driving force behind the initiative, with Philip Selznick (1992, 2002) and Thomas Spragens (1990, 2009) amongst the key contributors to its scholarly exposition. The group launched its Responsive Communitarian Platform4 to set out its main concerns with the lack of balance between meeting demands for individual rights and promoting responsibility for the common good, and went on to issue policy recommendations on strengthening family support, improving schools in value education, engaging communities in crime reduction, focusing government intervention on where it is most needed, and a wide range of other subjects.5 Although one feature of their approach is to point out the frequent and unhelpful polarisation of partisan assumptions about what 4The text of the Responsive Communitarian Platform can be found at: https:// communitariannetwork.org/platform. 5 For an account of the group’s promotion of communitarian policy ideas, see Etzioni (2003).

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should be done—higher or lower public spending, more or less use of legal restraints domestically, or more or less military intervention abroad—their underlying approach is far from finding a midway position between conservative/neo-liberal and liberal/progressive proposals, let alone repackaging conservatism. Rather they want to bolster liberal politics by empowering communities through moral dialogues, civic education, and policies that pursue public goals as defined by an informed public.6 The fifth set of ideas emerged in the synthesis of philosophical and policy considerations developed by Henry Tam in his book, Communitarianism (1998), which integrated theories and practices from a wide range of countries and sectors.7 These offered a comprehensive critique of both unrestrained market forces and arbitrary state actions, argued for inclusive community development as opposed to the revival of old dysfunctional community relations, and explained the need for more deliberative and participatory engagement to be advanced in government institutions, business organisations, and voluntary groups.8 Taken together, these five sets of formulation of communitarian ideas provide us with a conceptual DNA profile that can help us trace their development through history, understand their significance in challenging prevailing assumptions, and recognise what they offer in reshaping the theory and practice of community improvement.

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made his stance clear in Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues, and Diversity in the Liberal State (1991). Spragens adopted the term ‘communitarian liberalism’ (1995), as did Selznick (2002). Etzioni’s book, Happiness Is the Wrong Metric (2018) carried a similar nomenclature in its subtitle, ‘a liberal communitarian response to populism’. 7 In addition to European and American ideas, the book drew from Chinese philosophical thought, but notably from the egalitarian Mohist texts, and not from authoritarian interpretations of Confucianism. 8Tam drew attention to the symbiotic potential that was to be found between communitarian ideas and the cooperative movement (1995). He collaborated with Bellah, Derber, Selznick, and others to produce the book, Progressive Politics in the Global Age (Tam 2001), and he and Boswell issued a joint statement to set out an alternative political agenda to that of the post-2010 Conservative-led government (Boswell and Tam 2013).

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Underlying Outlook and Key Elements As we have seen, the term ‘communitarian’ arose in formal academic exposition through five related routes. They share a common antipathy towards the egoistic form of individualism that manifests itself as much in selfcentred authoritarians who believe they alone can dismiss expectations of reciprocity in how they treat others, as in rule-rejecting proponents of laissez faire who insist their freedom to act should not be constrained irrespective of the consequences for others. The communitarian responses to such manifestations have included advancing new forms of cooperative workplace and neighbourhood communities; arguing for new solidaritybased models of social, political and economic institutions; challenging atomistic conceptions of the self which are deleterious to a sound understanding of moral relationships; and devising policy options that strike a better balance between individual needs and the common good. Underlying all these responses is an outlook that values reciprocity as a guiding principle for human interactions in overlapping communities. Oppression and exploitation are deemed particularly objectionable because they involve mistreating others in ways that one would consider utterly unacceptable coming from the other direction. No single individual, or group of individuals, should in the name of a government, a business, a voluntary organisation, or simply as one who proclaims one’s freedom to act as absolute, be allowed to embark on asymmetric behaviour that takes no account of its impact on others in society. Instead, relationships should be nurtured and protected through education, community development, and policy support to ensure that everyone can attain a good quality of life without denying it to others. Communitarian ideas hold that interdependence is, not a weakness, but a strength. It enables us to cooperate in working out better solutions to problems than we could otherwise not manage on our own. The level of cooperation will in practice vary, and should be in line with subsidiarity so that it can be carried out at the smallest, most local level possible, but moved when necessary to wider collaboration at a city-wide, national or transnational level depending on the scale required to address the issues at hand. There is no assumption that the state should be bigger or smaller, the market must be more or less regulated, or voluntary association of

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individuals must all have desirable or questionable goals. Only experience and reasoned examination can help us discern what ought to be altered or retained. Accordingly, changes in policies and practices need to be guided by the informed participation of everyone potentially affected by the changes, on the basis of mutual respect. This means that none should be allowed to intimidate, coerce, deceive, manipulate others into agreeing to terms they themselves would not accept. These elements of communitarian thinking are widely reflected in the observations by leading scholars across diverse fields. Dismissing groundless reactionary interpretations, Amy Gutmann remarked, ‘communitarianism has the potential for helping us discover a politics that combines community with a commitment to basic liberal values’ (1985, p. 320). In her article, ‘A communitarian approach to local governance’, Elinor Ostrom noted that ‘appropriate institutional arrangements for cooperative housing and neighborhood governance are necessary to facilitate co-productive efforts for monitoring and exercising control over public spaces’ (1993, p. 232). In their study of parental attitudes and educational provisions, Diane Reay and colleagues (Reay et al. 2008) looked at parents ‘who draw on a strongly communitarian discourse characterised by a commitment to social justice and opposition to the marketisation of education’ (p. 241); and pointed to ‘the democratic and communitarian possibilities of comprehensive schooling, where children of different class and ethnic cultures actually mix and become friends’ (p. 251). In relation to the third sector, Sue Kenny and her co-authors (Kenny et al. 2015) stated that ‘the communitarian idea that a cohesive and productive society is based on cooperative endeavour is particularly important for understanding associational claims concerning the role of the third sector. For its advocates, organising a society around communitarian principles offers a way of overcoming the erosion of social solidarity in modern societies and the anomie engendered by neoliberalism’ (p. 43). We can sum up the key elements of communitarian thinking under three headings9 : 9 In

my earlier book on communitarianism (Tam 1998), I put ‘cooperative enquiry’ as the first key element, but more recently, further study of a range of issues has led me to conclude that ‘mutual responsibility’ is primary, since it is the appreciation of the need for mutual responsibility that will make cooperative enquiry essential in finding objectively acceptable answers.

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• Mutual responsibility • Cooperative enquiry • Citizen participation.

Mutual Responsibility Reciprocity enjoins us to treat others as we would have them treat us. We should appreciate that if we were in a weak position in life, we would want to be treated with consideration by others, so we ourselves should treat others who happen to be in weak position with due consideration. There is obviously the risk that while one may show reciprocal consideration to others, others may not always act similarly in return. In the context of a small or relatively simple community, the behaviour of those who regularly dish out what they would not take themselves can be expected to be readily noticed, and the disappointment, or even condemnation, expressed by the rest of the community may be sufficient to push them back into complying with the Golden Rule. But in more complex communities, especially where power may be concentrated in a few, or the asymmetric advantage-taking of some by others is not so easily spotted because of deliberate misdirection or lack of transparency, exploitation could be much harder to overturn. The requirement for mutual responsibility is necessary to ensure all members of any given community will take responsibility for interacting with others in a manner which stands up to the test of reciprocity. What an individual may value cannot expect to command the respect from others if its pursuit is incompatible with the realisation of goals valued by others. Rules, norms, and systems are needed to motivate mutual support, and deter attempts to make gains by threatening or tricking others into making one-way concessions. One is not expected to give up all of one’s time and resources in the service of others, but only to be ready like everyone else to contribute to arrangements that will serve everyone in return. And just as people will not want to be disrespected or mistreated through no fault of their own, they should not disrespect or mistreat others on the basis of irrelevant factors. As for those who insist that they do not care if others try to abuse or attack them, because they thrive on conflicts, it is

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not the invocation of rights that can deter their aggressive behaviour, but reciprocally forceful action—commensurate with the threats they pose— that will protect us by means of enforceable laws against those who choose to discard mutual responsibility as a foundation of community life.

Cooperative Enquiry We cannot fulfil our mutual responsibility with others unless we are able to differentiate between reliable claims and unwarranted assertions (Tam 2018). Oppressors are ever ready to tell tales about how they offer a better deal than people could otherwise secure. Exploiters have long learnt to lie and misdirect to get others to go along with arrangements that deliver them more pain with little real gain. Contests for the authority to adjudicate what is to be believed could end in a stalemate with no side conceding, or leave many concluding that they should accept or reject any idea depending simply on how they personally feel about it. Such disputes can never be resolved by someone issuing a proclamation of infallibility, as its hollowness will be there for all to see. They cannot just be ignored either, since claims and commands about what should be promoted or held back affect our lives in countless ways. In line with the ethos of reciprocity, it is only through cooperative enquiry whereby people reason with others as they would have others reason with them can acceptable answers ever be found. For this to happen, the process for examining claims and settling disputes, both in terms of the interactions between those who are directly involved and the broader epistemological infrastructure,10 will need to facilitate and not hinder the informed exchange of evidence, analysis, and testable hypotheses. This means that any such process cannot be tied to any invocation that is inherently sealed off from objective scrutiny. For example, no mutual exploration is possible if individuals are allowed to claim that some particular belief of theirs is correct because they alone can access some supernatural, esoteric, or inner source that no one else can ever examine. Only that which can empirically and logically be cross-checked by others can be open to deliberative and 10This

covers educational, research, media, investigative, judicial arrangements that are generally relied on to differentiate between what is and what is not to be believed in society.

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critical assessment on all sides. Reciprocal reasoning also means that no one should set the bar for probability thresholds or burdens of proof for others to meet at such a level, which one would reject as far too high for claims one wishes to make under comparable circumstances. Needless to say, cooperative enquiry requires thoughtful engagement in shared reflections without these being distorted by coercion, deception, or bribery. Ultimately, any provisional consensus reached will need to be open to possible revisions on the basis of future cooperative enquiry.

Citizen Participation In order to ensure that people interact reciprocally by taking their mutual responsibility seriously and consistently, and reaching agreement about what to believe or reject with the help of cooperative enquiry, a third element is required, namely, the embedding of citizen participation in decision-making processes that affect them. Since people would not want others to make decisions that can impact on their lives without taking into account their thoughts and feelings, especially if those decisions could lead to unwelcome consequences for them, they should appreciate that others would not want them to make decisions unilaterally while ignoring others’ views. Those who want to decide the fate of others on their own but refuse to accept any decisions made by others without their involvement, are in effect trying to place themselves arbitrarily above others. Just as bad, if not worse, are those who pretend to accept the Golden Rule of reciprocity but will seek out and exploit opportunities to impose decisions on others. By requiring those in a decision-making position to comply with norms, rules, and practices that will enable people covered by the potential decision to participate in its development process, the likelihood of decisions going ignorantly or callously against people who have to abide by them is thereby minimised. Participation does not mean that everyone has to be directly involved in every decision, or must be given a veto over anything not to one’s liking. So long as people can learn about, review, and help shape the arrangements for decision-making, it may make sense for them to delegate, elect, appoint others to make particular decisions, provided that the actual makers of decisions can be held accountable. This applies to not

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only government institutions, but also businesses, schools and community organisations. Whether unanimity or some pre-determined threshold is to be adopted depends on what has been learnt about the type of decision in question. When it comes to deciding on rules to govern a wider range of interpersonal behaviour, it is clear that any myopic rejection of rules because one wants no constraint for oneself has to be reconsidered in the light of similar rejections of rules by others. Unless one is prepared to have others decide on whatever outcomes they want regardless of their impact on oneself, one has to accept that one must also be open to constraints, which means one cannot just pick and choose individual rules, but take into consideration an overall system of rules. And since power inequalities can render any superficially participatory arrangements meaningless,11 citizen participation requires the redistribution of power to ensure that no one is held back from accessing relevant information, putting forward their suggestions, questioning proposals, or shaping decisions that affect them and their communities.

Germinal Debates About Communities Based on the key elements outlined above, we can retrace the pathways through which communitarian ideas have developed. Since at the heart of communitarian thinking is not a timeless blueprint, but an evolving ethos that guides attitudinal and behavioural adaptations in response to changing historical circumstances, we can only understand this ethos if we have a better grasp of why and how its constituent elements interact over time to point towards new intellectual, political, and socio-economic reforms. While the distinct formulations of communitarian ideas occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth century, the seeds of those ideas appeared as far back as when the Golden Rule first imprinted itself on the conscience of

11 For

example, when in the nineteenth century, in the absence of the secret ballot, tenant farmers were pressured into voting in line with their powerful landlords; or in contemporary society, where the wealthiest individuals and corporations can buy incomparably greater influence over public policy decisions than the vast majority of citizens.

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all emergent civilisations. Unfortunately, when changing societal arrangements began to facilitate the concentration of power in a few who could then subtly, or even blatantly, sever reciprocal relations with others, the principle of reciprocity was increasingly threatened. This trend ultimately provoked reactions and debates at opposite ends of Eurasia during the sixth century BC that would influence the eventual formation of a distinct communitarian philosophy. In the East, the Zhou Dynasty’s rule over China was in terminal decline. Feudal control and stability were giving way to local ‘hegemons’ who were de facto rulers of their own states. Once they had secured dominance within their own territories, they turned their attention to seizing land from their neighbouring states. Against this background, referred to by historians as the Spring-Autumn period, Confucius (551–479 BC), a scholar-official of the state of Lu, emerged as an advocate for a distinct approach to community development. He urged educators to teach people to recognise their responsibilities, and reinforce their inclination to fulfil those responsibilities by following certain prescribed rites and practices (Confucius 1995). Those in subordinate positions in society—children, subjects, courtiers—should obey and offer their support to those in superior positions—parents, public officials, rulers, who in return, must protect and care for those who count on them for a safe and decent life. Nobility was not a birthright of the aristocracy, but a characteristic to be cultivated by anyone concerned with sustaining a good community. Instead of trampling over the masses below or disrespecting the Zhou King above, local lords and princelings should be humble in serving others in accordance with the recommended rites. Despite the co-option of his ideas to prop up authoritarian regimes later on, Confucius in his days posed a radical challenge to those with the most power to transform their attitudes and behaviour. Meanwhile, in the West, the tendency for a few to amass enough power to impose absolute rule over others was also prompting new thinking to emerge (Farrar 1988). Many states across Greece had come under the control of ‘tyrants’ who were not necessarily cruel and reckless as the modern use of the term would suggest, but who were uniquely able to dictate terms to others. In Athens, Solon’s attempts to redistribute power more evenly had failed to prevent the likes of Peisistratos and his son, Hippias, from

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acting as tyrants. It was Cleisthenes (570–508 BC) who introduced fundamental and more long-lasting reforms that enabled Athenians to develop a substantially different kind of community. Under his reforms, clans were reorganised to provide new and broadly equal groupings from which representatives would be chosen, not on the basis of old traditional ties, but shared local interests. All (male) citizens could take part in deliberative forums; random selection would ensure everyone has an equal chance to take on decision-making roles in relation to judicial or wider policy matters; and anyone posing a threat from amassing more resources and power than others could be voted/ostracised by the public and sent into exile. Cleisthenes’ ethos of ‘isonomy’ (equality of citizens qua citizens) was thus underpinned by institutions that were designed to facilitate power sharing in every dimension of public life. Between them, Confucius and Cleisthenes opened the way to farreaching debates about how to protect communities from powerful people who might act arbitrarily towards others because they could do so with impunity. Confucius placed renewed emphasis on the Golden Rule and the social customs he recommended were put forward to reinforce the injunction never to treat others as one would not have others treat one. Cleisthenes devised political arrangements that would minimise the scope of any individual overriding the concerns of other citizens. In subsequent decades, these approaches stirred up a wide range of critical responses that would inform thinking on how to improve communities through both education in the appropriate social codes of behaviour and regulation to secure sound collective action. The debates began with two pivotal figures: Mozi (470–391 BC) who criticised the Rujia12 philosophy advanced by Confucius and his followers; and Socrates (470–399 BC) who questioned the basis of the system of isonomy established by Cleisthenes and his supporters.

12 ‘Confucianism’

is the common, though inadequate, translation of ‘Rujia’ (儒家), the Chinese term for the School of Scholars-Cultural Advisors, which Confucius did not so much establish as develop into the most influential educators. Rujia existed before Confucius as a group of learned people whose expertise was on the correct rites and rituals to be followed for the sake of etiquette and social harmony. Confucius elevated their teachings to a higher level of moral exposition. See Yao (2000).

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For Mozi, reciprocity was indeed a central value, but Rujia advocates had taken far too narrow a view of what it should imply, and sought to promote it with over-elaborate rites that were all too often not fit for purpose (Mei 1929). He interpreted reciprocity as ‘mutual concern’,13 a quality that should be measured not merely by formal rituals, but by the help people were actually willing to offer each other. If those in more powerful positions were asking for contributions from others so they could live a luxurious life, while in return they offered those who laboured hard little more than support for the most basic existence, the value of what each side was offering would not be commensurate, and there would be little mutual concern to speak of. Mozi put forward three tests for what anyone might claim to be of value to others. First, it was the test against past records. For example, Confucians might insist that certain customs were vital to people’s wellbeing, but chronicles of previous experiences might show that such customs were found in the past to be unnecessary and quite unhelpful. Secondly, the test of contemporary testimony would check claims about the usefulness of particular practices against what people affected by those practices had to say about them. Thirdly, the test of future findings would keep the legitimacy of any claim open to further reviews. A policy might appear to help in the short term, but it could still be questioned if experiences down the line were to cast doubt on its overall value. By applying these three tests, Mozi argued that many of the rites and practices recommended by Confucians were not of much use at all in engendering a mutually supportive community. He proposed instead an alternative approach that would curb the display of wealth and use of force by the powerful, and guarantee better support to people in general to live a safe and decent life that no one would wish to be deprived of oneself. While Mozi challenged Confucians’ complacency over power distribution and overreliance on elaborate rites, Socrates questioned whether the democratic redistribution of political power could be sustained by a reliance on ordinary people’s understanding of the relevant issues (Vlastos 13The

Chinese term in question, ‘兼愛’, has also been translated as ‘universal love’ or ‘mutual love’, but ‘love’ can be misinterpreted as personal feelings when, in this context, Mozi’s focus is on the concern people should have for others’ wellbeing on the basis of the concern they would want others to have for them.

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1991). He not only pointed out that many were ignorant of pertinent facts such as the size of public budgets, the state of the fleet, numbers of soldiers available, or the latest stance of rival states, he also put forward a fundamental critique that highlighted the fact that most people could not adequately explain what they meant by concepts such as piety, temperance, courage, virtue, or justice. Socrates repeatedly contrasted people’s demands to have experts deal with specialist tasks—for example, steering a ship, building a fortress, or curing the sick—with their readiness to have others involved in shaping important political decisions even though those people might be poorly informed about such matters. He stressed that there were many techniques to confuse and mislead people so they might end up not even knowing what would truly serve their own interests. It was not that Socrates rejected democratic decision making. He accepted his own death sentence when it was handed down by a public court. But he wanted the flaws of the system to be tackled with the cultivation of the relevant expertise. The issues raised by Socrates and Mozi led to new ways of thinking about how people should live in communities. These would in time spur the development of communitarian ideas for reforming society. The contrast between Plato (427–347 BC) and Aristotle (384–322 BC) in how they responded to the Socratic challenge illustrates this dynamic. Plato argued that the expertise needed to govern communities wisely could only be attained by the few with an exceptional mind (Schofield 2006). Only they could grasp with clarity the ideas of human relations and political structures, and only they should have the power to realise those ideas in practice. Aristotle, on the other hand, disputed the existence of the kind of absolute, ideal concepts Plato invoked as the foundation of his philosophy (Cooper 1986). He observed there were only particular instances that we ever got to experience, and ideas were formed from provisional generalisations of these experiences. Instead of turning into one’s mind to ‘grasp’ a notion of the perfect community, and expecting everyone to submit to this single, monolithic form, we should look around us and see that communities took diverse forms and comprised many different types of group (Broadie 1991). Aristotle’s approach to learning about the implications of varying community relations and structures echoed Mozi’s epistemology. He organised research teams to gather findings from past

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records and contemporary testimony to inform their study of moral practices and political constitutions (recognising that further evidence might in the future necessitate revisions to their latest conclusions), which at the time pointed to a mixed constitution with no single group being able to dominate others being the most advantageous (Inamura 2015). Mozi’s critique of Rujia led the two outstanding exponents of Confucius’ ideas—Mencius (372–289 BC) and Xunzi (300–230 BC)—to reject what they viewed as the demands for ‘mutual concern’, albeit for the sake of very different alternatives. They both thought Mozi was asking individuals to have exactly the same concerns for every other individual, and that would be neither appropriate nor feasible. For example, parents could not be as concerned with the wellbeing of countless other people’s children as they were with their own children, and they would be deficient in their parental duty if they spent as much time caring for others’ children as their own. But there was no reason for ‘mutual concern’ to be interpreted in such an implausible way. People could focus on looking after their own children, and want help from others if through accident or ill-health they could not look after their own children. And if they are concerned with having such back-up support available for themselves, they should be concerned on a mutual basis that it is available for others should they need it. Mencius’ response is that we should not even attempt to spell out what ‘mutual concern’ would entail (as there are too many variables), but leave it to individuals whose sense of humanity (‘ren’) has been properly cultivated (Mencius 1970). People’s innate concern for others who need their help would then elicit the appropriate response. Xunzi regarded this as Mencius’ naïve optimism about individuals. He believed people were all too susceptible to putting their own gratification above the needs of others, and he argued for stricter and better promoted social rules and rituals to ensure people would co-exist in an acceptable manner (Kline and Ivanhoe 2000). A top down hierarchy would then, in Xunzi’s view, leave everyone in no doubt as to how they should behave, and harmony would be secured. Ironically, this would have struck Mencius as blinkered optimism about society. Without the exercising of cultivated moral judgement, rites might be misinterpreted and flawed rules might be sustained without question, and worst of all, the one with the ruling power might be acting against the

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people. For Mencius, the wellbeing of the people underpins the legitimacy of their ruler, and if that is undermined by the ruler, legitimacy is forfeited. As these germinal debates about different forms of community intensified, four other strands of thinking emerged.14 The first of these encompasses a range of ideas around the central theme of retreating to a simple life. For example, the Daoists, who objected to the complex rules and demanding requests from the followers of Confucius and Mozi alike, advocated the embrace of the way of nature (Coutinho 2013). For some, this meant rulers should leave the people to get on with their own lives. Others took it even further with Yang Zhu (circ. 440–350 BC) declaring infamously that if he had to pull one hair off his body to save the lives of others, he would consider it too burdensome an interference with his life. Zhuangzi (369–286 BC) presented this uncompromising individualism as the embrace of nature without the distortion of artificial social customs, and people were encouraged to leave each other alone to pursue whatever might take their fancy (Zhuangzi 1996). The Nongjia (School of Agriculturalist) took a very different view of why nature was important. According to their leading advocate, Xu Xing (circ. 335–280 BC), people should reconnect with nature by leaving all other tasks and occupations behind, and focus on cultivating the land. No one, not even those with the role of a leader or ruler, should be exempt from agricultural duties which would unite everyone in a common endeavour to secure a simple, decent and rewarding life. Nature as a haven of simplicity from complex socio-political arrangements was a feature of Cynic and Epicurean thinking as well. Cynics such as Diogenes (412–323 BC) would show others that giving up ‘worldly’ things and stepping away from ‘respectable’ connections was the path to contentment. Epicurus (341–270 BC), on the other hand, urged his followers to retreat from political turmoil, learn to understand nature better, and enjoy moderate pleasures. The next two strands of thought marked opposite poles in their responses to what was to be done about communities. Sceptics, such as Pyrrho (365–275 BC), Gongsun Long (325–250 BC), and Carneades (214–129 BC), rejected the possibility that anything definitive could be 14 Of

the four strands discussed in the paragraphs that follow, the Daoists and Stoics have received a fair amount of attention from scholars in China and the West respectively, but for the others, the most accessible introduction would be via Chan (1963) and Long and Sedley (1987).

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said about community transformation or any subject, for that matter. Individuals could insist on believing what each might want to believe, but none would be able to demonstrate in any indisputable way that a particular claim was true. No form of community could thus be established as better than any other. By contrast, the authoritarians dismissed the concern with seeking justification as unfounded. From Thrasymachus (circ. 427 BC) to Han Fei (279–233 BC), they stood by the assumption that power was the sole basis for organising society. Questions regarding how members of communities should relate to each other, or what ought to determine the acceptability of rules and customs, were deemed answerable only by those with the power to secure acceptance of their answers. Finally, there is the universalist strand of thought exemplified by the Stoics, amongst whose ideas were Socratic concerns with critical rationality; a dedication to solidarity for the common good redolent of Mozi and his followers; and a more sophisticated conception of nature which considers human nature as possessing the potential to achieve more by applying their shared intelligence and fulfilling their duties to each other. People should learn to control their emotions, and not give free rein to them regardless of what that could do to oneself or others. Stoic philosophy developed continuously from Zeno of Citium (334–262 BC) to Panaetius of Rhodes (circ. 189–109 BC); it never wavered from its emphasis on people having to serve their communities and people being respected as equals by their communities (Sandbach 1989). Its cosmopolitan recognition of all people as fellow human beings never got in the way of its commitment to engage with the affairs of one’s own community. Like the Mohists, who took up arms to defend any town or state threatened by an unprovoked attack from invading troops, the leading Stoics of late republican Rome fought against attempts to subjugate the entire population to the will of one Caesar. They lost, and by the first century AD, a rigid top-down hierarchy under the rule of an absolute ruler had become the order of the day across the Roman, Parthian, Kushan, and Han empires. When the followers of Muhammad carved out their own empire in the Middle East six centuries later, a similar model was to emerge with the caliph at its head. In many ways, the military defeat of the Stoics by Octavian in 42 BC also marked the end of the germinal debates about what kind of communities we should seek. For centuries thereafter, the prevailing social, economic,

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and political relations that structured communities were in theory sanctioned by unquestionable divine powers, and in practice kept in place by powerful people whom no one dared to challenge.

The Evolution of an Ethos As we have seen, communitarian concerns with the nature of human interactions did not come out of nowhere in the nineteenth, let alone twentieth, century. They originated from reactions against the systemic undermining of reciprocity and cooperation as a way of life. From the sixth century BC on, diverse schools of thought emerged to contest how people should live in relation to others, and the ensuing debates generated important ideas that would play a part in shaping the conceptual DNA of communitarianism. However, while some of the protagonists of these debates, such as Mozi, Socrates, Mencius, Aristotle, and the Stoics, contributed to that development, it does not follow that their philosophy was communitarian in every respect. As for those whose favoured ideal for community life pointed in very different directions (for example, traditionalist, authoritarian, or detached), it would be misleading to associate their ideas with ‘communitarian’ thinking at all.15 If anything, they set out models of human relations that provoked the advancement of the communitarian ethos precisely because such models were anathema to many seeking to develop a more thoughtful and cooperative form of community life. In the rest of this book, we will look at how the first challenges to anti-reciprocal arrangements in society were revived after the long era of imperial absolutism, during which alpha-male prejudices and diversionary talks of the after-life were entrenched. The revival gave rise to more detailed formulations of the constituent elements of communitarian thinking, and these would not only help to expose the many problems connected with asymmetric human relations in each succeeding period, they would enrich 15There

has been no shortage of casual commentary that attaches the ‘communitarian’ label quite arbitrarily to: Confucianism despite its many contrasting variants; authoritarian hierarchies; social relativists who see no basis for regarding any form of community as better than others; or advocates for simplistic and detached communal living.

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a reformist philosophy that is capable of responding to new obstacles and recommending changes in the light of new circumstances. In Chapter 2, ‘The Emergence of Communitarian Challenges: 1400s–1600s’, we will consider why the stranglehold on critical thinking was gradually loosened in Europe, and how dormant ideas resurfaced with new vigour to challenge long held assumptions about communities’ relations and structures. Trends that began in Italy would feed into radical new thinking in England, with Thomas More, Francis Bacon, James Harrington, and others developing key elements that would play a major part in shaping the communitarian ethos. While the Enlightenment is often treated as paving the way for unrelenting individualism and being inherently opposed to established beliefs and customs, we will see that many leading figures of the movement had more complex and nuanced approaches. Chapter 3, ‘Towards Enlightened Communities: The Eighteenth Century’, will set out how reflections on the need for more empathic, critical and democratic communities evolved through extensive criticisms of egoistic individualism in ethics, the twin threats of dogmatism and scepticism in epistemology, and power inequalities in politics. The main strands of communitarian ideas which had hitherto been developed by separate thinkers began to converge in response to the market-based power distribution across society from the nineteenth century on. Chapter 4, ‘Beyond Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft : Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Century’, will explain how philosophers and advocates such as Robert Owen; J. S. Mill; Giuseppe Mazzini; Alexis de Tocqueville; and Ludwig Feuerbach contributed to a new conception of the model community beyond both the loose association of individuals promoted for a market society, and the tight hierarchy sought by traditional communities. This model in the early twentieth century was elaborated by the French Solidarity advocates, the British New Liberals, and the American progressive Pragmatists, in tackling both the legacy of authoritarianism and the emerging threats of laissez faire. The next phase of development came in the middle decades of the twentieth century in the form of opposition to a range of ideas and practices that would depersonalise human identity and thus undermine reciprocity, cooperative relations, and a meaningful sense of belonging. We will learn

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from Chapter 5, ‘Critiques of Depersonalisation: 1920s–1980s’, that a progressive form of community life needed to be defended from manipulative narratives that dehumanise people, plutocratic rhetoric that marketise individuals, philosophical misconceptions that distort our understanding of the self, and misguided idealisations of community that legitimise oppression.16 By the late twentieth century, the perceived triumph of the ‘free market’ and the collapse of the Soviet Union were cited as legitimising egoistic individualism, and fuelled the growth of wealth and power inequalities on a global scale. In response, communitarian thinkers put forward new ideas on how different social, economic and political aspects of community life should be reformed. In Chapter 6, ‘Communitarianism Articulated: 1989–2001’, we will look at the ideas of communitarians such as Jonathan Boswell, David Miller, Robert Bellah, Philip Selznick, Amitai Etzioni, and Henry Tam; and how the principles of mutual responsibility, cooperative enquiry, and citizen participation would shape policy development to attain greater civic togetherness, deliberative objectivity, and power balance. In Chapter 7, ‘Tackling Community Disempowerment Post-2001’, we examine how threats to the security of communities need to be dealt with without encroaching on the standards of freedom that ought to be maintained for their members. In addition to the security problems relating to law and order, we will also look at the growing threats to socio-economic, environmental, and cultural security. In order to devise solutions to social and political problems, communities at all levels require sufficient support to work out shared responses that are effective and sustainable. We will consider the different approaches that have been developed to help people find reliable answers, cooperate in deciding how to deal with shared problems, and reconcile over substantial differences. We will conclude with Chapter 8, ‘Tomorrow’s Communities’, which will reflect on the changes that may come and the new challenges they will bring. Specific attention will be directed at how communitarian ideas and 16These

critiques came from thinkers who included: the personalists (Martin Buber, Emmanuel Mounier, and John Macmurray); participatory advocates such as G. D. H. Cole, José María Arizmendiarrieta Madariaga, Carole Pateman, etc.; and the critics of Rawls (Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor, Michael Walzer, and Alasdair MacIntyre).

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practices can be applied to issues stemming from evolving forms of personhood, governance, the economy, and general education. The underlying causes of community fragmentation will continue to manifest themselves in the words and deeds of those who seek concentrated power in order to pursue their own short-term gains at the expense of everyone else. They will need to be countered by teachings and policies that will help to embed the Golden Rule more effectively in every sphere of community interaction. The prospect of the communitarian ethos gaining the upper hand depends ultimately on how far people can be persuaded and supported in relation to rallying behind arrangements to identify and defend the common good; adjudicate and expose error and deception; and redistribute power and resources to enhance the wellbeing of entire communities and not just a few privileged individuals.

References Avineri, S., & de-Shalit, A. (Eds.). (1992). Communitarianism and Individualism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bell, D. (1993). Communitarianism and Its Critics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bellah, R. (1996, Winter). Community Properly Understood. Responsive Community, 6 (1), 49–54. Bellah, R., Madsen, R., Tipton, S., Sullivan, W., & Swidler, A. (1991). The Good Society. New York: Vintage Books. Bellah, R., & Sullivan, W. (2001). Cultural Resources for a Progressive Alternative. In Tam (2001). Bestor, A. E. (1950). Backwoods Utopias: The Sectarian and Owenite Phases of Communitarian Socialism in America, 1663–1829. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Press. Boswell, J. (1990). Community and the Economy: The Theory of Public Cooperation. London: Routledge. Boswell, J., & Tam, H. (2013). Communitarianism Revisited. Question the Powerful. http://henry-tam.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/communitarianism-revisited. html. Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (2011). A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Broadie, S. (1991). Ethics with Aristotle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Chan, W. T. (1963). A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Claeys, G. (1989). Citizens and Saints: Politics and Anti-politics in Early British Socialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Confucius. (1995). The Analects (W. E. Soothill, Trans.). New York: Dover Publications. Cooper, J. M. (1986). Reason and Human Good in Aristotle. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. Coutinho, S. (2013). An Introduction to Daoist Philosophies. New York: Columbia University Press. Derber, C. (1994, Fall). Communitarian Economics: Criticisms and Suggestions from the Left. The Responsive Community, 4 (4), 29–42. Derber, C. (1995). What’s Left? Radical Politics in the Postcommunist Era. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Etzioni, A. (1998). The New Golden Rule: Community and Morality in a New Democratic Society. New York: Basic Books. Etzioni, A. (2003). My Brother’s Keeper. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Etzioni, A. (2018). Happiness Is the Wrong Metric: A Liberal Communitarian Response to Populism. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Etzioni, A., Volmert, A., & Rothschild, E. (Eds.). (2004). The Communitarian Reader: Beyond the Essentials. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Farrar, C. (1988). The Origins of Democratic Thinking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ferenstein, G. (2013). Obama’s Shift Toward Communitarianism. Daily Beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/obamas-shift-toward-communitarianism. Frazer, E. (1999). The Problems of Communitarian Politics: Unity and Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Frazer, E., & Lacey, N. (1993). The Politics of Community: A Feminist Critique of the Liberal-Communitarian Debate. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Frohnen, B. (1995).The New Communitarians and the Crisis of Modern Liberalism. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Galston, W. A. (1991). Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues, and Diversity in the Liberal State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gove, M. (2017, April 21). Now We’ll Find Out What Mayism Stands For. The Times. Gutmann, A. (1985, Summer). Communitarian Critics of Liberalism. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 14 (3), 308–322.

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Hale, S. (2006). Blair’s Community: Communitarian Thought and New Labour. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Harrison, J. F. C. (1969). Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America: The Quest for the New Moral World. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Holyoake, G. J. (2017). The History of the Rochdale Pioneers. London: Routledge. Inamura, K. (2015). Justice and Reciprocity in Aristotle’s Political Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jha, A., & LaSalle, M. (2012). Cooperative Membership Hits 1 Billion Worldwide. Coop News. https://www.thenews.coop/37480/sector/retail/ cooperative-membership-hits-1-billion-worldwide/. Kainz, H. P. (1988). Ethics in Context. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Kenny, S., Taylor, M., Onyx, J., & Mayo, M. (2015). Challenging the Third Sector: Global Prospects for Active Citizenship. Bristol: Policy Press. Kline, T. C., & Ivanhoe, P. J. (Eds.). (2000). Virtue, Nature and Moral Agency in the Xunzi. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. Long, A. A., & Sedley, D. N. (1987). The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1, Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacIntyre, A. (1981). After Virtue. London: Duckworth. MacIntyre, A. (1988). Whose Justice? Which Rationality. London: Duckworth. Marshall, W. (2012, Summer). The Forgotten Communitarian: Why Are Bill Clinton’s Contributions to Restoring the Language of Civic Obligation so Regularly and Casually Overlooked? A Response to James T. Kloppenberg. Democracy (25). https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/25/the-forgottencommunitarian/. Mei, Y. P. (1929). The Ethical and Political Works of Motse. London: Arthur Probsthain. Mencius. (1970). Mencius (D. C. Lau, Trans.) London: Penguin Books. Milbank, D. (2001, February 1). Needed: Catchword for Bush Ideology. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/ 02/01/needed-catchword-for-bush-ideology/4eac1fec-e868-47fb-a922937a538df63e/. Miller, D. (1989). Market, State and Community: Theoretical Foundations of Market Socialism. Oxford: Clarendon. Mulhall, S., & Swift, A. (1992). Liberals & Communitarians. Oxford: Blackwell. Neusner, J., & Chilton, B. (Eds.). (2008). The Golden Rule: The Ethics of Reciprocity in World Religions. London: Continuum International Publishing.

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Ostrom, E. (1993, Summer). A Communitarian Approach to Local Governance. National Civic Review, 82(3), 226–233. Owen, R. (1991 Edition of 1813/1814 Original). A New View of Society and Other Writings. London: Penguin Classics. Phillips, D. L. (1993). Looking Backward: A Critical Appraisal of Communitarian Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Reay, D., Crozier, G., James, D., Hollingworth, S., Williams, K., Jamieson, F., & Beedell, P. (2008). Re-invigorating Democracy?: White Middle Class Identities and Comprehensive Schooling. The Sociological Review, 56 (2), 238–255. Riasanovsky, N. V. (1970). The Teaching of Charles Fourier. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sandbach, F. H. (1989). The Stoics. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Sandel, M. (1982). Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schofield, M. (2006). Plato: Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Selznick, P. (1992). The Moral Commonwealth. Berkeley: University of California Press. Selznick, P. (2002). The Communitarian Persuasion. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press. Spragens, T. A. (1990). Reason and Democracy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Spragens, T. A. (1995). Communitarian Liberalism. In A. Etzioni (Ed.), New Communitarian Thinking. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Spragens, T. A. (2009). Getting the Left Right: The Transformation, Decline, and Reformation of American Liberalism. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Tam, H. (1995). Communitarianism & the Co-operative Movement. The Co-op Commonweal (2). Tam, H. (1998). Communitarianism: A New Agenda for Politics and Citizenship. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Tam, H. (Ed.). (2001). Progressive Politics in the Global Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Tam, H. (2018). What Should Citizens Believe? Sheffield: Citizen Network. Taylor, C. (1985). Philosophical Papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vlastos, G. (1991). Socrates. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walzer, M. (1983). Spheres of Justice. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Walzer, M. (1987). Interpretation and Social Criticism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Williams, Z. (2017, June 1). Corbyn Gained an Edge in This Debate, Even If He Hasn’t Forged an Alliance. The Guardian. Yao, X. (2000). An Introduction to Confucianism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zhuangzi. (1996). The Book of Chuang Tzu (M. Palmer, Trans.) London: Penguin Books.

2 The Emergence of Communitarian Challenges: 1400s–1600s

Rethinking Communities As a result of the wide-ranging debates which flourished between the sixth and first century BC about the rules, customs and expectations that shaped communities, diverse ideas were generated in relation to three core issues about human interactions: • What should people care about? • What should people believe? • What actions should people decide to take? Amongst the ideas formulated for each of these issues, we can discern four common variants on the approach to be taken: In response to ‘what should people care about’, the main ideas are: Detached : Egoistic :

No one can say what anyone should or should not care about. What I care about is all that matters.

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Absolutist:

All must care about what the highest moral authority declares all should care about. Reciprocal : We should care about others and what matters to them as we would like them to care about us and what matters to us. In response to ‘what should people believe’, the main ideas are: Detached : Egoistic: Absolutist:

No one can say what anyone should or should not believe. What I believe is correct. All must believe what is true according to the supreme source of knowledge. Reciprocal : We should adjust our beliefs by reasoning with others as we would like them to reason with us. In response to ‘what actions should people decide to take’, the main ideas are: Detached :

No one can say what action or inaction should be decided on. Egoistic : What I decide to do should be entirely up to me. Absolutist: All must decide in line with the rules and instructions laid down by the absolute leader. Reciprocal: We should decide by taking on board the views of others who could be affected by the decision, as we would want our views to be taken on board when we could be affected by the decisions others take. If we bring together the variants with common features, we can see four distinct outlooks regarding how we should live with others. First, there is the outlook of detachment. Zhuangzi amongst the Daoists, the followers of Epicurus, the sceptics, are all inclined to step away from getting mired in controversies about any general statement. They could not see any basis for resolving such disagreement, and feel they should just get on with their own lives without being intrusive towards others. Retreat to the wilderness or one’s private sanctuaries, enjoy what one can if things turn out favourably, and endure what one has no way of knowing how to avoid or overturn.

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Secondly, there is the egoistic outlook, which can be characterised as ‘live and let die’. Thinkers from Thrasymachus to Yang Zhu and Han Fei believe that there is no need to justify anything beyond what one wants. If one manages to get the power to secure what one wants, there can be no hesitation about using that power fully. Others can raise whatever objection they want, but so long as one can amass and retain enough power to live as one wishes, one should feel free to treat others negatively without having to worry that they might be in a position to respond in kind.1 Thirdly, we have the absolutist outlook. What we should care about, believe, and decide on must all be anchored to some absolute pivotal point. There is no room for doubt since anyone with the ability to grasp the nature of the supreme authority will recognise that it can never be wrong. Plato, Xunzi and others may find this authority embodied in different entities or beings, but they share the fundamental view that it is essential to have such an authority, without which we would slide into uncertainty and chaos. Only those with the relevant talent may comprehend what is backed by this authority, but it is incumbent on everyone to accept it without question. Finally, there is the outlook of reciprocity that chimes with the Golden Rule. This outlook maintains there are better and worse answers to questions about our values, beliefs and decisions, and that we can differentiate between them, not with reference to what any one of us may happen to think or to some absolute authority that not everyone can agree on, but through appreciating that others matter as we consider ourselves matter in our multifaceted interactions with them. Accordingly, we should take on board the ideas and feelings of others as we would want ours to be taken into consideration by others. Mozi, Socrates, Mencius, Aristotle, and the Stoics contributed to different strands of this outlook, which is the basis of proto-communitarian thinking when it emerged from the fifteenth century on.

1 Ironically,

after Han Fei lost power in the state of Qin, he was arrested and executed under an oppressive law he had brought in.

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Of these four outlooks, the egoistic and the absolutist came to be promoted together by many who wanted to shore up the power of authoritarian leaders by endorsing their political egoism as legitimate, and convincing the people in their territories that the views and commands of their rulers were unquestionable since they were backed by the supreme authority that governed the universe. Since the end of the first century BC, this approach had become more widespread as any significant opposition was silenced, the power to rule was concentrated ever more in one person, and centralised military control rendered force rather than persuasion the fulcrum for changing minds.2 One further factor that came into play was the development of doctrines to fill the role of the unquestionable font of knowledge. Be it Confucianism, Christianity, or Islam, it proved attractive for authoritarian rulers to have around them a group of esoteric interpreters of special texts, through which definitive guidance could be found on any important (or even not so important) issue. Ordinary people were not expected to understand, let alone query, their interpretations. In return for their service of interpreting the most sacred doctrines in support of the ruling regime, these specialists would be rewarded with status, protection, and wealth. The outlook of detachment, in the midst of an unshakable hierarchy which periodically splintered into chaos before another powerful leader re-imposed absolute rule, appealed to those who were resigned to the apparent inalterability of social arrangements and power structures. Hermits would seek out remote places for quiet contemplation. Mystics looked for inner spiritual enlightenment. Others would try to forget their own powerlessness in the overall scheme of things by immersing themselves in their private dealings; or they might give up on this world and invest their hope in promises of a better after-life. It is not surprising that some of these ideas were at times endorsed by the interpreters of sacred doctrines, as the less people were inclined to challenge prevailing rules and practices, the more the current system could continue without having to worry about discontent turning into unrest.

2The decades before and after the end of the first century BC witnessed the final collapse of the Roman Republic and the overthrow of Wang Mang, the Chinese Emperor who tried to redistribute land from the rich to the poor on a grand scale (Dash 2011; Steel 2013).

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As for the outlook of reciprocity, although the Golden Rule was still there in all the venerated texts across the world, there were few advocates for drawing out its implications and acting on them. Mozi’s school had promoted ‘mutual concern’ in theory and practice, but its commitment to help defend any population in danger of being attacked by a military aggressor meant that Mohists were often drawn into conflicts and many were killed. Their numbers began to dwindle and they ceased to have much influence. Socrates’ attempts to challenge his contemporaries to think more critically about the reasoning ability needed for democratic decision making resulted in him being found guilty of corrupting the youths of Athens and sentenced to death. It was not an example others were keen to follow. Mencius wanted to displace potentially crude interpretations of ‘mutual concern’ by a refined understanding of ‘humanity’ and connecting that to a notion of the wellbeing of the people as the basis of political power. But later Confucians praised him in name without applying his ideas to the behaviour of emperors they unwaveringly served. Aristotle taught the importance of citizens participating as equals in their own governance, and the value of a constitution that would prevent the concentration of power in any single individual or group. But his most famous pupil, Alexander the Great, did not put any of those ideas into practice while he established his vast empire. Thereafter, the more scholarly pupils of Aristotle turned their attention away from political analyses and increasingly focused on natural philosophy. This left us with the Stoics. As their influence spread through the Roman Republic, their thinking became more open to empirical revisions and engaged with political affairs. There was less rigid attachment to particular doctrines about the nature of the universe, and more interest in advising how society should be governed. Cicero typified the eclectic Stoic who was willing to learn across conventional doctrinaire boundaries, but was uncompromising in defending what came to be termed the civic republican form of governance (Rawson 1983; Honohan 2002). After the Stoic resistance against Julius and Octavius Caesar failed to save the republic, Stoic-minded public servants still tried to moderate authoritarian rule under the new regime. Seneca had limited success in guiding Nero before he was ordered to commit suicide by the emperor. Marcus Aurelius became an emperor himself, and insisted on sharing power with Lucius.

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After Lucius’ death, he made his son, Commodus, co-emperor. But the young man was the antithesis of a Stoic in every way, and after his father’s death, the new emperor quickly proved himself an abominable tyrant.3 An elective system might conceivably have avoided that scenario, but by the second century, it seemed culturally and politically impossible, in the Roman or any of the empires covering the rest of the world, for anything other than an authoritarian hierarchy to prevail. From time to time, rulers might lose their power to a rival as a result of assassination or open warfare, but the system would not be drastically altered. Even when absolute rule was suspended by prolonged fighting between factions and warlords, it would be reinstated by the ultimate victor because that appeared to be the only prize worth battling for. However, from the eleventh century on, a series of abrupt changes to power relations across Europe opened up the space for the outlook of reciprocity to reassert itself. By the fifteenth century, communitarian challenges to the status quo were emerging to lay the foundation for sustained demands for intellectual, social and political reforms down to our own time. So long as rulers had the military backing to retain control over vast territories and the support of those specialist interpreters of ‘sacred words’, they could be confident that the hierarchical system they favoured would remain in place, and no one would dare question it. But the basis for such total unitary control was seriously undermined in 1054, when the Christian Church which had provided the Roman emperor with sacred backing, was broken by the Great Schism into two irreconcilable parts—the Orthodox Church in the east, and the Catholic Church in the west. The lack of unity amongst those who were meant to give a definitive rendition of what God would endorse meant that those with political ambitions might not be so ready to accept one supreme ruler as divinely appointed to reign over them. Thereafter, while a few were still predominantly seeking to claim absolute power over a vast empire, many preferred to focus on keeping others’ power in check. For example, kings and princes from western Europe 3 It

might be asked why Marcus Aurelius helped Commodus take power when he must have known what a risk that would be. In reality, he was trapped by the system. He could have attempted to name a different successor, but Commodus was in a powerful position to oppose anyone else taking over from Aurelius, and would have brought a devastating civil war upon Rome.

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joined in a crusade in 1204, not to combat non-Christians beyond Europe, but to sack and weaken Constantinople, the capital of Orthodox Christians. When Pope John XXII summoned William of Ockham (1288–1347) to defend his advocacy of the Franciscan position on poverty (which implicitly criticised papal accumulation of material wealth and worldly power), Emperor Louis IV, who wanted to undermine the pope, offered William his protection and ensured no harm would come to him. Meanwhile, by the thirteenth century, the Italian peninsular had moved on from being ruled by an imperial overlord to become a land notable for its self-governing cities.4 The prospect of self-governance raised important issues about who should determine what ought to be decreed or resisted. John of Salisbury (1119–1180), who would become secretary to Thomas Becket (whose attempt to assert his authority as archbishop over King Henry II led to Becket being murdered), produced in 1159 Policraticus, a treatise which asserted the primacy of law in determining what was right for rulers to do. Noticeably, he argued that the law should follow God’s will, which could only be interpreted by the pope, and any ruler who went against God’s will thus interpreted should be deposed as a tyrant.5 By contrast, in his 1324 book, The Defender of Peace, Marsilius of Padua (1275–1342), insisted that the pope should leave matters of the state to an accountable monarch who would in turn rule according to the law and be answerable to the people. When the leading barons of England pressurised King John into agreeing to the Magna Carta in 1215, they were certainly not thinking of handing critical decisions to the pope, but only of giving themselves a veto over what the king could do.

4These included the republics of Florence, Siena, Genoa, and Venice. And many of them at any given time backed either the pope (the Guelphs) or the Holy Roman Emperor (the Ghibellines), although that backing might change depending on their own internal politics. One of the Latin terms they used to refer to themselves was commune —signifying the aspiration to be a united community. See Everdell (2000, pp. 90–107). 5 John of Salisbury was a friend of Pope Adrian IV, which might at the time have emboldened him in arguing against the supremacy of the king.

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The Renaissance and Proto-Communitarian Trends During the Renaissance, not only the arts, but critical philosophy and civic republican politics experienced substantial advancement through revived interests in pre-Christian writings, initially in the Italian city-states, and then across northern Europe. The recovery of Aristotle’s writings, particularly his Politics in the thirteenth century; the influence of Stoic universalism6 ; the growing popularity of Cicero in exemplifying the philosophical and political commitments of a dutiful citizen; and the welcome if testing opportunities to keep concentrated power at bay; all fuelled the renewed development of the outlook of reciprocity. Figures such as Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406) and Leonardo Bruni (1370–1444) played a key role in promulgating a civic ethos that put the bonds of equal citizens at the heart of society7 (Tuck 1990). Salutati and Bruni were successively chancellors of the Florentine Republic, as well as accomplished humanist scholars. They drew their inspiration from advocates for power sharing, and champions of the Roman Republic, especially Cicero.8 Whereas Petrarch had criticised Cicero for opposing Caesar, Saluati and Bruni praised him for standing up for the freedom of a republic to govern itself. For them, it was vital for citizens to engage in an active civic life rather than withdrawing into a life of private pleasures or religious meditation. They presided over a political system where power was divided between a wide range of public offices, with term limits set for many of them so most people could have their turn in experiencing decision-making in the public realm, while the chance of anyone building up a permanent power base would be minimised. Most of these positions would be open to all citizens, although in the case of the higher offices, candidates’ suitability would be subject to scrutiny by public committees. The emphasis was on cultivating shared objectives for securing and improving the wellbeing of their city, and on ensuring that the identification and 6 Stoic

ideas upheld universal causation as an integral part of the natural order of the world, and regarded mutual respect and sympathy as binding on all people irrespective of their background. 7They and other like-minded thinkers have been described as ‘civic humanists’ (Baron 1955). 8They both wrote about Cicero’s ideas, and Bruni was one of the first to translate Aristotle’s writings into Latin.

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pursuit of those objectives would not be left to any single individual or group (Rubinstein 1990; Skinner 1990a). By late Renaissance, currents of thought on different aspects of reciprocal human interaction were gaining momentum and posing a threat to the hierarchical egoistic-absolutist worldview. If those in the most powerful positions were united in wanting to put a swift end to the emergence of such ideas, they might have succeeded. But by then they were divided by different priorities and ambitions, and those who took actions were often inconsistent in fluctuating between leniency and draconian excesses. In the end, their antipathy merely provoked further advocacy that would feed into the development of a distinct communitarian vision of society in the centuries to come. The criticisms directed at three notable targets will help to illustrate the range of this emboldened advocacy, and their contributions to the reciprocal stance on the core issues of: what people should care about; what people should believe; and what actions people should decide to take in governing society. The first target was the egoistic use of absolute moral authority by the church. While early Christianity accorded high respect to the Golden Rule and encouraged people to love others in their communities as they would wish to be loved by them, the papacy kept accumulating greater worldly power and wealth even as they told impoverished people to focus on living by the strict rules and rituals that would give them a chance to attain a good afterlife. One humanist critic, Erasmus (1466–1536), exposed the hypocrisy of church officials through his satirical writings such as In Praise of Folly, wherein the goddess Folly, daughter of Plutus, the god of wealth, showed how superficially religious people would happily go along with her and indulge in self-love, flattery, indolence, and countless other vices. Instead of leading a life that one would not reproach others for leading, the supposed moral leaders of the church betrayed the faith the masses placed in them. In Julius Excluded from Heaven, Erasmus even lampooned papal abuse of power with a dialogue of Pope Julius II arguing with St Peter for permission to enter heaven, but who was ultimately refused entry because of his lifelong disdain for the wellbeing of other people. For Erasmus, we should all follow the principle of reciprocity in caring for each other,

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and when those in powerful church positions persistently violated that principle, they would no longer have any moral authority. The second target was the egoistic use of absolute epistemic authority by the scholastic universities. Medieval educational institutions were tasked with setting out definitively the knowledge contained in the Bible, leading Christian theologians, and a few approved pre-Christian thinkers. What was authorised as true in accordance with their interpretations of the selected texts was then regarded as unquestionable. Any claim that contradicted or cast doubt over the declared truth would be deemed false, or even heretical. Such a conception of knowledge was completely unacceptable to Theophrastus von Hohenheim (1493–1541), a pioneer in medical science who referred to himself as ‘Paracelsus’ (‘beyond Celsus’), because ancient texts on medicine such as those written by Celsus fifteen hundred years previously should not be assumed to have all the answers. Against the prevailing approach of not challenging what had been laid down by the scholastic hierarchy, Paracelsus travelled across Europe to discuss with, not just other academics, but also practitioners who had dealt with the sick, operated on the wounded, and tried out different substances to test their healing powers. For him, it made no sense to refuse to learn from the relevant insights and experiences of others when we would certainly wish others to learn from ours. His insistence on examining accounts of actual experiences instead of relying solely on ‘unquestionable’ texts encouraged others to follow his example, but it also made him enemies in high places. The third target was the egoistic use of absolute political authority by unreliable rulers. The Italian city states had shown that they could govern themselves without a monarchical figure wielding hereditary power. But without sustained vigilance, they were vulnerable to authoritarian takeovers. Even Florence, a beacon of republican governance, had by 1434 succumbed to the dominance of the Medici family. Although the city managed to rid itself of the Medicis in 1494 and reassert republican rule, the expelled family with the help of Pope Julius II (the one mocked by Erasmus) and his troops took control of Florence again in 1512. Machiavelli (1469–1527) who became a key public official of the republic before he was arrested, tortured and exiled by the Medicis, drew on his extensive historical knowledge and personal experiences to set out two critical lessons. First, republican rule which spreads power amongst the people for the

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common good is preferable to any form of absolute rule, because when those in charge of a republic go against the interests of the people, they can be peacefully removed from office, but those with absolute power are not just more susceptible to think only of their own ambitions and gratification at the expense of everyone else, they are unlikely to give up control without a realistic threat of being overthrown (Machiavelli 1970). Secondly, to establish or maintain a republic, leaders must not simply act in the service of the people who are themselves willing to serve their country, they must also be prepared to use force, threats and deception to deal with those who would have no compunction in undermining the republic with such means9 (Machiavelli 2011). By early sixteenth century, there were clear signs that the egoisticabsolutist outlook at the heart of authoritarian rule was challenged on all fronts. However, a major obstacle stood in the way of a full-scale communitarian alternative being formulated. The criticisms of the status quo, as we have seen, were deployed by individuals acting mostly alone without any form of organisational infrastructure. It was all too easy for them to be ignored. Erasmus’ calm entreaty and witty satire made little impact on changing the moral culture of the Catholic Church. Instead it was the likes of Luther and Calvin who launched the campaign for Reformation, which brought about the establishment of Protestant top-down hierarchies and the fuelling of the Counter-Reformation that reinforced papal absolutism. The ethos of mutual love and thoughtfulness favoured by Erasmus remained peripheral and rootless. Paracelsus fared little better; although he attracted a cult-like following amongst a few enthusiasts, his insistence on empirical research was not always understood, and the constant need to move around to escape persecution meant he was never able to develop any permanent institutional base to challenge the abuse 9 Machiavelli

is often portrayed as an advocate for the ruthless use of power to pursue one’s political ambition. He was in fact a consistent champion of the republican ideal which opposes personal and absolute rule. As for his stark reminders about the need to respond in kind to those who would use violence and deception to destroy one’s country, we should not forget that these are injunctions every regime must realistically embrace when it is under threat from usurpers or invaders. The Second World War gave us many examples of what the Allies had to do to counter Nazi threats. One of the key positions Machiavelli held in Florence was that of Secretary of War in the midst of external threats.

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of epistemic authority. There was to be no Paracelsian opposition to the imprisonment of Galileo or the execution of Giordano Bruno for putting forward claims about the nature of the universe deemed unacceptable to those who allegedly knew everything. As for Machiavelli, while he survived torture by the Medicis, his fate for a long time was to be kept at arm’s length as a dangerous republican by egoistic-absolutist rulers, and condemned as an amoral strategist by those who did not have the burden of protecting their fellow citizens from ruthless enemies. His ideas on how a people can only be free if they are prepared to stand together to make their own decisions without bowing down to an overlord drifted to the margins (Skinner 1990b). Towards the end of the sixteenth century, however, isolated strands of proto-communitarian thinking began to come together when a series of radical changes created the cultural and institutional conditions for their systematic development and propagation in England. The Catholic Church lost its religious monopoly to a multitude of non-conformist sects as well as the official Protestant faith; a spirit of experimentation and adventurism was unleashed by successful defiance against Spanish hegemony; and a civil war fomented ideas about the dispensability of kings. We will now look at how the interweaving of those strands of thought guided the formulation of communitarian ideas that would become a major philosophical resource from then on.10

The Quest for Mutual Responsibility from More to Winstanley and Penn Thomas More (1478–1535) had an abiding concern with the abuse of power, not just when it was carried out by those with absolute political authority—as he bluntly pointed out in his historical critique of King Richard III (2005), but in everyday life when those with more resources 10The

Dutch revolt against Spain also fuelled civic republican and experimentalist ideas in the northern Netherlands, but these did not impact so substantially on the development of the key strands of communitarian thinking in subsequent centuries as did those emanating from England. For an overview of the intellectual development in the Netherlands in the period 1572–1650, see Israel (1995, chapter 24).

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and influence could treat others most appallingly. In his book, Utopia, he excoriated the gap between the rich who acquisitively kept amassing even more wealth for themselves, and the poor who had the unenviable choice of starving or stealing and thereby running the risk of being punished by death (2003). While he shared Erasmus’ proclivity for using satire to challenge prevailing practices, he differed from his friend in that he did not regard the ill treatment of the less fortunate as primarily a matter to be addressed by appealing to the conscience of the powerful. For him, laws and customs were vital to establish the appropriate conditions for fair interactions amongst the people. Human beings were not all out to exploit others, but neither were they saints who would care for others regardless. They would be willing to work together, and contribute to a system that would help them, provided they could be confident that others would contribute to the same degree. And the only reliable way to deliver that confidence was to have communities governed by enforceable rules compliance with which had become customary. In Utopia, More anticipated the critical question of what kind of rules would be necessary to achieve that task. Whether the ideas he put forward in the book were meant to provide a blueprint for the ideal society, or a concession to recognising how difficult it would be to embed mutual responsibility in the way we are governed, there is no disputing that More would prefer to see more reciprocal interactions and less exploitation in the world. As for the suggestions that the laws he proposed for Utopia were far too intrusive, harsh or complex, two things should be remembered. Looking back to the prevailing judicial practices of his time, including severe and even capital punishment for relatively petty crime, the arrangements of Utopia were in fact less harsh. Looking forward to regulatory development in the future, modern societies would be subject to even more complex rules and procedures to deal with an expanding range of issues such as planning control, traffic management, social security identification, and many others. More’s Utopia represented a move from sixteenth century England that would execute people for anything from stealing a chicken to displeasing the king, to a monarch-free commonwealth where rules were designed to

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deter people from what would genuinely undermine the stability and wellbeing of their community. Capital punishment might still be deployed, but only in more limited and defensible (in accordance with the objectives of collective security) circumstances. One could question the underlying assumption that only something approaching the Utopian arrangements would deliver the protection of all from neglect and exploitation. The limits on personal freedom had struck many as excessive. At one level, the response could be that since More’s model society had to manage on what by even his own contemporary standards were very basic provisions, stringent rules were necessary to ensure that all citizens play their part, and demands were aligned with what was being produced. A comparison with war time Britain and post-war rationing would show that it was hardly odd to specify in great details what work needed doing, how much food would be produced and consumed, or where people should live. At a deeper level, however, it could be asked why any society should limit itself to an austere existence when it could become more prosperous. More’s favourable disposition towards monastic living might explain his own readiness to contemplate such a way of life, but it would in itself hardly serve as a justification for it to be made the standard option for everyone. What is critical is More’s assessment that without a more communityfocused system, people will polarise into the arrogant and avaricious on the one hand, and the down-trodden and marginalised on the other. He could not readily see what other ways there were to transform human interactions (Davis 1981, pp. 41–62; Hankins 1996). This opened up an important challenge. Social thinkers and political activists could give up on More’s objectives altogether, or they could try to find a more workable alternative to take forward the quest for mutual responsibility.11 One key figure who sought to advance on More’s thinking was Gerrard Winstanley (1609–1676). As the leader of the group known as ‘Diggers’, he had led an experiment in establishing community relations that would enable all members to respect and support one another fairly. The Diggers

11 Given

the approach More adopted for Utopia in which Hythlodaeus tells others about how this hitherto undiscovered society works, and the character of More himself then expresses reservations about it, it is quite possible that More intended the Utopian model as a hypothesis to provoke others into coming up with further ideas to secure mutual responsibility in society.

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would encamp on uncultivated land and attempt to turn it into a productive source of living for all those who worked collaboratively on it. But the rich who had a legal claim to such land would have the Diggers beaten and chased away. Magistrates would side with the landowners, and after repeated disappointment, Winstanley reviewed his options and published in 1652 an exposition of a new way forward under the title, The Law of Freedom in a Platform (1973). Instead of relying on some form of moral anarchism whereby people would gather spontaneously to work on land cooperatively and peacefully, Winstanley recognised, as More had done, that some of those with a lot of land would more likely keep advancing their own interests at the expense of others, while some without anything might also seek to take advantage of others if given the chance. His conclusion was that laws must be brought in to guarantee land for all. Moreover, the lawmakers, administrators, and enforcers of the law must be subject to elections with annual ballots to consolidate accountability; and education should be provided to explain why and how people should make a living through the efforts they put in to the cultivation of land made available to them. Winstanley set out sixty-two laws to anticipate violations and disputes so that it would be clear to everyone that there was no escape from fulfilling one’s obligations to sustain the common good. There would be no freerider, not because of any miraculous eradication of temptations to cheat or exploit, but because the rule of law would see to it. After earlier times when he thought a few small groups of individuals could by their own efforts establish fair-minded communities, Winstanley came to accept that people were inherently different—some were wise but others foolish; some were laborious but others idle; some were loving while some were envious; and although some were of an inclination to do as they would have others do to them, there were those who would be quite content to live in fullness while others perish for want (Winstanley 1973). Only laws enacted with the core aim of spreading resources and enforcing responsibilities could steer people, whatever their dispositions might otherwise be, towards acting in a mutually supportive way. While Winstanley appealed in vain to Cromwell to bring in his proposed system, his experiences and arguments kept afloat the belief that social and political reforms held the key to better community life. Promoting the

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values of mutual concern—loving thy neighbours as thou would have them love one—was vital, but the conditions for living in accordance with such values could only be created by changes to the law. It was not surprising that Winstanley eventually became a Quaker. In the seventeenth century, the Society of Friends stood out from both authoritarian moralists (be they from the Church of England or the Catholic Church), and spiritualist groups who just wanted to detach themselves from anyone not sharing their faith. This band of non-conformists were inspired by the ideas of George Fox (1624–1691) in wanting to see distinctions based on power and wealth cast aside, and everyone being treated with equal respect and due consideration12 (Fryer 1991). It was the Quaker, William Penn (1644–1718) who was able to take a significant step beyond More’s imaginative hypothesis and Winstanley’s reform proposals. Penn’s father was an admiral of the British navy and was owed a substantial amount of money by the Crown. After the elder Penn died, William suggested that in lieu of payment in cash, he was prepared to accept a stretch of uncultivated land to the west of the Delaware in Britishheld North America. He wanted to establish an area where people fearful of religious persecution or simply seeking a new life away from prevailing hardship and injustice, could move to. King Charles II, informed of the shortage of funds in the treasury, was more than happy to pay off the debt with what at the time was mostly worthless wilderness owned by the Crown. In 1681 William Penn took possession of the land and founded the Province of Pennsylvania.13 Penn was thus able to carry out a large-scale social experiment in creating the conditions for mutually respectful and responsible living (Hepworth Dixon 1902). Pennsylvania was open to not only his fellow Quakers from England, but people of all faiths and nationalities. In place of the then common practice of taking by trickery or violence what was available to or made by Native Americans, Penn ensured any transaction was done 12 For example, Quakers would greet everyone in the same respectful way, with neither greater deference towards those with supposedly ‘higher’ status in society, nor disdain towards those in the alleged ‘lower’ stations in life. And as they would want others to help them if they should find themselves under unfortunate circumstance, they are committed to helping others who are afflicted by unfortunate circumstance. 13 William wanted to call the province ‘Sylvania’ but King Charles II insisted on changing it to ‘Pennsylvania’ as a tribute to the old admiral who had served England honourably.

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peacefully, transparently, and on terms all concerned would find acceptable. Where land was acquired through purchase, for example, from the Lenape, the latter would retain the right to travel through the area to hunt, fish, and gather fruit and plants. As the population steadily grew, Penn anticipated the need for rules by devising a system of governance which would protect all citizens from exploitation by a powerful few, and enable them to play their part to secure and sustain their commonwealth. Unlike More and Winstanley who tried to fix every possible problem they could think of with rigid legal prescriptions, Penn adopted a more open and flexible approach.14 He put in place forty provisional laws, covering matters such as the application of capital punishment to only cases of treason and murder, and the forbidding of activities such as getting drunk or gambling. But he insisted that these could be changed by the people in the light of future experience. To facilitate this, he divided the power of government between a council and an assembly, both elected by universal suffrage. Even the constitution itself could be amended by generations to come. By the late seventeenth century, Pennsylvania came closer than anywhere else on earth in demonstrating that people did not have to revert to the most primitive simplicity to live in a community structured politically and culturally for mutually responsible interactions. It also proved that such a community could function without being permanently constrained by rigid laws. However, its very openness brought its own problems. In time, some Pennsylvanian families wanted to jettison what they felt were idealistic goals of the province’s founder that were getting in the way of their own wealth accumulation. They were aware that they could form alliances to contest and win seats in government, and change the laws to suit themselves. Nothing in Penn’s system could prevent that. He had assumed that if people were left to think about the options put before them, they would make the correct choice. But it was an assumption that had to be revisited. 14 Penn

was disposed to embrace a deliberative approach reminiscent of Quakers meetings where anyone with something relevant to say would be welcome to contribute. In designing the framework of government for Pennsylvania, Penn was also helped by his friend, the civic republican Algernon Sydney, whom we will look at in the penultimate section of this chapter, ‘The Quest for Citizen Participation from the Levellers to Harrington and Sydney ’.

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The Quest for Cooperative Enquiry from Bacon to Wilkins and the Royal Society While Penn’s hope that people would find the right answer by themselves was undermined by the absence of a dependable belief-evaluation system, it was not feasible to put one’s faith in some utopian scheme that would deliver all the answers in one guaranteed package either. The only way out of this impasse is to deal with the epistemological problem head on. We have seen how Paracelsus argued that observation and experiments were indispensable to the evaluation of knowledge claims, but his medical findings were not systematically developed and he was constantly in danger of persecution as an isolated advocate for questioning old assumptions. The failure of Paracelsus’ scattered followers to build on his ideas, especially when many of them veered towards haphazard experimentation and alchemist indulgence, along with the dogmatic attitudes that continued to pervade scholastic universities,15 led Francis Bacon (1561–1626) to come up with a radical new approach (Urbach 1987; Tam 2018, pp. 111–119). His starting point was the embedding of the experimental approach in every form of epistemic exploration, into a robust and open institutional network. He recognised that the gathering of observations and findings from diverse sources was vital to inform the development of ideas, and once claims were formulated, their veracity could only be assessed by testing them against the evidence from carefully recorded experiences and organised experiments. Furthermore, such research could not be sustained by isolated individuals ignoring the work done by others, or by groups where some could pressure or induce others into agreeing with them. Bacon proposed that the sovereign regime of a country should invest sufficient resources into the setting up and running of the requisite institutions to provide an independent foundation to facilitate collaborative and impartial research over time. Although funded by the state, research institutions will exercise their own judgement without having to defer to what political leaders may 15 Bacon, in line with the critical attitudes emerging with late Renaissance humanists such as Juan Luis Vives (1493–1540), objected to the scholastic tendency to declare assertions in Aristotle’s writings as definitive ‘knowledge’ (Tuck 1990).

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want them to say. In his book, New Atlantis, Bacon went so far as to suggest that publicly funded researchers might have a duty to withhold information from the state if in their assessment that information could be used improperly.16 Throughout his writings Bacon stressed that the evaluation of knowledge claims was not something any individual could do as a one-off exercise. It would require many people on an on-going basis to gather relevant information, to review evidence, make new observations, devise and conduct experiments, frame hypotheses to be tested out under different conditions, if we are to be assured that our conclusions about what we are to believe at any time are sound. This approach is the precursor of what will later come to be known as a ‘community of enquiry’, whereby enquirers will cooperate with each other in sharing, criticising, and re-examining ideas and claims in order to help each other attain a better understanding of what stands up well to systematic empirical scrutiny.17 But while no one should be excluded from taking part in information gathering or evidence reporting on account of their social status or any other factor which has no bearing on the task in hand, individuals wishing to engage in cooperative enquiry effectively should be aware of potential barriers to clear thinking that ought to be overcome. Bacon referred to these barriers as ‘Idols’ for they could wrongly seize people’s attention and prevent them from seeing correctly what was before them. Four types of Idol in particular were highlighted. • Idols of the Tribe: faulty ideas embraced through the human tendency to jump to conclusion without thinking critically about them. For example, believing thunder is caused by the gods since it appears to be an explanation. • Idols of the Cave: personal prejudices and flawed assumptions one has developed in one’s own mind. For example, assuming all people with 16This

was certainly a major issue for many German scientists carrying out research when the Nazis were in power. 17The ‘community of enquiry’ approach was most closely associated with C. S. Peirce (1839–1914) and John Dewey (1859–1952). Dewey traced his development of these ideas back to Bacon’s philosophy, and was in turn the key influence on Matthew Lipman (1923–2010) who applied them to the education of children in reasoning skills.

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red hair are unpleasant because one has once been badly treated by a red-haired person. • Idols of the Marketplace: deception engendered through communication techniques that use words to mislead. For example, buying some trinket at a high price because the seller presents it as a unique treasure. • Idols of the Theatre: dogmas presented like a stage play to convince people of the truth of doctrines which have no basis in reality. For example, accepting ancient texts on medicine as absolutely correct since they have been greeted by others as unquestionable. In order to counter such idols, we need education to enhance our reasoning skills, and opportunities to interact with others so that false and misguided assumptions are more likely to be exposed. Above all, we need collaborative efforts to devise theories and experiments to test those theories. In one of Bacon’s favourite analogies, people who keep gathering information without doing anything more with it are like ants that merely store what they have collected, while scholastics in their ivory towers resemble spiders that spin web out of themselves. For Bacon, knowledge could only expand if we were more like bees in working with the materials we have brought together and transforming them into something more valuable. This involves the development of expert abilities in synthesising the raw data, cross-checking the evidence, and coming up with theories that are then tested for their reliability in producing predictable results. If people want to claim that they ‘know’ about fire, for example, they should be able to predict what fire will do in different circumstances, start a fire under diverse conditions, and demonstrate that it behaves as forecast. How much we grant that they know is thus linked to how wide a range of predictions is put forward, how trying the tests, and how well the predicted outcomes are produced (Perez-Ramos 1988). Given the vast scope for knowledge expansion as envisaged in Bacon’s The Advancement of Learning (1973), there will be an ever growing number of branches of research each calling for its own expertise. The onus will be on the specialists in each field to demonstrate to others by their productive experimentation and verifiable findings that they are better placed in that field to pass judgment. Their peers in that field will provide on-going

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support and scrutiny in maintaining critical reviews to ensure reports and findings are not corrupted by those Idols of the mind. Members of communities where researchers regularly conduct such cooperative enquiry will be able to access well thought through assessments of what they should believe. Their government will realise their policy proposals have to square with independent assessments. And the impact of implemented policies will be revealed by future studies. A key figure who helped to turn this vision of reasoned human interactions into institutional form was John Wilkins (1614–1672), warden of Wadham College at the University of Oxford.18 Although he found the dogmatisation of Aristotle’s ideas by scholastic philosophers most unfortunate in stunting the development of scientific knowledge, he appreciated that Aristotle himself in his time oversaw substantial research work with others to bring together the findings that informed his theories. The key was to keep researching and revising, and not falling into the trap of assuming that every question of importance had been definitively answered. Wilkins took advantage of England’s greater readiness to consider new thinking in the post-Civil War era, and built up a network of leading researchers. In the 1650s, the Commonwealth’s Council of State invited proposals to reform the country’s schools; Parliament set up its own Committee for the Advancement of Learning; a College of Physicians was set up in Edinburgh; and an English newspaper even printed the first ever article on the possibility of developing a flying machine (Hill 1965, p. 120). In this climate, Wilkins was able to make progress on three closely related fronts. First, he set out a clear and consistent plan for an association that would be dedicated to systematic experimental research and learning. There would be no appeal to the occult or reliance on sacred texts, but ideas and theories submitted for consideration must be subject to empirical tests and open criticisms. Secondly, he ensured that the plan would never be about the work of any single individual, but an evolving group of thinkers who would collaborate and advance learning together. He drew into his circle leading minds such as Robert Boyle, William Petty, Seth

18 Wilkins was a great admirer of Bacon’s philosophy. In 1638, he published The Discovery of a World

in the Moone, in which he put forward ideas about the physical nature of the moon, and how human beings could reach it with a vehicle propelled by sufficient force.

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Ward, John Wallis, Christopher Wren, and many others.19 Collectively, the respect they commanded meant that while an isolated individual like Giordano Bruno or Galileo might be picked off by an enemy with political power, Wilkin’s research group possessed too many friends and allies to be easily persecuted.20 Thirdly, he promoted an inclusive ethos via meetings, correspondence and collaborative projects that engaged diverse thinkers and experimenters regardless of their religious faiths, their allegiance during the Civil War, their status in society, or what country they were from (Purver 1967). Following the Restoration, Wilkins enlisted the help of a member of his group with good Royalist credentials to secure the support of King Charles II, and received a charter to establish the group as the Royal Society.21 The new organisation soon became a model to other researchers across Europe. The use of cooperative enquiry was recognised as a reliable path for scientific investigations because, above all, it was structured for repeated testing of its reliability. Other approaches may proclaim themselves inspired or unquestionable, but in refusing to open themselves to meaningful tests by others, they close themselves off from any means of gaining public credibility. The Royal Society demonstrated how disagreement over what people should believe could be resolved without one side being made to submit that the other was unquestionable. On the contrary, the focus was on mutual questioning. This would be done by stating one’s claim in clear language, specifying as far as possible what its truth would entail and what would expose its falsity, recounting one’s evidence from observations and experiments to back the claim, and inviting others both to check on the evidence put forward and produce their own evidence in relation to the veracity of the claim. In parallel with offering one’s claims for critical scrutiny by others, one would also consider the claims and theories of others to see if they provide more helpful and simpler explanations. Once a community of cooperative enquirers is in place, those involved can concentrate on searching for relevant evidence, arguments, and interpretations 19The

once popular assumption that the Royal Society was founded by people who adhered to Puritanical ideas and practices was overturned by Lewis S. Feuer (1992, Chapter 2, pp. 23–82). 20 Others who joined later included Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton. 21 Wilkins himself was Cromwell’s brother-in-law.

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to test out what most warrant their assent, and not divert their attention to getting powerful people to intervene in backing their assertions. Although the establishment of the Royal Society was formally approved by the monarch, Charles II was not asked to endorse any particular theory developed by members of the society, or get involved in settling any dispute between rival claims. With royal recognition of the organisation and its deliberative ethos, it could not be dismissed as irrelevant or pressurised into backing groundless claims. This gave encouragement to seventeenth century Baconians to spread the culture of cooperative enquiry to ever more areas of life involving the expansion of learning and resolution of conflicting beliefs.They had always maintained that rejecting the dogmatic authority of a few did not mean that the unreliable beliefs of uninformed people would have to be accepted as the only alternative. Instead, they would promote the development of open and collaborative research so that rulers and ruled alike could access findings on a wide range of issues to guide them in reviewing different claims about the world—from natural sciences to social policies.

The Quest for Citizen Participation from the Levellers to Harrington and Sidney Seventeenth century England was at the forefront of experimenting with a wide range of ideas and practices for re-organising how people would interact with others morally, rationally, and politically. It came up with new forms of community life that offered great promise but their limitations would nonetheless weigh down the flight of optimism. In founding Pennsylvania, William Penn put forward the model for a community of mutual responsibility, but in allowing rules and practices to change with time, the door was left open for some settlers to acquire more land and power than others, and use their superior bargaining position to strike asymmetric deals with poorer settlers and Native Americans. In time, the wealthier families would keep accumulating more through rent

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and profit, while the gap widened between them and those who had barely enough to live on.22 In establishing the Royal Society, John Wilkins and his colleagues were able to showcase their model of a community of cooperative enquiry. Yet its approach was rarely replicated elsewhere. Its concern for the advancement of human knowledge was largely confined to the natural sciences. When it came to religious, moral, and political matters, others with distinct authority unconnected with any kind of empirical research would go on declaring what was true or false. If mutual responsibility and cooperative enquiry were both to be embedded in community life generally, members of any given community must all be able to have an informed say about what rules and policies would govern their lives. They should be able to anticipate threats that would polarise society into the have-lots and have-little, and call for actions to avert them. They ought to have the opportunity to challenge institutionalised ignorance and bias, and demand the extension of objective research to underpin claims and commands that affect their lives. The challenge to find a way to connect the people to the power that can make decisions for all might have been dismissed as another utopian wish at any other time, but when the English Civil War turned into a political revolution,23 it became the central issue. The advocates known as the Levellers argued that the issue could not be just about limiting the power of a hereditary ruler, but the question of how power was distributed across the country must also be addressed.24 While the war against King Charles I had been presented by many parliamentarians as necessary so that the elected representatives of the people could stop the monarch from misruling the country, the Levellers—many of whom took up arms on Parliament’s side—warned that the underlying problem 22The

Quakers’ vision of a broadly equal society was to drift further and further away from reality. By 2017, according to US poverty data from Talk Poverty, Pennsylvania had a child poverty rate of 18%, which placed it 28th on the list of US states ranked from the lowest child poverty rate to the highest: https://talkpoverty.org/state-year-report/pennsylvania-2017-report/. 23 Unlike civil wars where rivals seek to claim the power to rule, challengers to King Charles I in the 1640s were also contesting how the system for ruling should be radically changed (Hill 1955, 1965). 24The major writers amongst the Levellers included Richard Overton (1599–1664); John Lilburne (1614–1657); and William Walwyn (1600–1681). See Brailsford (1976) and Sharp (1998).

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would not be solved if absolute power was simply shifted from the king to Parliament, or worse, to Cromwell the Protector. Accordingly, they pressed for radical improvements to the structure of governance. Whereas Magna Carta was about securing concessions from the king to the aristocratic barons, the Levellers put forward An Agreement of the People (Sharp 1998, pp. 92–101) on behalf of everyone living under the jurisdiction of the government. It demanded that all men aged twenty-one and over should have a vote in deciding who would represent them in parliament.25 No one should be granted special privileges above the law. There would be no executive authority to require compliance from the public without a relevant law having been enacted. And no law should discriminate against anyone on the grounds of their faith. Richard Overton (1599–1664) explained that their demands were not based on some abstract conception of an ideal state of affairs, but related historically to how in earlier times all members of communities were able to help each other live a decent life and share decisions that affected their common wellbeing. The Norman Conquest, in particular, had allowed an invader to amass land and fortune, and create a hierarchy that would facilitate the exercise of arbitrary power against the general population.26 In his work, A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens, Overton criticised those with wealth and influence under the prevailing system: ‘Ye are rich and abound in goods and have need of nothing; but the afflictions of the poor – your hunger-starved brethren – ye have no compassion of ’ (1998, p. 47). He pointed out that what was in effect the enslavement of the people by unaccountable rulers could only be overturned when the people themselves were in a position to put an end to the abuse of power. For example, laws must only be passed by representatives who were regularly accountable to the people through annual elections. Money must not be allowed to corrupt the administration of justice, and favourable decisions should never be sold or bought by anyone. The poor should be 25They

were not sufficiently ahead of their time to call for the vote for women as well. In leaving out servants and those receiving alms, they fell short of even universal male suffrage (Macpherson 1962). However, their position was nonetheless well in advance of what the Cromwellians were prepared to concede. 26 Overton’s historical analysis might not be accurate in every detail, but overall, pre-Norman England was less unequal and separated by the status and wealth acquired by the military chiefs who backed William I.

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protected, and not imprisoned for debt or arbitrarily forced to fight in the army or navy. And it would not be enough for those with power to profess their support for the freedom of belief and worship while handing a virtual monopoly to particular printing presses that would misrepresent and attack other faiths.27 Overton’s stance illustrates how dissatisfaction with the degeneration from a more reciprocal past is not necessarily a call to return to some past ‘golden age’, but in his case, a demand for building a different and more inclusive future.28 The Levellers’ reform programme was rejected by Cromwell and his supporters. It would appear that those with wealth and power would not relinquish either, so the quest for citizen participation could be doomed from the start. To deal with this challenge differently, James Harrington (1611–1677) came up with an innovative approach. In his book, The Commonwealth of Oceana (1992), he argued that while those with a greater share of wealth in any community would tend to acquire greater power over others, there might be a time lapse. At any given time, those who had secured political power through their previous wealth acquisition might find that others were in the process of obtaining an equal, if not even bigger, share of the wealth available. When the second group grew wealthier, they would not be content with being inferior in power to the first group. The first group, fearing the loss of their status might then act to keep the others from flexing their economic muscles which would very likely help them, according to Harrington, gain greater political strength. The unlikelihood of either side compromising, as witnessed in the recent civil war, suggested to Harrington that the dynamics of economic changes would lead to destructive conflicts unless wealth and power were put into a state of equilibrium. One option would be to hinder the wealthgenerating capability of any section of society outside the current ruling elite, but this would deprive the country of increased prosperity, and risk

27 Overton was referring to Presbyterian printing presses. His point is still relevant in modern times, not just in relation to one-party states, but also to countries where plutocrats buy up the vast majority of media outlets and use that dominance to distort facts and spread lies about scapegoats and political enemies. 28 Overton cited the past to illustrate how human relations were damaged, and his arguments were focussed on how new arrangements were needed to repair the damages and offer better protection in the future. See also Zagorin (1997, pp. 19–25).

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long term damages.29 Harrington’s recommendation was to establish a two-fold balance. First, the resources for generating wealth—which, for him was land—should be evenly distributed between the main sections or classes of society.30 This would ensure all concerned had the incentive and capacity to make themselves and their country more prosperous without worrying that others might have an unfair advantage over them. Secondly, political power should be evenly divided between the economically wellbalanced sections and classes in society. This would mean that people are given the share of political power proportionate to their share of economic wealth, and would have little hope—and hence, desire—to strive to gain more political power than their share of economic strength would enable them to secure. In Oceana, Harrington put forward details on the machinery of government for sustaining the balance of power at all levels. These included routine rotation of offices, division of the state into administrative units of equal size, and separation of legislative functions between one chamber that would deliberate and put forward proposals, and another one that would receive proposals and vote on accepting or rejecting them. But these were all devised on the basis that a comprehensive restructuring of wealthgenerating resources would ensure that no single section or class in society could effectively pressurise others into allowing it to monopolise political power. While the specifics of Harrington’s proposals have divided opinions over their likely impact on seventeenth century England,31 he undeniably broadened the demands for equal civic participation by arguing that without a sufficient economic platform to seek or maintain political power, real influence could not be attained by those on the margins of a wealth-framed hierarchy.

29 Arguably, this was what communist regimes such as the former Soviet Union and pre-Deng China

sought to do to prevent a wealthy class of business people emerging to challenge the ruling regime, but consequently, their countries became economically weak compared with commercially more active nations. 30The balance is conceived not on the basis of individual citizens, but in relation to classes of people. For Harrington, if fewer than five thousand families were able to own more land than the rest of the country, it would very likely mean that these powerful families could dictate terms to others. 31 For more on Harrington’s agrarian policies, see Davis (1981, pp. 232–236) and Macpherson (1962, pp. 162–190).

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Another critical aspect to the quest for citizen-focused governance was brought to the foreground by Algernon Sidney (1623–1683) who insisted that systematic vigilance was essential for members of a community to retain their ability to shape their own lives.32 In addition to expanding the right to vote and placing limits on executive powers, he warned that people must be encouraged and empowered to keep a constant watch on what those with political authority might do, and hold them to account. In The Discourses Concerning Government (Sidney 1996), he used the language of rights as a marker for entitlement to respect and protection in being a member of a free community. People could seize what was valuable, including from others, regardless of wider consequences if there were no laws to govern behaviour; and liberty could only be guaranteed through people’s compliance with laws that respected and protected all members of the community. Like the Levellers, Sidney drew lessons from the historical experience of actual communities rather than argued from an abstract conception of the state of nature. Communities developed laws that served them so long as those charged with legislation and enforcement were aware that they could not depart from that duty without others taking them to task. As soon as the people of England lowered their guard and allowed power to be concentrated in a few, or even just one person, excesses and arbitrary rule escalated until ‘they could not be repressed without great danger’ (Sidney 1996, p. 477). To avoid having to resort to violent uprisings to end tyranny, Sidney offered a two-step remedy. First of all, the legislature must be made wholly dependent on the consent of the people, and enshrined as superior to the executive.33 Executive functions would be spread out so that those in charge of the courts, for example, should be completely separate from those in command of the military. No one with executive powers were to be allowed to alter laws enacted by the legislature. Even in the case of a national emergency, the executive must ask the legislature to convene and decide what was to be done. Secondly, based on this system, the people 32 During his exile in the Netherlands, Sidney shared ideas with figures such as Jan de Witt, the Dutch republican leader, and Benjamin Furly, the influential Rotterdam Quaker (Ward 2004, p. 194). 33 Sidney referred to the executive as the magistrate.

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must be reminded through everyday learning and annual parliamentary elections that they should scrutinise their representatives in the legislature and make sure they fulfil their role in deliberating what should be done for the good of all citizens. They must not allow their representatives to concede power to the executive, because down the path of diminished vigilance, unaccountable rule would emerge. It was essential for every member of the community to actively keep check on their representatives, who would in turn ensure the executive does not usurp power.The ultimate rationale was that of reciprocity: ‘I cannot reasonably expect to be defended from wrong, unless I oblige my self to do none’ (Sidney 1996, p. 548). And it would be very wrong for any citizen to abdicate from the civic duty to protect the commonwealth.

Hobbessian, Lockean, or Communitarian Most histories of political ideas regard the seventeenth century as the dawn of modern thinking, but conventional accounts tend to focus on Thomas Hobbes and John Locke as the most important figures of the era. Hobbesian absolutism and Lockean individualism are then presented as the main options bequeathed to subsequent ages to consider. But other than submitting unreservedly to an unquestionable ruler for the sake of preserving oneself, or ensuring that rulers’ role is limited to meeting the objectives defined by the representatives of property owners, there are many related strands of communitarian ideas that go beyond these two positions in mapping out a different political philosophy (Skinner 1992). Based on the three core elements identified for communitarian thinking in Chapter 1, we can see that ideas relating to these elements were not only substantially developed in the 1600s, they were also beginning to be connected to each other as a result of their advocates’ shared experience of the causes and consequences of the English Civil War. One notable trend emerging around this time was the shift from cautious utopian exposition that nudged readers to think about different forms of community life, to bold reformist proposals to change social practices and power relations. Towards the end of the century, Penn had launched a large-scale experiment in establishing a new kind of community that would promote mutual

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responsibility without any form of discrimination. Wilkins and colleagues had established the Royal Society as a model for cooperative enquiry. And Sidney’s execution, following his trial for treason where his Discourses Concerning Government was outrageously cited by the prosecution as a key ‘witness’, inspired a new generation of republican activists to demand greater democratic empowerment even after the concessions won from the monarchy as a result of the 1688 revolution. In the next century, these ideas and practices were to become even more influential in shaping the further development of a reciprocity-based vision of society. In Chapter 3, we turn our attention to the key aspects of this development and their implications for the advancement of a communitarian way of life.

References Bacon, F. (1973). The Advancement of Learning (G. W. Kitchin, Ed.). London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Baron, H. (1955). The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bock, G., Skinner, Q., & Viroli, M. (Eds.). (1990). Machiavelli and Republicanism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brailsford, H. N. (1976). The Levellers and the English Revolution. Nottingham: Spokesman. Dash, M. (2011). Emperor Wang Mang: China’s First Socialist? The Smithsonian. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/emperor-wang-mangchinas-first-socialist-2402977/. Davis, J. C. (1981). Utopia & the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing 1516–1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Everdell, W. R. (2000). The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Feuer, L. S. (1992). The Scientific Intellectual: The Psychological and Sociological Origins of Modern Science. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Fryer, J. (Ed.). (1991). George Fox and the Children of the Light. London: Kyle Cathie.

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Hankins, J. (1996). Humanism and the Origins of Modern Political Thought. In J. Kraye (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism (pp. 118–141). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harrington, J. (1992). The Commonwealth of Oceana (J. G. A. Pocock, Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hepworth Dixon, W. (1902). A History of William Penn: Founder of Pennsylvania. New York: New Amsterdam Book. Hill, C. (1955). The English Revolution, 1640. Dagenham: Lawrence & Wishart. Hill, C. (1965). Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Honohan, I. (2002). Civic Republicanism. Abington: Routledge. Israel, J. I. (1995). The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477–1806. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Machiavelli, N. (1970). The Discourses. London: Pelican Books. Machiavelli, N. (2011). The Prince. London: Penguin Classics. Macpherson, C. B. (1962). The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Oxford: Oxford University Press. More, T. (2003). Utopia (P. Turner, Trans.). London: Penguin Classics. More, T. (2005). The History of King Richard the Third. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Overton, R. (1998). A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens. In Sharp (1998), pp. 33–53. Perez-Ramos, A. (1988). Francis Bacon’s Idea of Science and the Maker’s Knowledge Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Purver, M. (1967). The Royal Society: Concept and Creation. Cambridge: MIT Press. Rawson, E. (1983). Cicero: A Portrait. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Rubinstein, N. (1990). Machiavelli and Florentine Republican Experience. In Bock et al. (1990), pp. 3–16. Sharp, A. (Ed.). (1998). The English Levellers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sidney, A. (1996). The Discourses Concerning Government (T. West, Ed.). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund Classics. Skinner, Q. (1990a). Machiavelli’s Discorsi and the Pre-humanist Origins of Republican Ideas. In Bock et al. (1990), pp 121–142. Skinner, Q. (1990b). The Republican Ideal of Political Liberty. In Bock et al. (1990), pp. 293–309.

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Skinner, Q. (1992). On Justice, the Common Good and the Priority of Liberty. In C. Mouffe (Ed.), Dimensions of Radical Democracy (pp. 211–224). London: Verso. Steel, C. (2013). The End of the Roman Republic 146 to 44 BC. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Tam, H. (2018). What Should Citizens Believe? Sheffield: Citizen Network. Tuck, R. (1990). Humanism and Political Thought. In A. Goodman & A. MacKay (Eds.), The Impact of Humanism on Western Europe (pp. 43–65). Harlow: Longman. Urbach, P. (1987). Francis Bacon’s Philosophy of Science. La Salle: Open Court. Ward, L. (2004). The Politics of Liberty in England and Revolutionary America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Winstanley, G. (1973). The Law of Freedom and Other Writings (C. Hill, Ed.). London: Penguin Books. Zagorin, P. (1997). A History of Political Thought in the English Revolution. Bristol: Thoemmes Press.

3 Towards Enlightened Communities: The Eighteenth Century

The Transformation of Communities The eighteenth century is commonly associated with the rise of modernity in the West, and one of its key characteristics is meant to be a bold individualism that cuts itself off from all traditional ties and social expectations. It is true that the socio-economic, cultural and intellectual currents of this era increasingly reinforced the outlook that individuals should think for themselves and question the roles and beliefs they were supposed to accept in line with prevailing customs. However, the changes did not follow a single pattern. Historians of the Enlightenment have pointed to contrasting trends and divergent views held by thinkers who were committed to varying degrees of political radicalism.1 Although there was one egoistic strand of thought that ran through the likes of Bernard Mandeville and Marquis de Sade, which championed the removal of restraints from individuals so each could act simply as one was inclined to do, it was far from prevalent.

1 See,

for example, Gay (1973), Israel (2001), Blom (2010), and Pagden (2013).

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Most other thinkers of the time had quite different ideas, and many of them argued for a transformation of community relations so that people could better flourish individually and collectively. For communitarian minded philosophers, people should neither blindly submit to some absolute demands on how they must behave, nor blithely act regardless of the consequences it might have for others. God, traditions, or loyalty to a leader could be invoked to sanctify a command for everyone to obey, just as they could be drawn on to justify an individual’s refusal to comply with particular requests from others. By themselves, such notions were open to conflicting interpretations and could not settle any dispute. To find a way forward where people could actually come together to resolve what behaviour should be required, what should be forbidden, and what should be left to individuals to choose, communities must be able to interact with reference to what everyone can experience. In other words, there can only be fruitful discussions about codes of behaviour and collective arrangements if people put aside any insistence on their own private, unquestionable beliefs, and focus on publicly sharable reasons and evidence. The starting point for such discourse was not some egoistic individualism, but a commitment to reciprocity. Baron d’Holbach, so often caricaturised as a godless materialist who assumed everyone must think only of one’s own self-interests, was in fact echoing many of his fellow philosophes when he wrote about the advice that should be given to others: ‘let him always recollect, that his solid happiness should rest its foundations upon its own esteem, upon the advantages he procures for others; above all, never let him for a moment forget, that of all the objects to which his ambition may point, the most impracticable for a being who lives in society, is that of attempting to render himself exclusively happy’ (1889, p. 149). In this chapter we will look at a number of influential figures of the Enlightenment era who devoted close attention to exploring how the different types of inter-connection between members of communities should be developed. In the previous century, a range of proposals had been advanced to integrate mutual responsibility, cooperative enquiry, and citizen participation into community life. The ideas formulated in the 1700s would help explain the philosophical basis for these proposals more clearly, and give them new impetus in reforming society culturally and politically.

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Empathic Communities: Shaftesbury and Hutcheson A routine retort to communitarian thinking is that it would trap its adherents in prevailing attitudes and practices regardless of how wrong these might be.2 But that begs the question of what constitutes ‘wrong’. Is something wrong only when a community has by itself shifted its outlook and condemned as wrong something it might have previously condoned or overlooked? Is wrongness to be identified by some absolutist intervention from a prophet or philosopher so that few would question the new assessment? Or as some radical individualists would insist, there is no right or wrong except for what each individual may deem it so? To understand the communitarian route out of this trichotomy, a closer examination of the basis for assigning moral attributes is needed. Shaftesbury (1671–1713)3 undertook this task at a time when his country, having endured a century and a half of recurring religious and political conflicts, was trying to find a new consensus on what should be praised or blamed in people’s interactions. Being familiar with the impasse generated by disputants who offered nothing but their allegiance to a particular doctrine or their own personal preference, Shaftesbury turned his attention to the nature of moral appraisal itself to see what would persuade people to adopt one view rather than another (1977). He began with experiences that everyone could relate to without being committed to any particular faith or doctrine. In any community, people would prefer to live amongst others who would treat them with respect and kindness, rather than those who might for no good reason insult or harm them. The behaviour of any individual is therefore of concern to others, not just in itself but also as an indicator of what kind of person is in the vicinity, which has a bearing on how others should act in return. Shaftesbury observed:

2 Some criticisms are based on the mistaken assumption that communitarian norms must be opposed

to universalistic morals and thus discriminate against minorities. See Bendor and Mookherjee (2008). Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, was the grandson of the first Earl of Shaftesbury, a key political figure during the English Civil War and the 1688 Revolution.

3 Anthony

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There is in reality no rational Creature whatsoever, who knows not that when he voluntarily offends or does harm to any-one, he cannot fail to create an Apprehension and Animosity in every Creature who observes him. So that the Offender must needs be conscious of being liable to such Treatment from every-one, as if he had in some degree offended All. (Shaftesbury 1977, para 74)

The natural inclination to welcome kindly and supportive behaviour, and recoil from threat and injury, leads people to back rules and customs that reinforce the favoured behavioural pattern. However, as people possess what Shaftesbury called ‘the faculty for reflection’, how these rules are framed and applied depend on more informed judgement. For example, people may follow the lead of a charlatan and act to the detriment of their community because they have been misled into thinking it would actually benefit their neighbours. In such a case, the deception needs to be exposed. People who desist once they realise they had been deceived would not be condemned. But those who carry on because they do not care about harming others would then be deserving of censure. For Shaftesbury, since human beings are not indifferent to how they would treat one another, and they have this reflective capacity to assess the motive, intent, and consequence of people’s behaviour, we can speak objectively about our moral sense of right and wrong. This moral sense must not be confused with some transcendental or innate power to determine the moral quality in people and events independently of their impact on human lives. It is a capability that, like other natural human attributes, would develop provided it is nurtured properly. With parental care, and the chance of growing up in a safe and stable environment, most would learn through experience to discern what merits praise and what deserves blame. So why would communities come to have certain rules or customs that are mistaken? The reason is connected with the complexities that accompany social development. In a relatively small and simple setting, what people do are straightforward and its effects on others can be readily observed. Those who reciprocate by fulfilling their basic duties as others fulfil theirs are recognised. Those who neglect their duties will be castigated, unless they have good reasons, in which case that would be noted and help instead

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of punishment would be offered. But with a greatly increased number of activities, social layers, and transactional arrangements, it would no longer be easy to link observed behaviour to its real implications. Shaftesbury cited two main threats, which in modern forms, are still pertinent today.4 The first one was any absolutist doctrine such as a religion5 that would demand total submission. The people who introduce a religious doctrine or develop it over time may deliberately or unwittingly bring in attitudinal or behavioural requirements that will hurt people guilty of nothing other than not subscribing to that doctrine. Shaftesbury was unequivocal in his indictment of such distortion of moral customs: For where-ever any thing, in its nature odious and abominable, is by Religion advanc’d, as the suppos’d Will or Pleasure of a Supreme Deity; if in the eye of the Believer it appears not indeed in any respect the less ill or odious on this account; then must the Deity of necessity bear the blame, and be consider’d as a Being naturally ill and odious, however courted, and solicited, thro Mistrust and Fear. But this is what Religion, in the main, forbids us to imagine. (Shaftesbury 1977, para 83)

He went on to say that any religion that taught people to love and admire odious and abominable attitudes and behaviour was ‘in itself horrid and detestable’. The second threat came from attempts to present self-centred behaviour as the only sound course to pursue.The libertine culture that was to spread in some quarters in the eighteenth century might celebrate wanton behaviour and the disregarding of others’ wellbeing. For Shaftesbury, this was not just a mistake because, instrumentally, negative dispositions towards others would most likely incur negative reactions from others, but more importantly, it would hamper one’s own moral development and thus be directly injurious to oneself. Shaftesbury’s argument is based on his interpretation of the need for positive inter-personal connections in human nature. His contention, largely vindicated by modern developmental psychology (Tomasello 2009), is that human beings seek to be in cooperative harmony with others. Whether 4 For

more on his explanation of how a ‘misconception’ of moral value may arise, see Shaftesbury (1977, paras 58–60). 5 Or from a modern perspective, any form of totalitarian state ideology.

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it is to be explained by the evolution of social behaviour or some other means, it is an irreducible fact that we feel truly happy and complete only when we deservingly have the love and goodwill of others. If we contribute to society, and yet we remain neglected on our own, we feel resentful. If we do nothing for others, and yet others mistakenly consider us worthy, we see ourselves as shameful frauds. Above all, we want to experience being helpful and useful to others, and others being in return kind and supportive towards us. The precise relation may vary with family ties, friendships, group fellowships, or broader social bonds, but in all cases, there will be a painful emptiness unless one can attain the approbation one merits from others.6 It would therefore be a misconception of our own nature to seek to gratify our own desires with no regard for others. We cannot separate out our concern for the public interest from that for our own because the otherregarding dimension is an integral part of our being. Some may argue that there are cases where individuals, as a result of trauma, neglect, or brain defects, have virtually no capacity for empathy, and they would not care about not attaining any form of love or appreciation from others. For Shaftesbury, such cases would evoke sadness from the general population precisely because what is lost is such a precious part of being human. And what should guide us in life ought to be based on what we generally are, not what is missing in a few unfortunate cases. Building on Shaftesbury’s ideas, Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746) developed his philosophy of moral evaluation (2015, 2018).7 Given that people cannot be indifferent to others’ behaviour, they will want to have rules and customs to increase the likelihood of everyone behaving appropriately. To achieve that, the rules and customs put in place must reflect our sense of what is acceptable and what is not. Human forms of life are not static, and as they change, new opportunities may arise for people to behave in ways that had not been previously considered. New doctrines and arguments may also be put forward about how we should live, and they challenge 6 Modern

psychology has found that deprivation of love and care as a child, or worst, the inflicting of physical and mental abuse, can disrupt the development of empathy and leave some victims incapable of caring, or even wanting to care about other people. 7 Hutcheson was also greatly influenced by the most communitarian-minded amongst the classical thinkers—Aristotle, Cicero and Marcus Aurelius (Scott 1992).

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us to reflect on whether or not some restrictions should be lifted, or if some proposed injunctions are misconceived, or worst, deliberately contrived to harm the innocent. Far from it being impossible for communities to learn and revise their moral outlook, history testifies to this common phenomenon. Rules and customs have always been subject to change. What Hutcheson wanted to explain was how our moral sense could guide us to revising these in line with a reflective understanding of the kind of society we would want to live in. His approach may be illustrated with how he tackled three particular issues. The first concerns the nature of prejudice. People can come to associate, for example, a certain type of action wrongly with notions of it being harmful even though it is in fact quite innocuous in itself. Hutcheson warned that such prejudice could arise by erroneous superstitious thinking or through false ideas being deliberately propagated. When such mistaken association of ideas is discerned, we should not accept it but promote its correction by carefully guiding those who subscribe to them to see that there is no evidence that the type of action in question brings harm to anyone at all (Hutcheson 1994, p. 40). A second area relates to that of the diversity of principles shaped by intense passions or temporary judgements. While our moral sense operating under reflective conditions will favour rules and customs that enhance the wellbeing of people and prevent harm to individuals, any given group may in a period of anger, grief, or excitement embrace extreme measures which in a calmer moment they would come to see as unwarranted. Similarly, there may be a consensus of opinions on what poses a threat to people at one time—justifying the current condemnation of that threat— but should evidence from future investigation or observation demonstrate that no real threat exists in connection with what is hitherto condemned, there would be a clear case for revising one’s moral position (Hutcheson 1994, pp. 96–97). Finally, there is the question about rights. Hutcheson considered rights as permissions granted to people to do, possess, or demand and obtain from others anything that they might seek ‘where we find no obstruction to the happiness of others, or to the common good’ (1994, p. 166). At any time, rights might be recognised in relation to the activities of an individual, a group of people, or human beings in general. Reassessment

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may be required when the impact on others turns out to be different from what was first assumed. So we might think granting the right to worship in any way one chooses is in order until we come across those whose mode of worship involves, for example, the sacrificing of children. Or we may find the rights granted to a group to hunt and gather food as they see fit as no longer sustainable when their approach has to be reconciled with other groups’ plans to feed themselves. New arrangements would then have to be considered, and who should have what rights would need to be accordingly revised. Hutcheson showed consistently that empathic communities would develop through their members applying their moral sense in a calm and considered manner. It would be vital for people to revisit what might appear to have become commonplace. There should not be any rigid acceptance of some doctrine imposed from above, or blinkered attachment to prejudices or superstitions that have emerged. Any community that disengages from reviewing if its moral assumptions are still relevant or appropriate, runs the risk of becoming mired in customs and attitudes that go against its deeper concern with having a sound moral outlook. Only by reflecting on our appreciation of what may help people and our distaste for that which can cause distress and pain to others, and engaging in on-going evidential examination of prevailing rules and customs to see what impact they are likely to have, would communities be able to move forward in a more enlightened direction. However, the cultivation of mutual responsibility through raising communities’ awareness of what we should actually require each other to abstain or do is only one aspect of enlightenment. Our capacity for factual analysis and political organisation must also be strengthened.

Critical Communities: Hume and Diderot Both Shaftesbury and Hutcheson were conscious of how human endeavours to promote moral behaviour could be obstructed by our susceptibility to taking false beliefs as true. How such mistakes are to be detected raises the epistemological question of what makes for legitimate criticism and affirmation. People who are accused of spreading false beliefs may insist

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that they are the custodians of truth, and it is those who oppose them that should be denounced. One of the most important philosophers who took up this challenge by developing a critical epistemology of cooperative enquiry is David Hume (1711–1776). Influenced by Hutcheson, and respected by many of the leading Enlightenment thinkers, Hume maintained that there could be no basis for establishing what we should believe beyond the interactions within a human community. Leaving aside abstract reasoning where numbers, implications or relations can be deduced from the agreed definitions of basic terms, he argued that when it came to the reliability of factual claims, a judgement can only be made with reference to empirical evidence, and unless the claim in question is reduced to a tautology, we can talk about degrees of probability of it being correct, but never to the extent that it can be deemed logically impossible for it to be false (Hume 2008). For example, ‘all trees have green leaves’ might strike those who have not seen many trees as true, but is rendered false by the discovery of trees with red leaves. ‘All trees have roots’ is absolutely true only because it is implied by what has become the definition of a ‘tree’. But ‘all trees are visited by animals’ may well be true so far as observations of trees up to this point in time would confirm, but it is not logically impossible for there to be one or more trees that have never been visited by any animal, so at best we can say it is highly probable that it is true. These conceptual distinctions are particularly significant when philosophers such as Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza, as well as virtually all theologians of the time, insisted that the most important facts about the world could be ascertained with absolute certainty without being cross-checked with empirical findings. For Hume, the claims they made were either already implied in some prior definition, in which case one could argue about the appropriateness of the definition, or they were factual claims that were disguised as absolute truths transcending empirical validation. In essence, Hume urged us to subject any factual claim of veracity to the test of the available evidence.8 It would be misguided or duplicitous to suggest that we could establish the truth of any such claim by any 8 Hume cited Francis Bacon specifically as a key figure in putting the human sciences on a new footing,

and he himself wanted to develop them further to inform our assessment of society’s development.

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other means. If someone tries to say that a certain type of behaviour is harmful because God has told him so, Hume would advise us not to fall into the trap of arguing about whether God could possibly be wrong about anything, but focus our attention on the contestable claim that the person has indeed been spoken to by an omniscient being. Other people may invoke miracles they have witnessed and argue on that basis they now know beyond all doubt that certain things are divinely approved (or condemned). In all these cases where a claimant seeks to bypass empirical examination by citing supernatural backing, Hume’s response is to conduct empirical checking about whether some supernatural force has really come into play, or if the person in question is mistaken, deluded, or weaving an elaborate lie. The weighing of probabilities that Hume wants us to carry out is not some special philosophical exercise, but something that we engage in and rely on in our everyday lives (Livingston 1984). Legal judgement over whether a specific crime had been committed, medical assessment of the potential effects of a proposed tonic, or an engineering investigation into the durability of a given structure—such activities involve the gathering and reviewing of relevant supportive and counter-evidence, testing of hypotheses, and framing provisional conclusions that are subject to possible future revisions precisely because it is not logically impossible for them to turn out to be wrong. As we rely on learning to weigh probabilities to guide us through life, any claim that purports to have major significance for how we should live must all the more be subject to probabilistic evidential evaluation. Critics of Hume in the past have painted him as a proponent of scepticism that led philosophy to a dead-end with knowledge declared as impossible. But it is important to distinguish between negative scepticism that does rule out the possibility of anything being known, and constructive scepticism that recommends the suspension of belief when the relevant evidence is not forthcoming. Hume dismissed negative scepticism as incoherent and unsustainable, and elaborated on why constructive scepticism is an appropriate epistemological guide (Livingston and King 1976). For philosophers who consider as knowledge only that which is logically indubitable, Hume would of course appear as someone who denies that knowledge (in that sense) about the empirical world is impossible. But Hume

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argues for a different conception of knowledge, one which bears resemblance to how we actually think and talk about what we know, how sure we can be about any claim, and why in certain cases we remain doubtful. People do not get through life by differentiating claims into two exclusive camps—the absolutely unquestionable for all time, and the unacceptable. We ascribe varying degrees of credibility along a broad spectrum of beliefs, and we revise the ascriptions in the light of any new argument and evidence we share. The misrepresentation of Hume as a relentless sceptic has also led to his philosophy being characterised as inherently conservative and biased towards established beliefs and customs. His insistence that there is no means of establishing the reliability of claims beyond the experiences of the community itself, resulted in the prevalent supposition that outmoded traditions and practices would always be defended at the expense of new thinking. This objection to Hume, to be echoed in later criticisms of twentieth century communitarian ideas, is flawed on two counts. First, Hume never suggested that prevailing ideas and practices must be preserved at all costs. Indeed, his probabilistic approach would provide the very basis for differentiating between what merits retention and what should be subject to appropriate degrees of doubt. Superstitions and dogmas may have been around a long time, but once the evidence for claims about miracles and supernatural events is sought and assessed, Hume would be the first to argue that such beliefs should be jettisoned.9 Secondly, mere novelty should not in itself give credence to any idea over a current one. Hume’s advice was that we should not favour something just because it had not been questioned previously or that it had never been thought of before. The matter should be settled by weighing the evidence that could be adduced for any claim put forward. Whether the longevity of an idea is of any relevance or not depends, in Hume’s view, on the extent to which that idea was tested against the evidence during that time. An idea that had been rigorously tested and held up through investigations would merit a higher degree of assent. But 9 As

indeed he did, which was a radical thing to do in the eighteenth century, and his critical stance on such matters made him unpopular with the religious establishment, and his application for a position at the University of Edinburgh was successfully opposed by influential figures who regarded him as an atheist.

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one that had been shielded from criticisms and denied opportunities to be checked against the available evidence would not deserve to gain any credence just from having been around for however long. Hume, being a historian as well as a philosopher, has been accused of relying too much on the past as a conservative guide to what we should believe. But the past can provide us with information that supports rejecting as much as preserving particular beliefs. Furthermore, Hume was a strong advocate for experimental exploration of the reliability of both new and old ideas. Whatever has stood the test of evidential analysis in the past must still be prepared to face up to the experiments and observations to come in the future. Along with Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, Hume argued that human beings have come to possess certain moral dispositions because over time their reactions to how others behave towards them converge on a similar range of attitudes. We approve of those who reciprocate our kindness, and pass negative judgement on those who threaten, hurt, or pretend to be on our side when they are not. Communities may have under different circumstances, in diverse times and places, acquired their own systems, rules and customs. But when knowledge advances and our understanding of possible alternatives expands, ideas and practices could change for the better. Although there is no guarantee that this would happen, the progress achieved in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries would testify to the genuine prospect of social transformation.10 When champions of freethinking such as John Toland (1670–1722) and Anthony Collins (1676–1729) first argued for open exploration of what should be believed so as to enhance human wellbeing without being constrained by unquestionable doctrines, they were attacked as dangerous thinkers by most people in powerful positions in society. By early nineteenth century, freethinking was an integral part of intellectual debates in Britain, the US, and an increasing number of Western European countries. One common response to the prospect of communitarian progress is to insist that it is only possible within a particular community or country, as though the development of human interactions that had occurred there 10 Improvements covered changes to legal procedures, treatment of the sick, reduction of superstitious practices, and the ending of the persecution of women under the guise of ‘witch-hunting’. See, for example, Gay (1973), Easlea (1980), and Porter (1997, Ch. 10).

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could not conceivably take place anywhere else. Such a reactionary note was in fact struck by many in the eighteenth century when they would frown on the more tolerant attitudes and practical reforms emerging elsewhere and observe sardonically that only the English and the Dutch would put up with such nonsense. But the manner in which progressive changes were spread to non-English and non-Dutch communities illustrated just how communities could learn from one another and transform themselves in time.11 This was particularly evident in the campaign for cooperative enquiry waged by Denis Diderot (1713–1784). Diderot received an offer from a French publisher to translate a popular English book, Cyclopædia (subtitled: ‘An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences’), and turned it into a major multi-volume project that would review and bring together the most up-to-date learning to enrich people’s understanding of the world. He commissioned contributions from both established scholars and critical thinkers who were at the forefront of testing out what new ideas should be taken on board. He explained that it was a snapshot of the latest position, and that as research and revisions should be constantly on-going, the Encyclopedia he was producing would need to be replaced in the future (Mason and Wokler 1992). For the time being, however, people should take stock of what those with the most relevant experience and expertise had come to regard as the most acceptable conclusion, so that mistaken assumptions could be pulled back from continuing to underpin attitudes and policies. As Diderot’s co-editor, Jean le Rond D’Alembert (1717–1783), wrote: We have everywhere compared opinions, weighed reasons, and proposed means of doubting or of escaping from doubt; at times we have even settled contested matters. To the best of our ability, we have destroyed errors and prejudices. Above all, we have tried not to multiply and perpetuate them by protecting discarded opinions uncritically or by proscribing accepted opinions without reason. … It was important to verify the true ones, to forestall those that are false, to establish the points of departure, and thus to 11 Critics

of ‘Western’ progress who still insist that it could not possibly be ‘transplanted’ to ‘nonWestern’ societies should study more closely how different communities in the so-called West with contrasting religious and political outlooks (to the extent bloody wars were launched against each other periodically) at one time would come to share ideas and adopt better practices through cooperation.

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facilitate the search for what remains to be discovered. (D’Alembert 1995, pp. 117, 118)

In contrast to the scholastic or theological authorities that just wanted to preserve selected parts of the past without them being ever questioned again, and the rationalist metaphysicians who thought they could without any empirical research establish a complete system of truths about the world that was logically indubitable, Diderot’s enterprise served to update human knowledge by encouraging communities to learn, experiment, revise and progress. It did not assume that falsehoods would be automatically exposed or that correct ideas would always be grasped, but placed the onus on people enquiring cooperatively with each other, gathering new information, testing out claims and hypotheses, and adjusting their beliefs in the light of the latest findings. Diderot and his colleagues knew all too well that it was not an easy task. Censors repeatedly tried to stop the Encyclopedia from being published. Many people in powerful positions denounced its contents as mistaken or even vile. But Diderot managed to steer it through the obstacles, and the culture of critical learning it promoted made a distinct contribution to diverse communities across Europe rethinking what they should believe. In his own writings, Diderot frequently drew attention to the cultural practices in other parts of the world to prompt his readers to review the prevailing outlook of their own society. For example, in his Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville (Mason and Wokler 1992, pp. 35–75), he contrasted the relaxed attitude towards sexual relationships in Tahiti with the strict limits demanded by the Catholic Church in France of his days. It was an effective technique used by other Enlightenment philosophers as well, and shows that the common anti-communitarian assumption that communities are insularly sealed off from each other and can never learn anything from others’ experiences is simply unfounded. Of course changes do not follow some swift linear route. Adequate opportunities are needed for empathy to combine with critical knowledge to enable people to reflect on how they and others live their lives, and develop more appropriate rules and customs. One key factor that can determine what opportunities may or may not arise is that of power relations. And the eighteenth century was to witness profound changes to how communities would be governed.

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Democratic Communities: Thomas Paine Advocates for enlightened communities had for much of the eighteenth century tried to advance their cause by arguing that a focus on empathy rather than the acceptance of misguided injunctions should be the basis for moral appraisals, and that cooperative enquiry ought to displace dogmatic declarations of what people should believe. Towards the last quarter of the century, however, it was becoming clear to many of them that those with the power to rule over society could hold back indefinitely the development of more mutually supportive forms of human interaction. Attempts at promoting reforms through the enlightening of rulers could only go so far when the rulers themselves relied on many people whose influence, social standing, and wealth were dependent on the status quo remaining unchanged. Frustrations began to boil over both in Britain’s North American colonies and in France. The American and French Revolutions were to launch the most radical challenge to prevailing thinking on the governance of communities since the English Revolution of the seventeenth century. A central figure in both these events was Thomas Paine (1737–1809). Dissatisfied with life in Britain, Paine had moved to Pennsylvania, where the spirit of democratic rule—even if it was not quite as strong as William Penn had originally instilled in it a century ago—contrasted sharply with the aristocracy-backed monarchic system that was in charge of his home country. When many colonists became disgruntled with the British Parliament imposing taxes on them when they had no representation in that body to argue their case, Paine urged them to think beyond negotiating a deal on specific taxes, and concentrate on the system of government they ought to have. He rallied them to reject British rule altogether so that they could establish their own democratic political institutions. He did this, not by invoking some indubitable principle, but by urging others to consider their present conditions and how these could change for the better for them and their children. Most of the leading revolutionaries testified to the widespread influence of Paine’s ideas in transforming the dispute with Britain into a campaign to create an independent country run by its own citizens. When the success of the American Revolution inspired radical

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reformists in France to overthrow the old monarchic regime, Paine became a prominent figure in defending the case for democratic change both from reactionary critics of the French Revolution and ideological extremists whose excesses ultimately perverted the revolutionary cause. Paine’s writings, from Common Sense, The American Crisis, to The Rights of Man, and The Age of Reason (Foot and Kramnick 1987), illustrate why enlightened communities are worth pursuing, and how that pursuit is only possible in practice if it involves the democratic redistribution of power. Like his intellectual predecessors, Paine stressed that people could not be bound for all time by the ideas or customs adopted by a previous age or generation. Some might merit preserving, but others should be revised or abandoned altogether. We would not know how to differentiate between them if we did not openly explore their veracity in the light of the latest evidence. In order to engage in such critical exploration without holding on rigidly to one’s own assumptions, Paine pointed out that certain conditions would be particularly conducive to its development. These would include having people with diverse cultural backgrounds but similar economic conditions so that they would be inclined to work together for common goals, with open minds as all could see that no one traditional outlook is sacrosanct for everyone. For Paine, these pro-cooperative conditions could indicate either through their presence, as in the case of North America at the time, that the prevailing circumstances were ripe for the swift establishment of democratic self-governance; or through their absence, as in the case of France, that the rules and arrangements in place must be substantially altered to pave the way for democratic reforms. In the case of Britain, his assessment was that while it was not as bad as the Ancien Regime in France, wealth (and hence power) inequalities were widening at an alarming rate. Whereas a sense of interdependence would encourage people to be open and supportive towards each other, the growing gap between the rich elite and the rest would increasingly lead the former to feel that they could do as they pleased and ignore the plight of the many who had to endure the consequences of top-down social, economic and political decisions. Cultivation of our natural empathy and education in empirical reasoning must therefore be backed by reforms to reduce power gaps wherever

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these might be found. Paine was one of the earliest advocates for the abolition of slavery (1775). The broad equality of status and power in North America was severely marred by a practice which corroded people’s natural concern for the dignity and wellbeing of others. When slavery was cited as an institution that had been established in the past, Paine returned to the theme that the past was as much a guide to what we should continue to do as to what we should abandon. We must learn from experiences, new evidence, changing circumstances and be ready to alter what others might have done without much thought previously. After he became a member of the National Convention in France, Paine also witnessed how the professed intent to make society less unequal could be subverted by fanaticism. He warned against allowing a few to wield the very kind of ruthless authoritarian power they claimed to seek to put an end to (1793). His resolute opposition to the disproportionate use of force against anyone, from the deposed king to ordinary citizens suspected of counter-revolutionary activities, resulted in his imprisonment by those who led the infamous reign of terror.12 Paine was clear and consistent in differentiating between the justifiable demands for replacing the ruling regime in France with a new democratic system, and the unjustifiable attempts to concentrate absolute power in a few to eliminate all that might be regarded—with good reason or none—as standing in the way of the revolution. By contrast, Edmund Burke condemned the entire French Revolution because he saw nothing but folly and danger in calling for substantial changes to any social and political arrangements that had been in place for a long time (1999). Burke’s overriding concern was with preserving the privileges, traditions and hierarchical relations that had been established and consolidated over centuries. Any demands for a better alternative, based on abstract theories, would in his opinion lack substance, and if recklessly put into practice, could cause havoc and destroy the foundation of a stable society. Arguably he supported the American Revolution because it was taking place in a far-off land where most institutions were barely a hundred years’ old; and letting the colonists go their separate way would leave Britain to carry 12 He

was sentenced to death and only narrowly escaped the guillotine because of a mix-up by the prison guards.

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on with its own social and political way of life. The French Revolution, however, was an example of the radical overthrowing of a system of government and distribution of wealth that had taken roots over many centuries. The fate of France might end up being a harbinger for the termination of Britain’s long established arrangements too. Furthermore, the proximity of France also meant that many people were quickly getting news from across the channel, and some were daring to talk about replicating its revolutionary tactics on British soil. Advocates for the development of enlightened communities, such as those we have looked at in previous sections of this chapter, share a respect for ideas and practices that have stood the test of time, but that respect is linked to the extent to which relevant tests have actually been carried out. Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, Diderot, D’Alembert, would all support theories and institutions which had up to their time been found to be the most effective in explaining phenomena or pursuing agreed objectives. But whenever these turned out to be unreliable because claims about them were distorted by superstitious assumptions, dogmatic commands, unintended misrepresentation, or deliberate fabrications, they would be the first to call for rethinking of the issues in question. Even though the religious or political establishment might denounce them for dismissing miracles, racial prejudices, earth-centric astronomy, or some other unwarranted outlook, they would defend the case for revising beliefs when these could no longer stand up to objective scrutiny. Burke, and all those who allied themselves to his conservatism, stood apart from communitarian enlightenment. For them, so long as particular beliefs and practices had been adopted by a given community for a considerable period of time, they should be retained no matter what a more open-minded exploration, or succession of critical enquiries might otherwise suggest. The reasons why they were sensibly or erroneously embraced in the first place, or how new evidence and perspectives might justify their abandonment, must simply be cast aside. Of course, it is understandable that some people may fear that any push for a large-scale change of a society’s outlook and structure could precipitate volatile agitations, which could spin out of control and cause chaos and destruction. However, whether such fear is apt or not cannot be determined by either a general abstract principle (something Burke ought to reject, given his own

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anti-rationalist stance), or some traditional predilection towards thinking the worst of radical reform proposals. It can in fact only be determined with the help of empathic and critical examination of the evidence arising from any specific case. Enlightened communities would neither blindly keep hold of nor blithely reject everything passed down from the past, but vigilantly watch for threats and weaknesses that should be dealt with, and search for improvements that could, on the balance of the available evidence, be made. Paine himself was unequivocal that reforms should be guided by moral empathy and informed judgement so that genuine progress could be achieved. With America, in addition to calling for the abolition of slavery, he warned against attempts to introduce an aristocratic upper house which would be less of a safeguard against than a backdoor to arbitrary rule. With France, he urged those who had taken power to act responsibly and avoid becoming new authoritarians who had merely displaced the old; and he argued that it was dangerously rash to dismiss all aspects of traditional faith and morals, when in line with deist thinking, people should rise above prejudices and blind hate, and focus on contributing to the happiness of their brethren.13 In relation to Britain, apart from constitutional reforms to give people real democratic control over their government, he also called for changes to the broader distribution of power in society, including alterations to the prevailing arrangements for income allocation and property ownership. Following the communitarian footsteps of More, Winstanley, and Penn, he argued that members of communities could not interact with each other in a mutually respectful and supportive way if the gulf between their resource-based power was so large that the privileged elite would neglect the needs of others. However, recognising that large-scale redistribution of land was probably not feasible, he set out in Agrarian Justice (1795) a new approach for bridging the wealth gap. Far from invoking some 13 Paine’s

writings on religion, especially The Age of Reason, were very much in the deist tradition going back to Shaftesbury. Despite his intention to convince people not to turn their backs on every religious idea, his enemies by and large succeeded in presenting him as seeking to attack Christianity and the foundation of morals. Branding him an ‘atheist’ in the eighteenth century was the propaganda equivalent of labelling any critic of the establishment a ‘communist’ in the twentieth century.

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abstract ideal, he drew attention to the problem of reduced public access to resources such as soil, space, air, and water. When these were increasingly claimed by some and denied to others, more and more people ended up lacking the means to make a living or find adequate shelter for their family. This state of accumulation by a few and deprivation for the many, if left unchecked, could lead precisely to the surge of anger and revolutionary fervour that the likes of Burke were so worried about. Instead of suppressing discontent as the British government opted to do in response to the French Revolution,14 Paine recommended a balancing strategy to counter the forces that were undermining mutuality in community relations. This has four components. First of all, essential resources should in general remain commonly accessible, but if some had already been brought under the exclusive possession of a few through previous arrangements that were legal at the time, or a case has been made for transferring defined resources to some individuals or groups for reasons deserving of consideration, then in such cases, those who have ownership of vital resources that others in the community could no longer access should be required to pay an annual sum (comparable to a rental payment) to compensate for the losses to the wider community. Secondly, in addition to the possession of basic resources, some people are able to develop them as capital with which they can then hire wage labourers to generate even more wealth for themselves. As many individuals are in a weak bargaining position and may have to accept below subsistence wages while their employers grow ever richer, a redistributive mechanism on behalf of the community is needed to tax the gains of those who take unfair advantage of impoverished workers. Thirdly, the revenue generated from payments to the community fund should then be used to provide education for the young, support for the elderly, and financial help for those who cannot get a job or whose job offers inadequate pay to live on (1792). Finally, limits should be placed on the level of resource accumulation by wealthy individuals both because it could otherwise deplete common resources too far, and because it might

14 Acts of Parliament were introduced to deter attempts to discuss parliamentary reforms. See, for example, chapter 4 in Mori (2014).

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make some so powerful that others would not be able to counter their demands.15

Enlightenment Through Learning: Condorcet, Wollstonecraft, and Jefferson Contrary to the common misrepresentation of communities as hermetically sealed entities, the communitarian development of ideas shows how, within and across communities, beliefs and practices are constantly questioned. It also demonstrates that such questioning, when guided by empathic reflections and cooperative scrutiny made possible by the curtailing of power inequalities, can often lead to significant changes that improve people’s quality of life. Some may in the name of ‘community’ decry or even suppress activities amongst community members to explore reform options. Others may delude themselves into thinking that God or Reason has authorised them to impose by force wholescale transformation that has not been empirically tested in any way. But away from such extremes, many political thinkers and activists routinely engage in persuading other members of their communities to learn from provisional consensus and emerging findings to review what should be preserved and what should be altered. As the eighteenth century drew to a close, the hold of monolithic traditions over communities in Western Europe and North America was giving way to new thinking generated by the increasing traffic of ideas. Whereas in earlier times, the likes of Erasmus and Paracelsus might challenge prevailing assumptions but stood little chance of shifting wider public opinions, advocates for enlightened communities in the late 1700s were able to take advantage of the rapidly expanding communication networks16 and promote a learning culture that engaged a growing number 15The

resurgence of wealth inequalities in late twentieth century and the notable trends of tax cuts for the rich and reduction of public service for the general population testifies to Paine’s concerns. Paine’s critique of socio-economic injustice was to be further developed by Robert Owen. See Claeys (1989, pp. 213–215), and the exposition on Owen and his followers in the next chapter. 16These included development in transport, the printing and circulation of books and pamphlets, and the proliferation of meeting places such as coffee and tea houses in urban centres.

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of people in considering what they should believe and support (Munck 2000). Instead of being lone voices isolated by the impregnable establishment, they were part of broader and often overlapping circles that between them continuously stimulated critical reflections amongst diverse members of communities. For example, the defence of the democratic aims of the French Revolution, the rejection of its violent excesses, and the championing of political reforms in the light of injustice and discontent, came not just from Paine, but from many others such as Nicolas de Condorcet (1743–1794), Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826),17 and numerous societies formed in late eighteenth century to raise awareness of and promote support for political reforms, like the Society for Constitutional Information, and the London Corresponding Society (Davis 2002). In his Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (1979), Condorcet looked back on human development and pointed to a number of key features that affected its progress or stagnation. Given the basic human disposition to reciprocate kindness and aid those who are vulnerable, and the latent potential of human intelligence, communities have generally improved both in terms of removing barriers to cooperation and coming up with better ideas and practices to attain a better quality of life—provided they are able to interact with each other openly without deception or intimidation getting in the way. This proviso is critical because for Condorcet it exposes the main factor why improvements could be so slow to come through or at times not materialise at all. It is down to some individuals who managed to amass sufficient power over others, and who then used it to force others to comply with their oppressive regimes, or concoct elaborate lies to mislead people into thinking that there could be no viable alternative. He admired thinkers such as Aristotle and Bacon for their instructive philosophy on how communities could learn more effectively, and he accordingly placed particular emphasis on cooperative learning sustained by careful observation and experimentation. If the conditions for such 17The

French Condorcet, English Wollstonecraft, and American Jefferson all met and knew Paine well, and their intellectual relations and political comradeship reflected the development of a sense of cross-border community attachment that, far from leaving them belonging nowhere, made them active members of diverse yet importantly connected civic entities.

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learning could continue to become more widespread, he believed people would steadily expand their understanding of how to improve their lives, and remove hierarchical divisions based on irrelevant factors such as gender, race, religion, and national boundaries (Goodell 1994). Condorcet’s interpretation of the prospect for human progress beyond the limits set by traditional attitudes and assumptions has often been dismissed as naïvely optimistic and contrary to communities’ inherent ‘nativist’ rejection of new ideas. But such dismissals are misconceived on two levels. First of all, Condorcet never claimed that progress would simply happen. As a leading figure in the French Revolution whose opposition to the violent excesses perpetrated by Robespierre’s faction led to his imprisonment, he knew better than most the precarious nature of progress. Setbacks could easily happen. Oppressive reactionaries and radical extremists alike could get in the way of cooperative learning and thoughtful reforms. Whether or not progress is forthcoming depends on how the members of each actual community are able to interact with one another in response to the circulation of new ideas. This takes us to the second level where Condorcet’s critics are mistaken. Communities are not defined by a single set of unchanging ideas that remain the same regardless of what new argument or evidence is brought forward. And it could be anyone, home-grown or originating from overseas, who first questioned prevailing assumptions, which then led to wider discussions within a community until a different way of thinking became established. For example, when Condorcet wrote in 1790 his essay, ‘On Giving Women the Right of Citizenship’, neither the democratic revolution in America nor France had given equal rights to women. He argued on empirical grounds that women no less than men were capable of acquiring the knowledge and judgement to make informed political choices, and that it was social arrangements, and lack of education in particular, that held most women (and indeed many men too) from being active politically. It was the beginning of an attitude-shifting process that eventually persuaded most communities around the world in accepting women equality. In 1792, the case was made even more extensively by Mary Wollstonecraft in her book, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she argued that the denial of civic equality to women was detrimental

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to women and society in general (1995). Notably she did not invoke some abstract principle that would by its own indubitableness overturn current attitudes. Instead, she engaged with cultural strands that were already embedded around her. To the conservative minded, she explained that women had a vital role in the upbringing of children, and if they were not given the education and other relevant opportunities to become equally familiar with key social and political issues as men, the boys (no less than the girls) they cared for would grow up with a deficient understanding of the rights and wrongs regarding their society. Anticipating the counter-argument that fathers would look to the boys’ civic development, Wollstonecraft reminded traditionalists that they were the ones expecting mothers to devote their time to bringing up children so the men could be out doing whatever they had to be out doing, and unavoidably the formative influence would come from women. To those with Whig-leaning sympathies, who tended to look back to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as a monumental milestone in checking the powers of arbitrary rulers, Wollstonecraft set out how a country run by a despot was analogous to a family run by a man who would expect all his commands to be submissively obeyed. Just as boundaries had to be laid down for the monarch, and respect for the right of the people to have their say protected, no family should be left to the rule of one man who could treat everyone else as inferior. And as the once blind adherence to kingly supremacy was displaced by a new tradition enshrined in the 1689 Bill of Rights, the commonly held but outmoded views about the husband and father possessing household supremacy should also be discarded.18 Finally, to those imbued with radical republican dispositions, she connected the marginalisation of women to the wider marginalisation of people without property in conventional socio-economic hierarchies. In a striking critique under the title of ‘Of the Pernicious Effects Which Arise from the Unnatural Distinctions in Society’,19 she drew attention to the

18 Equality at home would be a significant step in recognising there should be equality in society generally. Cf. Claeys (2007, p. 57). 19 Chapter 9 of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Wollstonecraft 1995). It was a timely reprimand to those reformists and revolutionaries who were still neglecting the case for treating women as equal citizens in the changes they were putting forward.

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fact that the problem of wealth-based divisiveness, which was so harmful both for the elite and those without property, was even more acute for women who were comprehensively deprived of property rights and thus systemically disempowered. Concentration of property ownership in a few meant that they would not have to work for a living, but nonetheless remain rich and powerful, and susceptible to the ‘flattery of sycophants’. By contrast, the vast majority would have to toil for little return, and all too many would be tempted to partake in the ‘higher’ life by paying obsequious attention to the rich and ingratiating themselves with ignoble submissiveness. And this repugnant situation was so much worse when it had been perpetuated for all women. Wollstonecraft was particularly scathing towards Rousseau’s wrong-headed idealisation of women, which in the name of adoring their delicate charms, relegated them permanently to lower civic status. She firmly believed that women could learn to be active and effective citizens, and society could learn to embrace that— even if different people would have to be persuaded by different forms of appeal. The centrality of learning in developing enlightened communities is critical to understanding why communitarian reforms are inherently progressive. Reactionaries want to impose their favoured form of community as the one sanctified by ‘traditions’ for all time. Reckless innovators insist they can make wholescale changes without taking into account the experiences people have had or the latest evidence that is available from researchers or investigators. Differing from both these types, those who believe that communities can improve themselves through continuous learning rely on the outcomes of open minded exchanges and explorations. One individual may be too reluctant to drop some long-held assumption. Another one may be thoughtlessly rash in backing a novel scheme. But communities of people, under conditions of respectful and honest deliberation, can help each other learn to correct mistakes and try out sound alternatives. This is well illustrated by the last major figure from this period that we will look at. Thomas Jefferson was disposed to support the enhancement of mutual responsibility, cooperative enquiry, and citizen participation. But he never seized one doctrine and demanded that it would replace in total every belief others had subscribed to up to that point. He would,

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as he expected others to as well, learn from what had been put forward, reflect upon it and discuss it with others who had also given the subject due consideration, and give his provisional backing to a position, provided it was supported by his latest assessment. Jefferson’s vision was that of communities learning together to improve themselves over time. He was aware that he himself might well be prone to errors that he would have to rely on others to correct. For example, in the 1780s, while he was advocating the outlawing of slavery (but only in new territories opened up in the west), he believed that African slaves were not equal in their intellectual abilities to people of European descent in North America. By the 1810s, following discussions and correspondence with others who had engaged in conversations with those who were or had been slaves, Jefferson began to doubt his earlier assessment of the intelligence of slaves, especially in view of their lack of opportunities to be educated, let alone to make use of any learning. At the same time, he came to the conclusion that slavery should be completely abolished (Jefferson 1999, pp. 465–498).20 For corrections and new discoveries to be made, Jefferson realised that the structure for open learning must be in place. He consistently argued for an education system that would be free to access, and effective in cultivating the moral sense of citizens as well as teaching lessons based, not on dogmas, but on what the latest findings of those who had studied the subject in question. His conception of the moral sense was derived from the thinking of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, and emphasised the importance of people learning to see each other as fellow human beings capable of love, sympathy and respect. He subscribed to the Baconian approach to cooperative enquiry and wanted all aspects of human knowledge to be systematically explored and shared. These ideas he tirelessly applied to helping establish the University of Virginia (Jefferson 1999, pp. 249–310). Along with formal education, the political system of a country is another major component of the learning structure for citizens. Jefferson was 20 It should be noted that Jefferson came to believe that all slaves should be granted freedom as fellow human beings, regardless of what their intellectual aptitudes might actually be. On women equality, Jefferson lagged behind Condorcet and Wollstonecraft. In 1807, he as President wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, to indicate that he would not support the appointment of a woman to public office (Jefferson 1999, p. 545).

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deeply concerned with how government and the people could learn from experiences and share contrasting perspectives without any single individual, group or institution having so much power that it could brush aside the input of others. Unlike Rousseau, who thought some wise legislator could discern the ‘general will’ which all people would deep down agree to even if they did not realise it themselves, Jefferson was under no illusion that the airing of conflicting views was a necessary feature of democratic life, and far from there being some general will that a uniquely superior Platonic mind could identify, the steps to be taken on each occasion should be guided by critical exchanges of ideas from all sides.21 The educative role of democracy is accordingly not to tell citizens what policies they should back, but facilitate uncoerced and informed discussions amongst citizens in assessing policy proposals. He supported James Madison in putting checks on the power of the executive through a Bill of Rights. As a leading statesman of Virginia and President of the United States, he learnt that neither the federal nor any state government should be able to dictate terms to the other in all circumstances. There must be room for disagreement, deliberations, and compromise (Burstein and Isenberg 2013). Jefferson’s personal attachment to the ethos of an agrarian republic could lead some to accusing him of pining for an idealised past that was long ago dashed when Caesar crossed the Rubicon. In reality, all his efforts as a thinker and political leader were channelled towards the development of supportive conditions for learning, so that citizens could seek information without hindrance, discuss with each other and with those in public office without intimidation, and consider new ideas and practices to expand human understanding and improve people’s lives. Such development was all the more important when small-scale agrarian economies were giving way to large commercial networks that by the end of the eighteenth century were beginning to rival national governments in transforming the fortunes of communities. 21 Rousseau might think it was possible for a legislator, standing apart from the views and arguments

expressed by the people, to differentiate between those who vote in accordance with the ‘general will’ and those who do not. On Jefferson’s understanding, there is no general will that exists apart from the community of citizens; what legislators should strive for is to reflect as best they can the informed consensus emerging from citizens’ critical exploration of the options. See Farr and Williams (2015).

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References Bendor, J., & Mookherjee, D. (2008). Communitarian Versus Universalistic Norms. Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 3, 1–29. Blom, P. (2010). A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of European Enlightenment. New York: Basic Books. Burke, E. (1999). Reflections on the Revolution in France. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burstein, A., & Isenberg, N. (2013). Madison and Jefferson. New York: Random House. Claeys, G. (1989). Thomas Paine: Social and Political Thought. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Claeys, G. (2007). The French Revolution Debate in Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Condorcet, N. (1790). On Giving Women the Right of Citizenship. In I. McLean & F. Hewitt (Eds.) (1994), Condorcet: Foundations of Social Choice and Political Theory (pp. 335–340). Aldershot: Edward Elgar. Condorcet, N. (1979). Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind. Santa Barbara: Greenwood Publishing Group. D’Alembert, J. (1995). Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot (R. N. Schwab, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Davis, M. T. (Ed.). (2002). The London Corresponding Society 1792–1799. London: Routledge. D’Holbach, B. (1889). System of Nature. Boston: J. P. Mendum. Easlea, B. (1980). Witch-Hunting, Magic & the New Philosophy. Brighton: Harvester Press. Farr, J., & Williams, D. L. (2015). The General Will: The Evolution of a Concept. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Foot, M., & Kramnick, I. (1987). The Thomas Paine Reader. London: Penguin Books. Gay, P. (1973). The Enlightenment: An Interpretation—Vol. 1, The Rise of Modern Paganism. London: Wildwood House. Goodell, E. (1994). The Noble Philosopher: Condorcet and the Enlightenment. Buffalo: Prometheus Books. Hume, D. (2008). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hutcheson, F. (1994). Philosophical Writings (R. S. Downie, Ed.). London: J. M. Dent.

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Hutcheson, F. (2015). A System of Moral Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hutcheson, F. (2018). A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Farmington Hills: Gale ECCO. Israel, J. (2001). Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jefferson, T. (1999). Political Writings (J. Appleby and T. Ball, Eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Livingston, D. W. (1984). Hume’s Philosophy of Common Life. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Livingston, D. W., & King, J. T. (Eds.). (1976). Hume: A Re-evaluation. New York: Fordham University Press. Mason, J. H., & Wokler, R. (Eds.). (1992). Denis Diderot: Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mori, J. (2014). Britain in the Age of the French Revolution 1785–1820. London: Routledge. Munck, T. (2000). The Enlightenment: A Comparative History 1721–1794. London: Arnold. Pagden, A. (2013). The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Paine, T. (1775). African Slavery in America. In M. Foot & I. Kramnick (1987), pp. 52–56. Paine, T. (1792). The Rights of Man (Part 2). In M. Foot & I. Kramnick (1987), pp. 263–364. Paine, T. (1793). Reasons for Preserving the Life of Louis Capet. In M. Foot & I. Kramnick (1987), pp. 394–398. Paine, T. (1795). Agrarian Justice. In M. Foot & I. Kramnick (1987), pp. 471–489. Porter, R. (1997). The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present. London: Harper Collins. Scott, W. R. (1992). Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position in the History of Philosophy. Bristol: Thoemmes Press. Shaftesbury. (1977). An Inquiry Concerning Virtue, or Merit (D. Walford, Ed.). Manchester: Manchester University Press. Tomasello, M. (2009). Why We Cooperate. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Wollstonecraft, M. (1995). A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (S. Tomaselli, Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

4 Beyond Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft: Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Century

Robert Owen, Cooperation and Communitarianism Contrary to the perception of ‘communitarianism’ as an outlook concerned with returning to some older form of community life, when the term first emerged in the nineteenth century, it was applied to the advocacy for a very new form of community life in Britain and America, and a key figure at the heart of this advocacy was Robert Owen (1771–1858) (Harrison 1969; Morton 1969; Garnett 1972; Bestor 2018). Owen’s abiding objective was to change the conditions and structures under which people interacted with each other so they could attain a better life. Many of his core ideas reflected the thinking of proponents for enlightened communities in the eighteenth century, and he brought these together in the philosophy of community development he set out

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in his book, A New View of Society (1991).1 Most importantly, he initiated experiments either directly or through encouraging others to test out how different approaches to organising communities might help to secure improvements for their participants. For Owen, human happiness is inseparable from sociability, fellowship, and mutually caring interactions. We should pursue happiness, but only if we remember that integral to that goal is the happiness of others. No one can live a truly fulfilling life if one focuses exclusively on oneself and ignore the plight of others, or worse, seeks gains by heaping misery on others.2 Such a stance may of course be disputed by some who believe they have no problem finding satisfaction in life without paying much attention to the needs of others, but from Owen’s perspective, their sense of value has most probably been distorted by the circumstances under which they grew up.3 So long as people were able to live alongside each other, free from deception and oppressive pressures, their natural empathy would lead them to be mindful of one another’s feelings, and reciprocate each other’s kindness. Unfortunately, existing forms of community—those that had not shaken off outmoded prejudices and hierarchies, as much as those that had embraced pernicious exploitative arrangements in the name of modern business—were so infected by negative attitudes and practices that they could not offer people a chance to experience a happy life together. In many rural areas, people were still in the grip of traditions that placed the vast majority of them in a lowly position, often at the mercy of a small elite who had inherited their fortune and power. In urban areas, an increasing number were having to spend a large part of their lives in factories, generating substantial profits for the owners, while earning barely enough 1 Although

Owen was prone to insist he developed his ideas by himself without first encountering them in the writings of others, he grew up and mixed in circles where the ethos of enlightened communities would be widely discussed (Morton 1969). He would have been familiar with the general tenet of those ideas, especially in relation to many theories associated with the Scottish Enlightenment and the arguments put forward by Thomas Paine. But it was Owen who put these ingredients into an overall reform and organisational philosophy. 2The kind of utilitarianism favoured by Owen connects with the moral philosophy of Hutcheson who was very likely to have been the first to come up with the objective of ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’. Cf. d’Holbach’s quote in the beginning of Chapter 3, pointing out the folly of seeking one’s own happiness without regard to the happiness of others. 3These could range from being subject to cruel neglect, to being spoilt by excessive indulgence.

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to get by as housing and environmental conditions worsened around them as a result of industrial pollution. Owen’s response was to develop a new form of community that would be free of oppressive and exploitative features as much as possible, and could thereby enable its members to realise their potential in interacting with each other in a mutually respectful and supportive ways. This would be done, not via some rigid template, but through experimental designs and adaptations. In line with Bacon and Hume, Owen would not grant credence to any claim just because it was traditional or novel, but would instead weigh its reliability in the light of observable outcomes under different conditions. The main guiding principle was that a community should be developed so as to minimise diktats and dogmas, and enable people to cooperatively share ideas, resources, and the fruits of their endeavours. Owen, and many who were inspired by his teachings, went on to try out a range of experiments. Known variously as Owenites, communitarians, or cooperators, they tried out variations on the core theme—in practice, some favoured equality of earnings or ownership, and some were content with a fairer distribution of returns or greater inclusiveness in decision-making.4 Two of the experimental communities that Owen himself played a leading role in were the one at New Lanark in Britain and the one at New Harmony in America. New Lanark was transformed by Owen from a conventional cotton factory into what many contemporaries regarded as a model manufacturing institution. Instead of being treated as mere cogs in a machine, workers were respected as members of a common enterprise. Surplus was not simply siphoned off to pay dividends to external investors, but considerable funds were channelled into education for children and adults; housing facilities that were good by the standard of the time; communal kitchens to provide nutritious meals; and free medical service. Reserves were built up to cover unforeseeable events—sick pay for 4 ‘Owenites’

was a term often used to describe those who admired aspects of Owen’s thinking, but many felt that it was not an appropriate term as neither Owen nor others who learnt from him ever regarded his ideas as forming one comprehensive doctrine to be implemented by faithful followers. Rather they all believed that experimentation was key to future success. ‘Socialist’ was also coined around this time and applied to their thinking in view of the emphasis on social relations, but it should not be confused with the notion of state socialism which developed separately at a later stage.

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individuals who fell ill, or when, for example, in 1806 production was halted by the embargo on American cotton, wages were nonetheless paid to all workers in full. By 1816, New Lanark had become the largest cotton manufacturer in Britain, and attracted many visitors keen to learn more about this communitarian approach. Later in New Harmony in America, Owen set up a community where migrants from Europe could gather to help each other establish a new life by cooperating with each other in clearing land, growing food, building houses, providing education, and promoting an ethos of mutual aid. As Winstanley and Penn had done before him, Owen experimented with developing communities that would be supported by new rules and practices, so that their members would not be neglected or exploited by those who had much greater wealth and power, but would through their broadly equal status be inclined to work together for their common wellbeing. Unlike his predecessors, however, Owen had to deal with the challenges of industrialisation, which had pushed many social critics in early nineteenth century to lament the loss of the old stability and yearn for a return to pre-industrial communities. Owen’s distinct contribution at this historical juncture was to point to a new departure. He was too aware of the potential benefits of technological advancement to dismiss industrialisation. He had calculated that mechanisation helped workers in Britain increase their productive capacity by a factor of twelve from 1792 to 1817 (Harrison 1969, p. 68). His concern was that the greater abundance this could generate should be shared out more amongst everyone who had a part to play in it. This could be achieved, in his view, by continuously learning what could be done better to facilitate human cooperation, applying that learning, and ensuring that prejudices that might get in the way of improvements were discarded. Open learning was promoted through sustained investment in research and teaching in new communities, which would not be confined to any country, business, or religious group. Instead of hierarchical surveillance and punitive discipline, mutual assessment was encouraged. Owen believed that the social tendency for those with power to enforce submission out of fear was not conducive to cooperation. If people all had a stake in the community they lived or worked in, they would watch over each

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other and have a sense that they should not let others down.5 For anyone who might interpret this as subjecting people to the oppressive opinions of the majority, it should be remembered that this is about actions such as mutual supervision over relevant aspects of one’s duties in the community (for example, specific work standards), and is not a licence to spew prejudices or rumours that would have no place in the community. Owen strongly believed that people should not presume to condemn others. With better understanding of how circumstances (for example, conditions arising from deprivation through poverty or degeneration from excessive wealth) could shape people’s propensity to act in certain ways, everyone ought to learn more about the changes that could be made to socio-economic arrangements, rather than getting side-tracked into lambasting individuals for their ‘moral’ failings.6 A key role of education was to help open people’s eyes to new options to structure human relations. Ironically, while there is still a tendency to associate communitarian thinking with some unflinching defence of ‘traditional’ families, a recurring feature of Owen’s communitarian experiments is a shift away from family arrangements beloved of traditionalists. For example, at New Lanark, New Harmony, and other Owen-inspired communities, children were encouraged to learn and not simply obey; schooling would be carried out in groups rather than left to be done in children’s own home; supportive interdependence amongst families was valued rather than totally self-sufficient families that shut themselves off from others; greater equality between men and women was reflected in daily routines with both sexes given the opportunity to have paid work, and collective provisions such as food preparation to lighten the domestic burden that had tended to fall on women. Another area to be reformed was decision-making that would affect a whole community. Democratisation of how a country was to be ruled had been advanced through the American and French Revolutions. But 5 Modern

research has found that mutual supervision and commitment to collective goals in worker cooperatives tend to cut sickness absence and increase productivity (Pérotin 2016). 6 Owen upset many conservative-minded contemporaries for his insistence that the poor should not be blamed for resorting to desperate measures to feed their families; he also irritated many radical critics of society for claiming that indignation should be directed, not at the rich personally, but only at the economic system that gave rise to their undesirable behaviour.

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below the national level, many people’s lives were seriously affected by the decisions made exclusively by land and factory owners. Owen wanted to see the communities he was helping to develop involve all their members in the making of key decisions that would shape their lives. By their experimental nature, each would have to try out a variety of approaches. Some turned out to be too cumbersome; and some were overburdened with relatively minor issues but had little influence over major matters.7 One important lesson to emerge was that democracy was difficult to implement for any community heavily dependent on outside investors whose interests could not always be reconciled with the interests of those whose livelihood was derived from their work in that community. For the rest of the nineteenth century, others learning from Owen’s communitarian experiments would go on to develop further reform ideas. These included critiques of capitalist distribution of wealth by William Thompson (1775–1833) and John Gray (1799–1883), who held that the subordination of workers to owners of land, machines, buildings, and factories would make it immensely difficult to correct the inherent bias in favour of those with much greater bargaining power. Unless wealth creation was viewed in terms of the contributions of the community as a whole, some individuals would lay claim to a far larger share by dismissing others’ contributions as inconsequential. For Thompson and Gray, all who contributed should be guaranteed a sufficient share to cover their basic needs.8 Their contemporaries were to advance a range of options to rectify systemic economic disequilibrium. William King (1786–1865), a strong supporter of Owen, published the newspaper, The Cooperator, and used it to raise awareness of how workers were routinely cheated out of the value of their labour because they did not grasp how much their employers were making out of what they produced, and how little of that was paid to them as wages. Workers should therefore organise themselves so that they could make stronger and betterinformed demands when negotiating with their bosses. In 1834, the Grand 7 At

New Harmony, the complex committee system and delays to decisions being made became increasingly problematic for the community after the initial pioneering days were over (Claeys 1989, pp. 129–131). 8Thompson and Gray were influential figures in the development of socialist economics (Harrison 1969, pp. 63–78).

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National Consolidated Trades Union was set up in Britain, and within weeks it had a million members. But employers retaliated with threats against workers who were thinking of joining, and they used their influence with the political establishment to clamp down on union activities. Most infamously, in the case of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, six agricultural labourers in Dorset were sentenced to be transported to Australia for seven years for forming a trade union.9 In the long run, such injustice only served to galvanise the trade union movement. William Morris (1834–1896), whose News from Nowhere (2004) echoed the communitarian ‘what if ’ hypothesizing of Thomas More’s Utopia, pointed to the possibility of people attaining harmony and contentment through being in control of their own productive activities. Workers in this fictional world were not cogs in a machine, but they took great care in what they produced in accordance with their own special skills and judgement, in a manner not dissimilar to how Morris in reality organised his crafts business with people who took pride in their creations. Morris argued against both the attempts to advance top-down state socialism which, no less than unrestrained capitalism, would deprive workers of meaningful control; and anarchists’ proclivity to cause societal disruptions without any long-term plan.10 There were also workers in local communities, such as those who came to be known as the Rochdale Pioneers, who would experiment with pooling their resources to set up and run a business that would buy and sell goods to meet local needs. The cooperative enterprise would pay a fair wage, set prices at an affordable level, share any profit with all those in the local community who have joined, and each member would have one vote regardless of what investment they had personally put in. Championed

9Technically, the punishment was for administering an illegal oath. The Grand National Consolidated Trades Union sought to raise funds to help the six, but ended up being weakened in the short term from the financial strain. 10 Although Morris is often perceived as exclusively promoting small, local communities, it can be argued that he also recognised the need for federal and international arrangements to connect multiple communities (Kinna 2006).

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by George Holyoake (1817–1906), this model of an inclusive work community would give rise to the cooperative movement that was to spread around the world.11

Neither Gemeinschaft nor Gesellschaft Despite the emergence of various communitarian experiments in the first half of the nineteenth century, when Ferdinand Tönnies’s book on Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (2003) appeared in 1887, it drew a conceptual distinction between just two types of human association. ‘Gemeinschaft’ (often translated as ‘community’) refers to what Tönnies saw as traditional forms of communal life, where the people involved are bound by a strong sense of subordination to the group, inclined to conform to detailed rules and customs that have been handed down to them, and are disposed to keep out new or ‘alien’ elements (be they people, ideas, or practices) because these may clash with how they see themselves. By contrast, ‘Gesellschaft’ (a general term for ‘society’) covers looser social connections where participants take a more instrumental view in terms of what they can get out of being a member of the group, agree to laws and procedures to the extent these appear to be useful in keeping disruption at bay, and are more open to changes so long as these are beneficial to them, or at least, not directly detrimental to their interests. For anyone taking Tönnies’s Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft dichotomy as a definitive classification of human interactions, it is easy to slip into associating communitarian ideas with his notion of Gemeinschaft. But that would be to overlook the quite distinct development of all those ideas and practices put forward in the advocacy for enlightened communities in the eighteenth century, and their further evolution through diverse cooperative communities in the nineteenth. These communitarian approaches to how people should live and work together were, from

11The

Rochdale Pioneers began trading in 1844. For a history of the cooperative movement in Britain through the second half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, see Bonner (1961); for a survey of the international cooperative movement from late nineteenth century on, see Birchall (1997). For more on Holyoake, see Yeo (2017).

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conception to implementation, significantly different from both traditional group-dominant Gemeinschaft and market-driven individualistic Gesellschaft.12 They encourage their members not to submit unquestioningly to past traditions, but they warn them against being taken in by sheer novelty when new suggestions lack evidential backing. They are equally critical of people being made subservient to some revered group ideal, and of individuals treating everyone else around them as merely a means to pursue their own ends. They recognise the importance of cultivating common values, but reject attempts to impose these by those with self-styled infallibility. They are open to new ideas and members, provided these are supportive of the culture of mutual respect and cooperation. Alongside the many experiments in forming cooperative communities, the second half of the nineteenth century also witnessed the formulation of ideas which took a number of the components often associated with traditional top-down communities, and steered them in a new direction that stayed well clear of laissez faire individualism. Let us look at four of these—social status, religion, nationality, and authority—and see how they were re-orientated by thinkers who, like Robert Owen, were steeped in the ethos of enlightened community development. Social status is sharply differentiated in traditional hierarchies, and the possession of high status by a small elite has often been argued as necessary for wider stability.13 Indeed many, from Edmund Burke to Joseph de Maistre, have insisted that the masses should be grateful that there are those with exceptionally high social status to command general deference and secure overall cohesion. Following the American and French Revolutions, which in effect served as large scale experiments in social and political restructuring, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) wrote about notable features he observed in community life in post-revolution America and pre-revolution France (1968, 1971). With the former, he drew attention 12Tönnies

lived from 1855 to 1936, a period when distinct communitarian ideas and practices became more widespread than ever before. His contemporary, Durkheim, as we will see later in this chapter, criticised his inadequate conceptualisation of human interactions, and provided a much more informed exposition of organic solidarity that was not captured by either ‘Gemeinschaft’ or ‘Gesellschaft’ as conceived by Tönnies. 13 Beside the advocates for traditional communities, there are also those who both welcome their displacement by modern commerce-driven communities, and support the emergence of vast gaps in social status separating wealthy owners and bosses from poorly paid workers.

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to how a democratic culture was developing with substantially smaller gaps in social status (compared with countries in Europe) amongst the population. People would readily converse about public affairs, or gather in town meetings to discuss policies that could affect them all. No one dominated these communities with such superior status that they intimidated others from speaking their mind. Nearly everyone had a reasonable living that they could feel confident in spending time on learning about the latest news and exchanging opinions with other residents. By contrast, Tocqueville found that throughout the eighteenth century, France was heading towards an inevitable clash between those with unrivalled privileges and those who periodically faced the prospect of extreme hunger. The king might be far from oppressive, his ministers might be sincere in looking for better policies, but the distrust and tension bred by the chasm in social standing culminated in the overthrowing of the entire system. Tocqueville did not believe in absolute egalitarianism, but he could see that the functionality of any form of human association was correlated with the extent to which social status was differentiated. While everyone being equal in every respect was in his view neither practicable nor desirable, large and widening gaps in social status was actually not a stabilising factor for community life, but a major threat. If harmony and stability were to be sought, moderating differentials in social status would be Tocqueville’s recommendation.14 Turning to religion, conformity to the doctrines and practices laid down by established religious leaders is another standard assumption about what holds traditional communities together. Proponents of deist views from Shaftesbury to Paine have argued that while religious teachings can contain important moral ideas, people should not accept without question what religious leaders instruct them to comply with. A key challenge concerned how the appropriate moral guidance could be extracted from prevailing religious beliefs. According to Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872), this should be done through understanding the process by which we project the best in ourselves into an external embodiment of perfection, as we can then grasp what we truly value about one another (Wartofsky 1977; 14Tocqueville’s

insightful sociological analysis advanced on Harrington’s previous study of how a commonwealth should be sustained by a broad balance of wealth and power across the main sections of the population.

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Harvey 1995). Once we have hermeneutically stripped away the layers of superstitions and dogmas that have obscured what matters, we can focus on organising ourselves and our interactions with others in the manner most conducive to our moral goals without being deflected by irrelevant customs and injunctions. In The Essence of Christianity (1957), Feuerbach argued that the changing interpretations of what God, as our moral ideal, tells us to do will make more sense if we recognise the underlying quest for the essence of goodness. Many people in different parts of the world at different times have come up with their versions of what ‘God’ means for them, but what unites them is that God is love, and the meaning of that love is God’s unconditional love of humankind, reflected in the supreme injunction to love others as one would wish others to love one. To love God is to fulfil that injunction, to contradict it is to defy God. The sacred commitment to abide by God is thus revealed to be a commitment for people to be loving, supportive, and understanding towards each other. To pretend that one is loving God while one treats others with neglect or disdain is a betrayal of what religion in essence guides us to do. To tolerate this betrayal is to alienate ourselves from our own humanity. To take religion seriously, Feuerbach concluded, we must reconnect with others as beings capable of sharing love and respect.15 Instead of being a doctrine that divides communities into believers and non-believers, religion becomes a unifying spirit that brings diverse people together into inclusive communities. In the nineteenth century, nationality increasingly became a notion that was invoked to define a state-level community. For some, it was an opportunity to draw together people with a shared language and traditional customs so that they could be mobilised to keep away from ‘home soil’ those who were different, fight ‘foreign’ enemies, or expand into external territories to reunite with ‘kin’ who had been cut off from the fatherland/motherland. With Bismarck, for example, it provided a useful pretext to build a German empire. But there was another approach to promoting a strong sense of nationality, as exemplified by Giuseppe Mazzini

15 Feuerbach

first developed his ideas in relation to Christianity, but later applied them to religion in general. Those ideas would have a major influence on Martin Buber, who in turn was a thinker from whom Amitai Etzioni drew much inspiration.

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(1805–1872), who played a critical role in the campaign to create a unified Italian nation (Mack Smith 1994). In his book, The Duties of Man (1862), Mazzini explained why people who had much in common, such as a shared history, culture, language, should not allow some unaccountable person to rule over them, but should seek instead to form their own self-governing nation. A national government grounded on democratic elections would enable the people to shape the policies that affect their lives. For Mazzini, the nation was not a force for expressing macho chauvinist dominance over others, but a powerful means to engage with the needs and concerns of the people, and reach a consensus in responding to them.16 In his time, the priorities would include the emancipation of women, the removal of feudal privileges for the elite, the lifting of outmoded restrictions, the provision of education for all, and the amelioration of the poor and the sick. For a government to serve the people and defend their rights, the people themselves must fulfil their duties to their fellow citizens, and make the necessary contributions to advance the common good.17 Far removed from a centralised state being the sole arbiter of all that concerns the people, Mazzini’s vision is for a nation’s government to share responsibilities internally with local government, and to cooperate externally with other national governments. Nationality is thus not exclusionary, but ultimately helps the members of all nations to work peacefully together to attain a better quality of life.18 But is it not necessary for one individual or institution to have the absolute authority to decide what is or is not acceptable, since otherwise we could end up with chaos? J. S. Mill (1806–1873) tackled this question by challenging those who want to uphold such authority to explain why their particular position is any more reliable than that of the many others who also want to proclaim absolute authority for themselves. From those who rely on theological 16 For an overview of the contrasts between liberal and tribal nationalism in late nineteenth and early twentieth century, see Tam (2015, pp. 116–148). 17The emphasis on ‘duties/responsibilities as well as rights’ has been a key element of communitarian thinking since at least the mid-nineteenth century. 18 Mazzini was a firm advocate for the development of a federation of European nations. His moral goal was never meant for a single nation, but for all people. In a phrase reminiscent of Feuerbach, Mazzini declared, ‘God exists, because we exist, God lives in our conscience, in the conscience of humanity’ (quoted in Bowle 1963, p. 175).

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claims to the intuitionists who insist they just know what is correct, they are caught by the fact that there is nothing objective they can point to that would show that their assertions or commands are more reliable than those made by others. Two rival theological camps may declare God is behind their authority, while everyone else waits indefinitely for God to make an appearance to settle the matter. Competing intuitionists may repeat that their ideas are beyond dispute even as they go on disputing each other’s soundness. In works such as A System of Logic (1872a), An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy (1872b), and Utilitarianism (1867), Mill methodically set out why the only coherent authority that could be referred to in settling conflicting claims was one that was accessible to everyone’s experience. Suppose the claim was about a phenomenon that can be observed at a given place and time, or a level of satisfaction that will be increased from what was experienced before, members of the community can check if they observe the phenomenon or whether or not their level of satisfaction is raised. When claims have predictable consequences that can be ascertained independently of the claimant, then the authority of the claimant can accordingly be assessed. Practices of empirical examination in the natural and social sciences have shown how the authority of a theory, a person, or an institution can be evaluated through systematic observation and experiment. In short, there can be no a priori way to determine what should be accepted as the absolute authority on any matter. The experiences of any enquiring mind in a community must be allowed to inform the scrutiny and continuous reviews of which is a reliable authority, and which should be treated with greater scepticism. This has significant implications for what should be done about any attempt to impose or reject authority in a community. There would be no basis for anyone in the name of ancient custom or divine sanction to tell others to accept their authority as unquestionable. Equally, it would be groundless for individuals to brush aside a specific claim or order just because they are so inclined. The extent to which any proclaimed authority is to be accepted must be linked to the balance of objectively available evidence which people are free to search for and consider. Applying this reasoning, Mill argued, for example, that traditionalists’ refusal to grant women equal rights was untenable given what had been learnt about

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women’s capability (1869); socialist proposals should be welcomed provided they were underpinned by cooperative experiments (1987); and that a government’s authority to intervene in one or more individuals’ behaviour should be determined with reference to the potential harm that would befall people other than those individuals themselves, if the intervention was not forthcoming (1859). Above all, he warned against allowing anyone to subvert the scientific model of experimental enquiry and turn it, as Auguste Comte tried with his Positivist doctrine, into a religion with self-appointed ‘scientific’ leaders who were entitled to tell everyone else what they should do.19 By the end of the nineteenth century, there was a wealth of ideas that conceived of communities as neither the authoritarian, close-knit, traditional Gemeinschaft , nor the laissez faire, impersonal, fast-changing Gesellschaft .20 From that time on to the early twentieth century, these ideas were synthesised into comprehensive reform philosophies in France, Britain, and the United States, and made a substantial political impact in each of those countries.

Reforming Communities: The French Solidarity Advocates France underwent unprecedented social and political upheaval as a result of the 1789 Revolution and the rise and fall of Napoleon. Throughout the rest of the nineteenth century, reactionary and revolutionary voices fiercely disputed what went wrong in their country and what must be done about it (Geyl 1965; McMahon 2001). Matters were made worse when the rising economic powers of businesses created new dependencies on insecure employment, and disrupted previously settled patterns of community life. 19 From its early Baconian development, the scientific experimental approach was taken forward by Mill in a direction which enriched subsequent communitarian ideas, whereas Comte’s philosophical tendency led to what was later decried as ‘scientism’, which ran counter to the ethos of cooperative enquiry. See Mill (1866). 20 Mill’s appraisals of Bentham and Coleridge in The Westminster Review (written in 1838 and 1840) could be read as a communitarian critique of the contrasting mind-sets associated with Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft respectively (Mill 1980).

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Traditionalists pressed for a return to the old monarchic-aristocratic hierarchy sustained by strict Catholic customs and values. Collectivists wanted the state to enforce greater equality for all citizens. Anarchists wanted the state to disappear. And the Bonapartists sought to revive autocratic leadership, and thought they had succeeded with Louis Napoleon proclaiming himself Emperor Napoleon III, until his humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/1871 ended the imperialist dream. Against this background, reformists who wanted to steer France away from siren calls that would send the country in the wrong direction, sought to chart a new course for the development of enlightened communities. They recognised that the state had an important role to play, but it could not carry it out if citizens were not ready themselves to make it possible for the state to act effectively. They believed this was a problem connected with people lacking a common civic vision, and their response was to tackle it with a renewed focus on the notion of solidarity. Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) argued that solidarity was a vital ingredient of healthy community life. Against champions of laissez faire, he warned that the reduction of people into isolated individuals competing for profit, jobs, or markets, would leave them with little sense of shared endeavour. At best, they would go their own way, each cocooned in indifference. At worst, they would behave with no regard for the harmful consequences of their actions on others. As more and more people were left to cope with disorientating changes and mounting pressures on their own, an increasing number would be overwhelmed by anomie, with many giving up on life by dropping out or even attempting suicide (Durkheim 2002). However, solidarity could not be revived simply by getting people to accept collective objectives and dutifully carry out their assigned functions. That might be enough for what Durkheim termed ‘mechanical solidarity’, which could bind a group together for certain purposes, but would be quite inadequate in enabling its members to realise the full potential of community life. To achieve the latter, we need ‘organic solidarity’, which involves a symbiotic relationship between the group and its members, so that individuals contribute to the advancement of the group, and at the same time the group evolves to facilitate the development of individuals (Durkheim 1984).

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Durkheim criticised Tönnies’ interpretations of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft , because one should not suppose that the only alternative to a loose form of impersonal social network must be some rigid form of tightly-knit community resembling traditional clans. The increasingly commercialised society of late nineteenth/early twentieth century was damaging for human relations, but to succumb to Tönnies’ dichotomy, one would end up thinking that the way out was to be found with a return to the old hierarchy or through some Bonapartist alternative of submission to a great leader. The option people should actually pursue was the one that would cultivate organic solidarity. What is distinctive about organic solidarity is that through it one can improve oneself and one’s community without having to choose one over the other (Cladis 1992). An egoistic individualism would validate any purely self-regarding outlook as legitimate. Durkheim argued instead for moral individualism, whereby people would recognise that they owed a duty to supporting their community, because that community was responsible for ensuring that each of its members could flourish as individuals. This is not to be reduced to an instrumentalist approach that values serving the group exclusively for the benefits one would get back. It is rather about appreciating the twin importance of developing oneself as an individual and developing the relationships and community-wide inter-connections of which one is an integral part. Neither of these could be subsumed under the other. From Durkheim’s perspective, society should move forward with its cultural inheritance, preserving, adapting, and expanding what would tend to enrich the conditions under which its members could connect with each other empathically. A celebration of the noble aspirations of the French Revolution, for example, would be worthy of promotion to future generations. But the outburst of anti-Semitism linked to the Dreyfus Affair should be rejected as alien to the kind of country French people would want to be part of (Goldberg 2008). The relevant differentiating factor is whether an attitude or practice helps people value each other and enhance

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the bond of civic togetherness, or it distorts their perception and turns them to hate those who have done nothing to wrong them.21 Not surprisingly, Durkheim applied the same line of thinking to the propagation of religion. He did not want to see it used as a vehicle to carry forward ideas and dispositions that weaken, or even sever, the empathic exchange between people. He supported religious practices where they provided people with a common faith through which they could more readily view and support each other as belonging to the same community (2008). This is not to suggest that he would favour the kind of artificial religion the likes of Comte had tried to weave together. His model of religious experiences bringing people to a deeper awareness of their moral connectedness is more akin to Feuerbach’s conception of ‘God’ as the embodiment of the best of humanity.22 As for inculcating the ideas and experiences of a common culture that is conducive to mutually responsible interactions, Durkheim expected schools and universities to play a key role. Far from hesitating that they might be indoctrinating young minds with dogmatic views, they should be unwavering in teaching what would underpin the civic bonds of all citizens, on the assumption that the curriculum and teaching methods drew from organic solidarity-enhancing cultural resources, and not from sources that were inimical to inclusive community development. Following formal education, learning relating to ethical behaviour and civic commitments should continue through professional associations and occupational groups so that there could be a lifelong process to strengthen communitarian understanding and actions, in the face of amoral market transactions and immoral political extremism (Durkheim 1992). In parallel with citizens becoming more civic-minded, the government should be ready to take the appropriate action to tackle the erosion of societal bonds. In addition to writing a seminal exposition of the solidaritybased reform philosophy (Bourgeois 1912), Léon Bourgeois (1851–1925)

21 France

during the Third Republic adopted many practices to celebrate the country’s cultural heritage, including the erection of civic monuments and the organising of public events. See Nord (1995, Chapter 8). 22 Cf. George Holyoake’s notion of a ‘religion of cooperation’, which also focusses on attaching the highest moral value to the cultivation of cooperative togetherness (Yeo 2017, pp. 157–185).

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provided political leadership23 in steering France towards communitarian public policies. Influenced by Alfred Fouillée’s (1838–1912) ideas on society’s duty to pay the collective debt it owed to its poorest (Kohn 2016), Bourgeois argued that when socio-economic arrangements were allowed to lead some to become deprived of basic necessities, it was not a matter of charity, but justice that wealth should be redistributed. As citizens were interdependent—none could generate revenue and profits without others’ specific support or general compliance with the country’s laws and customs—he maintained that there was a case for those who had, for example, taken over land to be required to pay a rent to those who were thus deprived of access to land.24 More broadly, he explained that since it was the prevailing conditions which would cause some to be able to amass more possessions than everyone else, and leave many in a state of destitution, the government must actively seek to change those conditions (Wilde 2007). There is no presumption that there should be absolute equality, only that glaring discrepancies that are morally divisive and greatly deplete people’s sense of mutual responsibility to each other ought to be reduced. Bourgeois and the Radical Party introduced progressive income and inheritance taxes to provide old age pensions, and pay for social insurance to cover ill health, accidents, and loss of remunerative work. They supported the trade unions so they could help workers attain a better bargaining position, and promoted partnerships with cooperative enterprises. The government took on a leading role in co-ordinating efforts to deal with the causes of problems such as tuberculosis, alcoholism, infant mortality, inadequate housing and nutrition through a mix of education, mutual aid, and legislative intervention. Bourgeois further developed the politics of solidarity beyond conventional horizons by arguing that duties extended across generational ‘time’ and national ‘space’. People are born into society where the labour of past generations has created the supportive conditions for children to be cared for, the young to be educated, and everyone growing up with the benefit of the intellectual endowment and physical infrastructure passed down. It should be seen as a debt that they ought to discharge by contributing 23 He 24 Cf.

was a key figure in the Radical Party, and served as Prime Minister of France 1895–1896. Paine’s arguments in Agrarian Justice (1795).

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to the wellbeing of future generations (Hayward 1961). This debt covers not just what later environmentalists will be most concerned about in terms of the protection of non-renewable natural resources, but also every form of social, economic and cultural goods that should be preserved and enhanced for tomorrow’s citizens. In relation to people of other countries, Bourgeois’s conception of cross-border interdependence led to his recognition that no one could justly expect other nations to be peaceful and cooperative towards one’s own country if one’s own country were not prepared to act reciprocally. Patriotic concern would therefore support, not oppose, international solidarity.25 In practical terms, he sought to build global institutions that would underpin the development of a worldwide community of communities. He led the French delegation to the first Hague Peace Conference in 1899, and played a key role in securing agreement to establish an international Permanent Court of Arbitration. In 1918, he put forward a proposal for what would become the League of Nations, and was actively involved in its gradual establishment.

Reforming Communities: The British New Liberals Britain’s transition from late nineteenth to early twentieth century was, like France, characterised by ever greater social dislocation resulting from the spread of industrial and commercial forces. While Durkheim and Bourgeois had to make sure that resistance against the ideology of laissez faire did not open the door to a return to the old authoritarian culture, their British counterparts faced a torrent of market individualism that was unremitting in seeking to sweep every form of regulatory authority away. Herbert Spencer and others who had co-opted Darwinist ideas about natural selection to justify an egoistic philosophy of the survival of the fittest in business dealings, insisted that the state must not interfere with people’s freedom to be successful. In their vision of a, to coin a term, uber-Gesellschaft , some would fail, but they would have no one to blame 25 Bourgeois’

love of the French nation is thus akin to Mazzini’s love of Italy, fully in harmony with a passionate internationalism.

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but themselves; while those who had the talent to succeed—in making money, building up their businesses, controlling their workforce, buying and selling to their own best advantage—would not be held back by any meddling government. Although a core theme of British political thinking since the English Revolution of the 1640s had been about securing freedom from arbitrary rule by those with state power, as the nineteenth century progressed, it became increasingly clear that power might not just be concentrated in the state. The owners and managers of businesses could also amass considerable power, and many of them behaved despotically towards their workers, and with little sense of responsibility in relation to the general public. Some of them could even use their wealth and influence to get laws passed to benefit themselves at the expense of ordinary people. For example, the Anti-Corn Law League had to be formed in 1839 to rally opposition to a law that imposed high tariffs on imported corn for the sake of protecting the interests of domestic corn growers. As a result of that law, many poor people faced starvation because they could not afford the higher prices. Amongst those who had an affinity with the political outlook of liberalism, some regarded it as a milestone in the formation of resistance to plutocratic influence—the people were taking a stand against the rich using the law to benefit themselves with total disregard of the harm caused to others. But there were others who insisted that liberalism was exclusively about restraining the state, and the efforts to repeal the Corn Law were part of the wider resolution to limit the scope of the law. From the middle of nineteenth century on, these two strands of liberal thought were increasingly at odds with each other over the role of the state in relation to community life. Those who were concerned with tackling irresponsible power supported a succession of legislation to require improvements to be made to factory working conditions and intervene in a variety of ways to enhance public health. Those who were focused on constraining the state opposed such legislation and claimed that any true liberal would want to see them repealed as much as they did with the Corn Law. By late nineteenth, early twentieth century, the intellectual and political battle for the soul of liberalism had reached its height. Arguably,

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victory went to a group of thinkers often referred to as the New Liberals, who systematically updated liberalism as a philosophy that integrated the protection of individuals from arbitrary rule with the development of mutually supportive community relations. It was this form of liberalism that informed the reforming Liberal Government of 1906–1914. Notably later in the twentieth century, the anti-state wing of the old liberal movement adopted labels such as ‘libertarian’ and ‘neo-liberal’, while ‘liberal’ became the term used (by its backers and detractors) to describe the political disposition to use all means, including the state, to counter the abuse of power and protect the powerless wherever that was found to be necessary.26 In his book, Liberalism (1994), the leading New Liberal thinker, Leonard Hobhouse (1864–1929) criticised the arbitrary stance of laissez faire advocates who were very supportive of the use of state power to protect individuals from having their property stolen, but who were firmly against the state stepping in to protect children from being exploited in factories, or to protect people from vile housing and environmental conditions.27 To the claim that the state should not intervene when people ‘consent’ to work or live in whatever conditions presented to them, Hobhouse retorted: True consent is free consent, and full freedom of consent implies equality of both parties to the bargain. Just as government first secured the elements of freedom for all when it prevented the physically stronger man from slaying, beating, despoiling his neighbours, so it secures a larger measure of freedom for all by every restriction it imposes with a view to preventing one man from making use of any of his advantages to the disadvantage of others. (p. 43)

For Hobhouse, all individuals should be protected from powers that make them vulnerable to threats and pressures, not just those with plenty of 26 By

late twentieth century, liberal ideas were again contested between those who wanted to see them develop more in the communitarian direction the New Liberals had mapped out, and those who were either attracted to or felt they had to concede more to the individualist approach of neo-liberal/libertarian proponents. Any simplistic conceptualisation of communitarianism as being opposed to liberalism misses this vital dimension. 27 For more on Hobhouse, see Owen (1974) and Collini (1983).

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property in their possession. The interest of a community cannot be put aside for the sake of its elite members, and nor should it be defined by a few who lack understanding and empathy in relation to what others have to endure. Individuals who try to impose their preferred social structures on others—especially when that would give them an unmatchable bargaining position thereafter—would be acting against other individuals and subverting the interest of the entire community (Freeden 1986; Stears and White 2001). Another critic of laissez faire politics, John Hobson (1858–1940), argued that economic arrangements should be reformed because there was too much wastage of resources and human potential when talents were routinely left undeveloped, and opportunities for better quality output overlooked (Freeden 1990). Each being left to one’s own devices was too often a recipe for sub-optimal choices for the individual and undesirable outcomes for the community, as well illustrated by endless cycles of over-production, recession, and unemployment (Hobson 1996). At the international level, Hobson connected narrow individualist economics to the problem of imperialism where countries, only thinking about their own search for markets and profits, would use their military and financial power to press those countries in a feeble bargaining position to accept their hegemonic instructions as to how they should run their economies to benefit the far wealthier nations (Hobson 1902).28 Global tensions and wars then followed to the detriment of the entire world. If it cannot be left to individuals to see who can win out with military or commercial powers, then how is the interest of the community to be expressed or served? Since the New Liberals rejected the crude utilitarianism of Bentham which supposed the preferences of isolated individuals could simply be added to or subtracted from one another, it has been suggested that they embraced the philosophical idealism of T. H. Green and Bernard Bosanquet (Vincent and Plant 1984, ch. 5; Simhony and Weinstein 2001). However, in so far as nineteenth century idealist thinking took issue with the empiricist underpinning of cooperative enquiry,

28There

are critical questions about the extent to which Hobson’s critique of imperialism is undermined by his expression of prejudiced views relating to Jewish financiers. See Allett (1987) and Rich (2019).

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the New Liberals were firmly on the side of empiricism.29 They would not invoke some transcendent ‘General Will’ or an idealised ‘State’ to determine how communities should be reformed, but would insist instead on people learning together, cooperating, developing personal and shared concerns as the path to formulating a common understanding of what they should collectively pursue (Hobhouse 1924, 1951). In order to tackle the question of how reform ideas could be developed organically, Hobhouse adapted an experimentalist epistemology that descended from Mill, Hume and Bacon (1896). He explained that while the experiences of different people were ultimately the source of information for helping us judge what we should believe, reported experiences could contradict each other, and they needed to be harmonised systematically for a coherent, reliable picture to emerge overall. No individual could claim that their interpretations of what they had experienced must be correct. What could be accepted as provisionally known would always depend on the comparative weight of evidence, the coherence and simplicity of a proposed explanatory framework, and the robustness in standing up to tests against rival interpretations. Experiences of diverse practices and their impact on people’s lives, and continuous empirical assessments of options to minimise avoidable suffering would then produce guidance on what communities should pursue (1921, 1922). This way of thinking helped reform-minded politicians counter the notion that the state should limit itself to protecting those with property and enforcing contracts. Between 1906 and 1914, the Liberal Government enacted an extensive series of reforms that ranged from the taxing and licensing of pubs to reduce alcohol consumption, to the setting of minimum wages for a number of low pay industries.30 The communitarian reorientation of liberalism thus commenced.

29 For

Hobhouse, Mill was the key thinker whose influence led to the emergence of New Liberal ideas (1994, Chapter 5). See also Freeden (1986, pp. 55–60). 30 Other reforms included the provision of free schooling; free school meals for children; supervision in the community for young offenders; the introduction of old age pension; support for unemployed people to find work; subsidised compulsory health insurance; regulations to further improve working conditions in factories; and the establishment of a progressive income tax.

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Reforming Communities: The American Progressive Pragmatists The United States in late nineteenth century was first shaken by the Civil War which nearly broke the country in two, and then polarised socioeconomically by the rise of the ‘robber barons’—powerful business people who were as ready to bribe politicians as they were to intimidate their workers to get their way (Josephson 1934). By early twentieth century, progressive reformists were increasingly concerned about how a national community as large as the US could be held together despite the many divisive forces. Like their counterparts in France, they had to rebut traditionalists who yearned for a return to some idealised Gemeinschaft of the past, when all matters were dominated by white males of European descent without exception.31 Similar to colleagues in Britain, they needed to challenge plutocrats who wanted to fast forward to some perfect Gesellschaft in the future, where self-interest and money would decide everything. To break away from these misguided options, a reconceptualisation of how people should relate to each other in a shared community was needed. The philosophical outlook that emerged around this time to provide fresh stimulus in tackling these conundrums came to be known as ‘Pragmatism’. As William James (1842–1910) explained in his 1907 book, Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, the central ideas were derived from thinking that had been developing for some time. Indeed he dedicated the book ‘To the memory of John Stuart Mill, from whom I first learned the pragmatic openness of mind and whom my fancy likes to picture as our leader were he alive today’. It was a continuation of the critical reflections that had gone into formulating the quest for enlightened communities, and its elaboration through the nineteenth century. What was distinctive was the boldness of pragmatism in opening up previously unchallenged assumptions about the nature of truth, and demonstrating

31The

defeat of the South in the Civil War fuelled in some quarters resentment against reforms designed to extend justice and protection to non-white Americans.

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how continuous enquiry could be guided by the practical impact being discerned.32 Pragmatist thinkers would go on to lead a range of progressive initiatives that gave a new direction to community development at the local, national and global levels. Jane Addams (1860–1935), for example, adapted the idea of a settlement centre she encountered at Toynbee House, England, and developed it into Hull House in Chicago with a clear emphasis on colearning and mutual support. It was not about charity or the privileged giving something back, but about how citizens from different socio-economic backgrounds should enrich their understanding of society’s problems and devise approaches together to solve them (Addams 1960, 2002a). She applied her standpoint epistemology to barriers to progress relating to all oppressed groups. For each group, she would stress the need for cultivating interpersonal understanding as a pre-condition for deliberative engagement in problem-solving. She drew attention to the exploitation of women and called for public action to tackle the disenfranchisement of women as well as sex slavery and prostitution (Addams 2002b; Hamilton 2010). Importantly, to understand the concerns of different groups was not a precursor to compartmentalising each group, but long before the term ‘intersectionality’ was coined, it was regarded by Addams as a first step to developing wider understanding and cooperation between diverse groups. For example, her feminist activism led her to play a key role in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, which became vocal in questioning the direction of the League of Nations when it was moving away from addressing the military and economic inequalities that fuelled wars.33 Addams collaborated with John Dewey (1859–1951) on opening minds to exploring different approaches to improving community life by empowering its members to act as citizens. This involved giving everyone equal

32The philosophical pragmatism of James and Dewey permeated public policy thinking (Festenstein

1997), and its influence was further spread through sympathetic journals such as New Republic, founded in 1914 (Kloppenberg 2009; Brennan and Keller 2017). For similarities between pragmatist reform ideas and the teachings of the Solidarity advocates and the New Liberals, see Kloppenberg (1986). 33 And away from the vision set out originally by Léon Bourgeois.

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respect and meaningful opportunities to participate in shaping their personal and their community’s destiny (Westbrook 1991; Elshtain 2002). While Addams applied pragmatist ideas to her everyday work at Hull House, Dewey experimented with new educational practices in a school established under the auspices of the University of Chicago (Mayhew and Edwards 1936). With his encouragement and guidance, teachers would engage children in cooperative enquiry, promote a sense of mutual responsibility amongst them, and facilitate participatory decision-making. Dewey had argued that the craving for absolute certainty and the related attempt to impose unquestionable beliefs on each generation would both divert us from continuously assessing what warranted assent, and mire us in falsehoods and misconceptions34 (1929). The alternative, as Dewey carefully set out in his 1916 book, Democracy and Education, would involve teachers acting as guides and facilitators, supporting exploratory questioning where appropriate, and transmitting what is provisionally backed by the latest research and examination (1966). Not surprisingly, many educational commentators could not shake off the old dichotomy and assumed that any rejection of authoritarian schooling must lead to some form of laissez faire ‘let the children do whatever they want’ classroom anarchy. The fact that some teachers misguidedly adopted that approach in the name of ‘progressive’ education, however, did not so much invalidate Dewey’s philosophy as emphasise the need to ensure educators really understand how to put it into practice.35 Dewey also applied his pragmatist ideas to educative development beyond schools. He recognised that the increasing size and complexity of organisations that affected people’s lives were making it more difficult for people to interact in more personal ways to sustain close cooperation. But rather than conceding that people must leave it to experts to make the key decisions and accept the consequences, he argued that society should redouble its efforts to become what he called a ‘Great Community’, where its members as equal citizens would all be given the skills, confidence, 34 In The

Quest for Certainty (1929), he set out the problems caused by a misconceived demand for absolute certainty. He credited Francis Bacon with initiating the ideas for experimental epistemology in Reconstruction in Philosophy (1921). 35 Where Dewey’s ideas were responsibly applied, they improved the performance of teachers and pupils alike (Mayhew and Edwards 1936).

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and opportunities to learn and deliberate with each other in ascertaining what public goals should be pursued, and whose proposals for action should have their support (1927). This would require innovations in adult education, community journalism, and decentralisation to the local level. Dewey believed that precisely because it would not be an easy task, we must make it a priority to promote meaningful communications between people in relation to what they value. In order to move beyond being psychologically isolated individual to attain a fuller life, we must develop ourselves through empathic engagement with and interpretation of the experiences of others.36 Another example of progressive pragmatism can be found in the work of Herbert Croly (1869–1930), who urged his fellow Americans to rethink the options for strengthening their national community. He pointed out that unrestrained individual liberty could mean little more than people trying to see how far each might pursue their interests at the expense of others, when their freedom would only be truly enhanced if they could control their destiny as a nation. He was concerned that Thomas Jefferson’s emphasis on vibrant local communities would sustain democracy at the expense of not having the capacity to tackle the larger scale problems appearing in the twentieth century; but he was also worried that Alexander Hamilton’s vision for a powerful national government might have the strength without the legitimacy or support from citizens too remote from its decisions. His response was to re-orientate the national government so that it would acquire the capability to deal with threats such as those coming from monopolistic businesses, corrupt practices or harmful economic transactions, and at the same time become more adept at engaging the people at all levels (1998, 2014). He envisaged responsible experimentation in promoting democratic deliberations over issues from worker management to revisions to the US Constitution. For Croly, we should always strive to make improvements—in running a locality, a business, a country, provided we ensure those affected by the proposals for improvement have

36 Walter Lippmann’s view that the public was too amorphous for democratic engagement to be effective prompted Dewey to explain in detailed communitarian terms how a genuine community of democratic citizens could be developed. See also Ryan (1995) and Campbell (1995).

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a real chance to consider and decide on them.37 In Progressive Democracy, he wrote: A free man can obey the most rigorous and exacting orders without any loss of self-respect, but only in case the orders concern methods and are necessary to the realization of a policy that have been submitted to him and are approved by him. (1998, p. 402)

But how should methods be formulated and approval for policies sought? Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) synthesised the different strands of progressive pragmatism into a series of communitarian guidance on integrative engagement (Whipps 2014). In her 1918 work, The New State, she applied the psychology of interpersonal relations to the re-organising of communities’ self-governance at the local, occupational, national, and global levels (1988). Since individuality emerges from the reciprocal interplay of different people, not out of the secluded reflections of a single ego, we should recognise that a person free from meaningful interactions with others is in effect detached from the real world. Instead of trying to mechanically aggregate individuals’ self-centred thoughts to work out what should or should not be done in any community, we should enable people to share ideas and deliberate in a constructive manner so that new perspectives and insights could be found. Follett’s ‘community principle’38 requires the interpenetration of minds that makes it possible to learn and appreciate each other’s feelings and viewpoints, and to explore cooperatively how they might move forward to attain improvements that would not at the same time unfairly disadvantage some members. She distinguished this form of group process from the dynamics of a crowd. The latter would be a mere physical aggregation of individuals socially disengaged from others. Manipulated by an orator, pressured by sheer numbers, or tempted by a sense of superficial 37 Croly’s ‘New Nationalism’ was akin to Mazzini’s liberal nationalism, and his ideas were greatly admired by Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) who, during his Presidency, defended workers against unfair treatment by large corporations, tackled monopolistic trusts, regulated the railways, supported laws on transparency on food and drugs, and created an unprecedented 42 million acres of national forests (Mowry 1962). 38 She also referred to it as the ‘group principle’, which is applicable to neighbourhood, workplace, and larger communities.

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belonging, a person in a crowd might well without thought adopt attitudes or express views that are groundless, or even detrimental to that person. Follett’s paradigm for shared deliberations is the opposite of the crowd. The associative conditions must preclude random ranting and demagogic misdirection. She made it clear that for any community to be empowered to direct itself, the focus must be on ‘power-with’ and not ‘power-over’. In other words, people must share power in examining and deciding what should be done, without anyone possessing the power to dominate others. As for how such associative conditions are to be developed and sustained, Follett directed our attention to the role of institutions. Government bodies at the local and national levels, neighbourhood organisations, businesses, all offer opportunities for people to interact and shape their common endeavours. If these opportunities were mismanaged, selfcentred individuals or misguided crowds might end up being the only ones to have any say. With the appropriate guidance, however, these diverse institutions could bring in training, structures, procedures, and facilitative arrangements to increase the likelihood that the community principle would be actualised in group discourse (Ansell 2009). Follett herself was involved in providing such guidance through her collaboration with Jane Addams in the settlement movement, her work as a leading management consultant in the US, and her advocacy for a community of nations governed by a federal world state.39 In the decades that followed the early twentieth century, the proposals put forward by Follett and other procommunitarian thinkers discussed in this chapter would come up against new obstacles that threatened the very foundation of inclusive community life. In the next chapter, we will look at the spread of different forms of depersonalisation that undermined mutual respect and cooperative interactions, and the critical responses they gave rise to.

39 Follett

drew a parallel between the untenable notion of the ‘sovereign individual’ and that of the ‘sovereign nation’. Neither could function in isolation from other people/nations, and both would be stronger through power sharing and cooperative governance with partners.

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References Addams, J. (1960). Jane Addams: A Centennial Reader. New York: The Macmillan Company. Addams, J. (2002a). Democracy and Social Ethics. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Addams, J. (2002b). A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Allett, J. (1987, Spring). New Liberalism, Old Prejudices: J. A. Hobson and the “Jewish Question”. Jewish Social Studies, 49 (2), 99–114. Ansell, C. (2009). Mary Parker Follett and Pragmatist Organization. In P. Adler (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies: Classical Foundations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bestor, A. (2018). Backwoods Utopias: The Sectarian Origins and the Owenite Phase of Communitarian Socialism in America, 1663–1829. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Birchall, J. (1997). The International Co-operative Movement. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bonner, A. (1961). British Cooperation. Manchester: Cooperative Union Ltd. Bourgeois, L. (1912). Solidarité. Paris: Colin. Bowle, J. (1963). Politics and Opinion in the 19th Century. London: Jonathan Cape. Brennan, J. F., & Keller, L. F. (2017). Pragmatism, The New Republic, and American Public Administration at Its Founding. Administration and Society, 49 (4), 491–529. Campbell, J. (1995). Understanding John Dewey. Chicago: Open Court. Cladis, M. S. (1992). A Communitarian Defense of Liberalism: Emile Durkheim and Contemporary Social Theory. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Claeys, G. (1989). Citizens and Saints: Politics and Anti-politics in Early British Socialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Collini, S. (1983). Liberalism & Sociology: L. T. Hobhouse and Political Argument in England 1880–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Croly, H. (1998). Progressive Democracy. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Croly, H. (2014). The Promise of American Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press. De Tocqueville, A. (1968). Democracy in America (G. Lawrence, Trans.). London: Fontana.

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De Tocqueville, A. (1971). The Ancien Regime and the French Revolution (S. Gilbert, Trans.). London: Fontana. Dewey, J. (1921). Reconstruction in Philosophy. London: University of London Press. Dewey, J. (1927). The Public and Its Problems. New York: H. Holt & Co. Dewey, J. (1929). The Quest for Certainty. London: George Allen & Unwin. Dewey, J. (1966). Democracy and Education. New York: The Free Press. Durkheim, E. (1984). The Division of Labour in Society. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Durkheim, E. (1992). Professional Ethics and Civic Morals. London: Routledge. Durkheim, E. (2002). Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Abingdon: Routledge. Durkheim, E. (2008). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Elshtain, J. B. (2002). Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy. New York: Basic Books. Festenstein, M. (1997). Pragmatism and Political Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press. Feuerbach, L. (1957). The Essence of Christianity (G. Eliot, Trans.) New York: Harper & Row. Follett, M. P. (1988) The New State. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Freeden, M. (1986). The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Freeden, M. (Ed.). (1990). Reappraising J. A. Hobson: Humanism and Welfare. Abingdon: Routledge. Garnett, R. G. (1972). Co-operation and the Owenite Socialist Communities in Britain 1825–45 (pp. 24–38). Manchester: University of Manchester Press. Geyl, P. (1965). Napoleon: For and Against. London: Penguin. Goldberg, C. A. (2008, December) Introduction to Emile Durkheim’s “AntiSemitism and Social Crisis”. Sociological Theory, 26 (4), 299–323. Hamilton, M. (Ed.). (2010). Feminist Interpretation of Jane Addams. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Harrison, J. F. C. (1969). Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Harvey, V. A. (1995). Feuerbach and the Interpretation of Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hayward, J. E. S. (1961). The Official Social Philosophy of the French Third Republic: Leon Bourgeois and Solidarism. International Review of Social History, 6 (1), 19–48. Hobhouse, L. T. (1896). Theory of Knowledge. London: Methuen & Company.

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Hobhouse, L. T. (1921). The Rational Good: A Study in the Logic of Practice. London: George Allen & Unwin. Hobhouse, L. T. (1922). The Elements of Social Justice. London: George Allen & Unwin. Hobhouse, L. T. (1924). Social Development. London: George Allen & Unwin. Hobhouse, L. T. (1951). Morals in Evolution. London: Chapman & Hall. Hobhouse, L. T. (1994). Liberalism and Other Writings (J. Meadowcroft, Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hobson, J. A. (1902). Imperialism: A Study. New York: James Pott & Co. Hobson, J. A. (1996). The Social Problem. Bristol: Thoemmes Press. James, W. (1907). Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. New York: Longmans, Green. Josephson, M. (1934). The Robber Barons. New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt. Kinna, R. (2006). William Morris and the Problem of Englishness. European Journal of Political Theory, 5 (1), 85–99. Kloppenberg, J. T. (1986). Uncertain Victory: Social Democracy and Progressivism in European and American Thought 1870–1920. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kloppenberg, J. T. (2009). James’ Pragmatism and American Culture 1907–2007. In J. J. Stuhr (Ed.), 100 Years of Pragmatism: William James’ Revolutionary Philosophy (pp. 7–40). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kohn, M. (2016). The Critique of Possessive Individualism: Solidarism and the City. Political Theory, 44 (5), 603–628. Mack Smith, D. (1994). Mazzini. New Haven: Yale University Press. Mayhew, K. C., & Edwards, A. C. (1936). The Dewey School—The Laboratory School of the University of Chicago 1896–1903. New York: D. AppletonCentury. Mazzini, G. (1862). The Duties of Man. London: Chapman & Hall. McMahon, D. M. (2001). Enemies of the Enlightenment: The French CounterEnlightenment and the Making of Modernity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mill, J. S. (1859). On Liberty. London: Parker. Mill, J. S. (1866). Auguste Comte and Positivism. London: Trubner. Mill, J. S. (1867). Utilitarianism. London: Longmans. Mill, J. S. (1869). The Subjection of Women. London: Longmans. Mill, J. S. (1872a). A System of Logic. London: Longmans. Mill, J. S. (1872b). An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy. London: Longmans.

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Mill, J. S. (1980). Mill on Bentham and Coleridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mill, J. S. (1987). On Socialism. Buffalo: Prometheus Books. Morris, W. (2004). News from Nowhere and Other Writings. London: Penguin. Morton, A. L. (1969). The Life and Ideas of Robert Owen. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Mowry, G. E. (1962). The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America 1900–1912. New York: Harper Torchbook. Nord, P. (1995). The Republican Moment: Struggles for Democracy in NineteenthCentury France. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Owen, J. (1974). L. T. Hobhouse: Sociologist. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons. Owen, R. (1991). A New View of Society and Other Writings. London: Penguin. Paine, T. (1795, 1987). Agrarian Justice. In M. Foot & I. Kramnick (Eds.), The Thomas Paine Reader (pp. 471–489). London: Penguin Books. Pérotin, V. (2016). What Do We Really Know About Worker Co-operatives? Manchester: Co-operatives UK. Rich, D. (2019, May 1). J. A. Hobson, Jeremy Corbyn and the History of Left-Wing Anti-Semitism. New Statesman. https://www.newstatesman.com/ politics/staggers/2019/05/j-hobson-jeremy-corbyn-and-history-left-winganti-semitism. Ryan, A. (1995). John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism. New York: W. W. Norton. Simhony, A., & Weinstein, D. (2001). The New Liberalism: Reconciling Liberty and Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stears, M., & White, S. (2001). New Liberalism Revisited. In Tam (2001), pp. 36–53. Tam, H. (Ed.). (2001). Progressive Politics in the Global Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Tam, H. (2015). Against Power Inequalities. London: Birkbeck. Tönnies, F. (2003). Community and Society. Mineola: Dover Publications. Vincent, A., & Plant, R. (1984). Philosophy, Politics and Citizenship. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wartofsky, M. W. (1977). Feuerbach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Westbrook, R. B. (1991). John Dewey and American Democracy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

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Whipps, J. (2014, Summer). A Pragmatist Reading of Mary Parker Follett’s “Integrative Process”. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 50 (3), 405–424. Wilde, L. (2007). The Concept of Solidarity: Emerging from the Theoretical Shadows? British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 9 (1), 171–181. Yeo, S. (2017). Victorian Agitator—George Jacob Holyoake: Co-operation as ‘This New Order of Life’. Brighton: Edward Everett Root.

5 Critiques of Depersonalisation: 1920s–1980s

A common objection to communitarian thinking is that, lacking a rational vantage point from which the case for societal changes can be indubitably made, it can do little but put up with the beliefs and customs endorsed by the status quo. Our historical review so far, by contrast, has shown that communities change over time, not because of some philosophically flawless proposition has emerged to secure everyone’s consent, but more as a result of some members of those communities raising questions others cannot ignore. This may come about through a mirror being held up to people’s behaviour in contrast with the supposed expectations of their peers; attention directed towards evidence which undermines previous assumptions; stories told to evoke empathy; options proposed for improvements that a growing number are tempted to try out; or constant reminders of the unpleasant consequences from persisting with certain old approaches. From the emergence of communitarian challenges in the fifteenth century to the early twentieth century, the communities involved had moved on from many of the arbitrary and authoritarian views they held, to a more thoughtful and inclusive outlook on a wide range of issues. Assumptions © The Author(s) 2019 H. Tam, The Evolution of Communitarian Ideas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26558-8_5

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about people’s capacity for reasoning, suffering, compassion, and experimentation shifted substantially in the eighteenth century. These related to, not just economically privileged white males, but increasingly to children, the poor, women, people with different religious, national, or ethnic backgrounds. In the course of the nineteenth century, the system of slavery was made illegal in the UK (1833), France (1848), and the US (1865). In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution affirmed that the right to vote would not be denied or abridged ‘on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude’.1 The demand for female suffrage was finally conceded by the UK Parliament in 1918,2 and it was followed in the US with the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibited state or federal gender-based restrictions on voting.3 Advocates for communitarian ideas and practices contributed to the broadening of social horizons for mutual responsibility, the spread of cooperative enquiry in science and education, and the expanding scope for citizen participation in their own governance. But they would nonetheless be accused of possessing nothing in their intellectual armoury to override misguided views once and for all, and thus leaving society vulnerable to the return of old errors or the infection of new misconceptions. In reality, progress could never be guaranteed. Contingency is a fact of life, and only those who believe that absolute certainty is not only within their grasp, but can somehow be transmitted to everyone, can seriously entertain the notion that they can steer all before them to keep to one single incontrovertible path. From a communitarian point of view, it is not only groundless to suppose such certainty is humanly attainable,4 it 1 In practice, some states in the US continued to prevent many non-white citizens from voting, until

such practices were explicitly prohibited by the Voting Rights Act 1965. People living in British and French colonies generally did not get a vote in electing representatives in government until after decolonisation. 2The Representation of the People Act 1918 only granted the vote to women over the age of 30 who met the required property qualifications. It was not until the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 that all women over the age of 21 were given the vote on the same terms as men. 3 In France, vote for women was not granted until it was confirmed by the French Provisional Government in 1944. 4To those who say that absolute certainty may not be attainable for human but its possession is an integral part of God, the question is how can those human beings invoking God be absolutely

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is dangerous to assume it can serve as a legitimate basis to rule out all attempts to question the one and only authorised answer. Following the conclusion of the First World War, there was a resurgence of hope that the dawn of a new era might have arrived, but within a few decades, people had witnessed the devastation of the Great Depression, the horror of totalitarian control and atrocity under the regimes of Stalin and Hitler, and the pervasive despair brought on by the Second World War. A particularly disturbing feature underlying the reversal of the advancement towards more enlightened communities was that of depersonalisation. In previous centuries, communitarian reformists had countered the neglect of many who were denied a chance to contribute to and share in the wellbeing of their communities, by opening others’ eyes to their humanity and multifaceted potential. Yet when the way many people were perceived was routinely distorted to blank out their social connectedness, reciprocal relations became endangered at every level.

The Threat of Depersonalisation In the preceding chapters, we have seen how the development of enlightened communities proceeded through consciousness-raising that enabled people to see each other as fellow members of common endeavours, and value the thoughts and experiences of one another reciprocally. As ignorance and misunderstanding of other people diminished, the scope for thoughtful and cooperative interactions would expand. However, from around the 1920s on, many who viewed such development as inimical to their ambitions to secure greater power over others, began to adopt depersonalisation as an ideological tool. This involved characterising targeted groups of people as underserving of empathic engagement. It could take the form of presenting, for example, those with any kind of foreign heritage as ‘aliens’ who were dubious in every sense; those dissenting from prevalent prejudices as ‘deviants’ who were inherently vile; people suffering under the status quo as ‘failures’ who were too lazy or incompetent certain that they are not mistaken, especially when contrary views are put forward by other human beings also claiming to be invoking God.

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to make something of their lives; or those daring to question established hierarchies as dangerous and unpatriotic ‘subversives’.5 A number of thinkers who lived through this period devoted writings to expose the destructiveness of depersonalisation, and were highly influential amongst contemporaries and subsequent generations in explicating the nature of authentic human relationship. Martin Buber (1878–1965), Emmanuel Mounier (1905–1950), John Macmurray (1891–1976), and Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) showed that communities were rooted in their members’ recognition of each other as persons to whom respect and concern were due. Attempts to generate cohesion by misrepresenting some members as two-dimensional objects of derision were unacceptable because they were inherently false and dangerously divisive. After the Nazis came to power in Germany, they forbade Buber from lecturing. He escaped from the country and eventually settled in what would become the state of Israel. He developed Feuerbach’s insight on ‘I and Thou’ by explaining the centrality of open interactions (1970). No authentic relationship could be attained if one subsumes the other, or if one treats the other purely as an object to be studied or controlled. One must be open to a dialogue that invites both sides to share and explore their ideas and feelings. Perspectives, appreciation, sensitivity may all change in the process, not because one or the other loses their individuality, but because what they are have been enriched through their genuinely receptive experiences of the other. This mode of engagement leads to the revelation of ‘presence’ (Gegenwart ), as opposed to ‘object’ (Gegenstand ). This presence exists through the mutual encounter of willing participants, and cannot be reduced to one or the other party. It is the antithesis of all ideological manoeuvres which seek to present targeted groups as unworthy of any thoughtful consideration (Etzioni 1999). Buber’s conception is not to be confused with that of Kantian rationalism or religious mysticism. He urges us to value others not because they are autonomous entities leading distinct lives from us, but because they are connected to us in precious relationships. He does not want us to give ourselves up to some higher realm, but discover 5 In

the Soviet Union, the ‘subversives’ would be denounced as capitalist counter-revolutionaries, while in the United States, they would be condemned as communist activists.

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what can be revealed through our dialogue with each other.6 The key is reciprocity—I am to engage with thee as I wish thou would engage with me. In practice, this calls for willingness to explore with others as mutually respectful beings. Back in the early 1920s, Buber was already advocating a binational Jewish-Arab state. He never wavered from that position, and maintained that no resolution could ever be found without people from both sides entering into open discussions about how they were to develop a shared homeland together. He applied the same ethos to economic cooperation. In Paths in Utopia, he wrote about a cooperative settlement in the Palestine (1996). He had witnessed in Europe severe social divisiveness arising from the marginalisation of those who were presented as deservedly poor, and he believed communities needed to have resources in common to develop a sense of interdependence. This could be done through the sharing of the means of production, coordination by groups of individuals as equal partners, which are then connected via a federation of communities that can assist with economies of scale without overbearing centralisation. In many ways the Kibbutz initiative Buber reflected on resembled—in its successes and failings—many Owenite communitarian experiments in the previous century. The success was derived mainly from those working in an enterprise being able to have meaningful dialogues with others in shaping its decisions and sharing the rewards. The failure stemmed from vulnerability to demutualisation, lack of resilience to external changes, and the absence of long-term support from the state.7 Like Buber, Mounier espoused a vision of interpersonal connectedness as the alternative to the depersonalised caricatures of countless human beings that were fuelling the global crisis of the 1930s. He founded the journal, Esprit, to promote the case for what he termed ‘a personalist and communitarian revolution’, and issued a manifesto for transforming social attitudes and institutions (1938). Although he was inspired by Christian values himself, he stressed that believers and non-believers must work 6 Just

as Feuerbach’s ‘God’ is not a distinct entity that gives us commands on how we should live, but is revealed as the love of humanity, Buber’s ‘God’ is not the repository of moral knowledge that people can access for updates, but an ideal of love which can inspire us to deepen our understanding of how we should live. As for the behavioural guidance needed for particular circumstances, that should come from authentic interactions with others involved in those situations. 7 We will look more closely at how communitarian economics evolved to tackle market-based depersonalisation in the next section of this chapter, ‘Contesting the Depersonalising Market’.

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together to bring about the necessary changes. Society had for too long succumbed to bourgeois capitalist depiction of a world divided between the worthy winners of market competition and the sub-optimal losers who deserved their place at the bottom. The false promises of fascism and communism must be rejected too because they stripped away essential qualities of the person to leave individuals as mere cogs in the nationalist machine, or as subservient worker ants in a proletarian collective. All these notions must be overturned so that people could value each other, the relationships they could develop, and the community they could build through their shared understanding (Deweer 2013). After the fall of France, Mounier joined the Resistance but was arrested and imprisoned by the Vichy regime. Following the end of the war, he continued to advocate for a personalist and communitarian outlook that required institutional underpinning. There must be safeguards against social, economic and political oppression. People should be given the scope for independent thinking, but that needed to be accompanied by a clear sense of responsibility that each person owed others in society. As with Durkheim and Dewey, he looked to education to play a key role in cultivating the appropriate mindset for valuing and nurturing interpersonal relations. He pointed out that political entities such as the state or a party were instruments to be steered by people to protect themselves, and must not be seen as the embodiment of some higher purpose that would validate its dictatorship over the people. The need to be vigilant in ensuring that government institutions serve the public, however, should not be misinterpreted as a warning against communities joining forces to form larger units of region, nation, or indeed transnational union. Mounier had no time for such a sentiment: [W]e are expected to sigh over the lost little communities – the village, the workshop and the family – and to disseminate fear of the greater associations. There are grave misunderstandings in this attitude. … The truth is that this anti-collectivism conceals an underlying nostalgia for a puristic notion of a society of persons which is impossible. (1952, pp. 25–26)

Persons with individual minds seek commonalities with others. They do not want to be identical and absorbed into one amorphous collective, and

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nor do they want to be kept separate as irreducibly isolated beings. The only fitting socio-economic system is one which facilitates interactions that allow people to discover one another’s personal qualities and develop in response to each other to enhance their relationship, free from fear and deception. Such a system must push back on greed for wealth and power with structural barriers against oppression and exploitation. It requires the backing of a democratic state, but cannot be confined by national boundaries, because the source of mutuality is our shared humanity, and there should be no arbitrary restriction on what people with whom anyone can explore the formation of a personal relationship. Mounier’s and Buber’s personalist views were echoed by the Scottish philosopher, John Macmurray, who also emphasised the importance of enabling human relationships to realise their potential (1932). While Buber used poetic imagery to convey the ‘revelation’ arising from authentic interactions, and Mounier talked often of the ‘communion’ of persons, Macmurray’s central concept was that of ‘friendship’.8 All three of them took the religious dimension of life seriously and, because of that, were critical of religious institutions. They were Feuerbachian in their conception of God-as-Love, and argued for the development of communities in which interpersonal bonds can flourish. Divisions of faith, denomination, class, race, gender, etc. are not to override the commonality that resides in our shared humanity.9 But instead of diluting this humanity into a thin layer of universality, we should anchor it in everyday interactions in the overlapping communities to which we belong. According to Macmurray, we have to learn to develop our humanity by questioning dubious assumptions and experiencing relationship development without emotional distortion (2012). The way a community is structured, or the customs that are routinely complied with, may not be

8 It

is natural that Buber would use language derived from the Judaic tradition of divine revelation, Mounier would draw from his Catholic faith in thinking in terms of the communion of persons, and Macmurray would pay special attention to the ideal of friendship when, raised as a Presbyterian, he became a member of the Quakers/Society of Friends. It is also indicative that whatever their own source of inspiration may be, their personalist ideas are not tied to any particular religion. 9The central Confucian concept of ‘humanity’ is ‘仁 仁’ in Chinese, and etymologically denotes a combination of the two written characters for ‘person’ and ‘two’. The philosopher, Mencius, wrote of ‘仁 仁’ as the guiding ideal of moral life.

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conducive to good—friendly—interactions. Indeed, people could be misdirected into treating others badly with routine thoughtlessness. Although mutuality is an integral part of human nature, Macmurray warned that it could be submersed to the point of extinction when people were desensitised about the feelings of others. To counter this danger, we must cultivate open-mindedness in seeing others as whole persons, and prevent fear from corroding potential interactions with them, especially when such fear is propagated to fill hearts groundlessly with distrust and hatred. Epistemologically, we should learn to reject attempts to mislead us into doubting what there are no good reasons to doubt (Macmurray 1996, pp. 49–51). Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, amidst acts of inhumanity committed around the world, Macmurray continued to point to the human capacity for solidarity, which was exemplified by the endeavours of countless people in helping each other under the most trying circumstances. The line between arbitrary cruelties and civilised togetherness was down to our receptiveness of others. Education, in the broadest sense, should therefore open and enlarge our mind to others, not distort or blinker our perception so we are unable to see others as people we can enter into a relationship with (Fielding 2012). The sense of discipline, for example, should not be inculcated as a form of subordination to an unquestionable ‘other’, but developed as a process for integration, through which reciprocal attentiveness and responsiveness to others’ concerns would lead to harmonious relationships, sustained by improved understanding10 (Macmurray 1935). Schools have a major role to play, not just in helping children learn to interact in a larger group beyond that of their own family, but also in preparing them for wider relationships in more complex communities to come at the national and transnational level. Unlike denominational advocates who want to use schools to press for one particular faith or sect to order the outlook of their pupils, Macmurray believed that the religious mission of schools should be connected with the promotion of an inclusive democratic culture with civic values shared across all faiths and beliefs to make friendship and solidarity possible regardless of boundaries laid down 10The practice of restorative justice has been widely and successfully used in schools and the criminal

justice system, and illustrates how facilitated, thoughtful engagement between all those concerned can improve behaviour and relationships. See, for example, Strang and Braithwaite (2001).

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in the past. For him, ‘conservative type of religion … is concerned with the old community. Creative religion, on the contrary, is concerned with the new community and its creation. Unlike conservative religion it is not concerned with perpetuating a community which already exists but to achieve a community which does not’; and its aim is to escape from the ‘exclusive’ community and become a genuinely ‘universal’ religion (1996, p. 168). The threat directed against universalism by the ideology of depersonalisation was also an abiding concern of Hannah Arendt. Her starting point was people’s shared humanity, which made it possible for diverse individuals to come together to explore each other’s perspectives and work out ways to move forward. But should that commonality be denied and people were reduced to objects of manipulation and control, many could end up being less than human—amongst the oppressors as well as their victims. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Arendt was imprisoned by the Gestapo before her release and subsequent move to France. After Germany invaded France, she escaped to the US, where she devoted herself to scrutinising the nature of totalitarianism, not only in Nazi Germany but also in Stalinist Russia. She concluded that whatever part national conditions in those countries played in the emergence of those regimes, there was a broader mindset which was central to the operation of such ideological systems, and it was not confined to Germany or the USSR (1973). That mindset can be characterised by the readiness to do three things: present targeted groups as devoid of features that call for civility and respect; encourage supporters to be indifferent or even gratified upon hearing about the mistreatment given to the targeted groups; and shift individuals into the targeted category when there is any sign that they might be questioning the regime. Totalitarian divisiveness is the antithesis of Arendt’s ideal of human solidarity, which is rooted in civil and reasoned discourse, enabling people to build communities with shared responsibility on an on-going basis (Arendt 1958). Like the personalist thinkers we have discussed, Arendt argued that common interests cannot be a mere aggregate of individual preferences, but ought to arise from the authentic interactions of people, and can only be discovered when people have the opportunity to explore possibilities free from intimidation and deception.

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The problem with superficial democratic politics is that people are told to vote on options based on unreflected self-interests; rarely given a chance to consider, let alone discuss with others, the justification and implications of different options; and often under conditions that allow large-scale propaganda and misdirection to shape public opinions. By contrast, Arendt looked to the civic ethos of political engagement that once prevailed in ancient Athens as a model for sustained dialogues in bringing people together to determine how to govern themselves (Canovan 1992, pp. 201–206). A culture of open-minded deliberations would nurture a deeper sense of solidarity, and generate a collective power that emanates from the people themselves and not from some separate source of authority. Unlike ideological manoeuvres that trick people into embracing a herd-like following, civic bonds give people a true sense of belonging. Furthermore, cooperation with others opens up far more possibilities for any given person to explore what life to live, and seek out new opportunities that would be closed to an isolated individual. Since individual lives intersect with the lives of others, no one can set out the most fulfilling life without taking into account how that may relate to other people. Accordingly, a good community does not oppose individuals to an autonomous collective, but enables individuals to cooperate through speech and action in learning about each other, and designing what collective arrangements are best suited to both their personal and common aspirations. The same applies to the relationship between communities, which means that there needs to be public space for members of different communities with overlapping interests to come together to discuss common concerns and prospects for joint action. This will in practice require some form of federated system to underpin the development of different kinds of community of communities at all levels.11

11 Federalism has always been a core feature of the political ideas of thinkers who take the authentic interactions of persons as central to community development. See Kinsky (2001).

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Contesting the Depersonalising Market In response to the economic chaos, totalitarian atrocities, and military aggression of the 1930s/1940s, a range of counter-measures were deployed by the US and UK and their allies. Many of these chimed with the vision of thinkers who pressed for the reforming of communities to facilitate mutuality in interpersonal relations, and guard against the threat of depersonalisation in every sphere of life. From the late 1940s to the end of the 1970s, a new societal model evolved in the West that offered greater opportunities for inclusive community life than ever before.12 It might have been heavily criticised by communist regimes in other parts of the world, but many of those living under communist rule would rather move to the West than stay where they were. More significantly, there were disputes within the West itself as to whether the changes brought in should be strengthened or reversed. We will in in this section look at four policy areas where communitarian advocacy for greater reform impetus increasingly clashed with a resurgent ideology of depersonalisation centred on the sanctity of the market. The four areas to be reviewed are: economic regulation; social parity; cooperation for common security; and the right to respect. In each of these areas, there was a growing divide between those who wanted to see more reforms to support communitarian social development, and those who argued for their idealised conception of the market to displace state intervention. The latter believed that individuals should be left to give or take what they wanted through market transactions. If the terms they sought were not obtainable, they would have to move on to their next preference and so on, until they arrived at an available option. There would be no question about the respective bargaining position of individuals in the marketplace, and certainly no query about how some had come to be able to strike deals that others could not afford to refuse. The market, liberated from state control, would enable each and every individual to

12The

West, in this context, covers broadly the countries in Western Europe and North America. For more on the development of this societal model, see Tam (2015, Chapter 7).

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exchange what they could offer for what they could thus obtain from others, and attain the best of all possible lives for themselves.13 Let us begin with a look at economic regulation. Communitarian thinkers in the nineteenth and early twentieth century had been deeply concerned about how concentrated economic powers were fuelling exploitation and corroding social solidarity. It was in the US, where this concentration had reached unprecedented levels, that big banks and businesses generated the boom-and-bust sequence which led to the Great Depression. The persistent over-production and underpaying of workers led to excess supplies and rising redundancies. People were encouraged to sustain their income by borrowing and speculatively buying shares, but the economic recession led to more business closures, job losses, and plummeting share prices. The economic disaster in the US then infected Europe, with mass unemployment and financial chaos ruining countless lives. The US under President F. D. Roosevelt responded with careful regulation of utilities, business practices, banking arrangements, and currency and credit management, and demonstrated that appropriate rules and enforcement could improve rather than hinder the effective functioning of the market. It was hardly surprising since in every other sphere of human interactions, it was neither lawlessness nor arbitrary controls, but evidence-based legislation that would prevent harmful behaviour and dangerous side-effects. R. H. Tawney (1880–1962) had long argued that mutual respect and cooperative relations would always be sidelined if some could in the name of private property or autonomy act regardless of the consequences for others. The memory never left him of discovering private firms placing a high mark-up on ammunition during the First World War so that British troops could only fire off a few limited rounds per day irrespective of enemy offensive (1927, p. 158). More generally, he observed, ‘No one has forgotten the opposition offered in the name of the rights of property to factory legislation, to housing reform, to interference with the adulteration of goods, even to the compulsory sanitation of private houses. “May I not 13This

ideology has generally been packaged under the banner of ‘New Right’ or ‘neoliberlaism’. See King (1987) and Harvey (2007).

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do what I like with my own?” was the answer to the proposal to require a minimum standard of safety and sanitation from the owners of mills and houses’ (1927, p. 24). The only reason why those with more economic power than others would insist that they should be able to do what they like with that power is their inclination to get their own way at the expense of others. They would no doubt demand laws to stop those with large daggers dragging them out to a knife fight to decide who must serve whom. They would be outraged if others were allowed to poison their food and water should they fail to comply with the whims of the would-be poisoners. Ultimately, they can see that the possession of weapons or skills in poisoning should not be acceptable powers to make those in a weaker position surrender, yet the possession and use of their own economic powers should be exempt from all regulation. In his 1944 work, The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi (1886–1964) chronicled how the economic elite managed to impose their preferences on the running of society, and why that led inexorably to the gathering storm of the 1930s (1957). Yet by the 1970s, the moral indictment of laissez faire and practical benefits of economic regulation were being brushed aside by a new generation of ‘free market’ advocates such as Milton Friedman, whose theory about the positive impact of market deregulation was enthusiastically endorsed by the economically powerful. Soon the market mantra declared that any individual’s worth could only be measured by success in business dealings, and the economically powerful were therefore rightly the ones to call the shots in society. The failure of the Soviet model was constantly cited as a warning to steer clear of state regulation, while the successes of social democratic economic management in Scandinavia and West Germany were ignored. This provoked the development of communitarian economics in the hands of thinkers such as E. F. Schumacher (1911–1977) who explained the detachment of economic decisions from the people who would be most affected by them could not be effective or sustainable (1993).14

14 Harris

and Alexander (1991) looks at communitarian economics, but in focusing exclusively on the US and Soviet economic models, it overlooks its affinity with social democratic economic management.

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A major casualty of systemic deregulation was social parity—the second area we will examine in this section. Without a democratic government to mediate between those who were accumulating power and those who were dismissed as insignificant beings, communitarian advocates had since the late nineteenth century been warning that the growing power gap would also result in a chasm between those who could do as they please, and those who live at the mercy of others. Far from sharing mutual respect in authentic interactions, many amongst the powerful would not even register the concerns of others, let alone giving them due consideration. It was the reforms to raise public living standards in France, Britain, and the US in the early twentieth century that began the process of reducing vast economic inequalities in those countries. Reinforced by the New Deal in the 1930s, and the establishment of the welfare state in the UK after the Second World War, the gap between the have-most and have-little started to narrow. The motivation behind these policy changes was less to do with creating a large state, but more to do with developing the conditions under which people could relate to each other as fellow citizens and together shape their democratic future (Beveridge 1942; Timmins 1996). After all, civic solidarity is the most effective anchor for an accountable government. And from the 1910s down to the end of the 1970s, the decline in income inequality in the UK and the US, for example, accompanied the development of government policies that were more, not less, responsive to public needs. It was after the ‘free market’ New Right leadership had gained power (with Margaret Thatcher’s and Ronald Reagan’s electoral victories in 1979 and 1980 respectively) that income inequality began to grow back towards previous levels.15 The quantitative reversal of social parity was accompanied by the qualitative diminution of public services. Whereas communitarian conceptions of welfare regarded it as a system for guaranteeing minimum standards for all citizens (Titmuss 1967), it was portrayed by ‘free market’ advocates 15The

top 0.1% in the UK had over 11% of the gross national income in 1913. That share declined steadily to 1.2% in 1978, then from the 1980s on it rose unremittingly to around 4% in 2010 and kept rising thereafter. Source: http://www.chartbookofeconomicinequality.com/inequality-bycountry/united-kingdom/. The fall and rise in income inequality followed a similar pattern in the US, where the top 10% had almost 50% of the national income by the late 1920s; after the 1940s their share fell and remained at around 33% until the 1980s when it began to rise towards 50% again. Source: http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/pdf/F0.I.1.pdf.

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as a costly and inefficient mechanism to help those who were unable (or unwilling) to make a decent living for themselves in the marketplace (Bartholomew 2006). The latter view was elaborated by New Right policy advisors to incorporate the charge that support for public provisions would harm the market (Palmer 2012). Consequently, investment in provisions for maintaining basic living standards for the whole community was disparaged as a waste of resources, and for many people, as their relative purchasing power dropped with the widening of income inequality, it became increasingly difficult to access decent housing, transport, education, etc. with funding being repeatedly cut back. The underlying dispute was about power and subordination. The myth that everyone who was willing to work already had an equal chance to participate had long been exposed, since the opportunities to obtain work were far from equal and, moreover, most work under corporate supervision offered virtually no scope for considering what should be changed at the organisational, let alone societal, level (Macpherson 1962, pp. 271–277). Authentic interpersonal relations sustained with social parity will always be anathema to those who want to be able to dictate terms to others. As Tawney pointed out, those who seek to curtail power inequality would be implacably opposed by those who want to be ever more powerful than others, and the two sides would be routinely locked in conflict (Tawney 1964, pp. 158–164). However, there are powerful individuals and groups who would rather live in harmony with others rather than dominate them. They are the ones who are likely to recognise their own wellbeing is connected with the wellbeing of other people as well. This takes us to the third contested area, that of cooperation for common security. Here a critical distinction needs to be drawn between those who are willing to cooperate with others for their general good, and those who are determined to keep others at a disadvantage. The readiness to form a unifying relationship to displace old antagonism was initially welcomed in the post-war years. Instead of relying on tactical alliances and battle plans to avert further military conflicts, adversaries in Europe developed a collaborative economic and political system that would become the European Union, which secured peace and

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cooperation far longer than any prior period of non-aggression in the history of the continent.16 At the same time, the Scandinavian countries and West Germany led the way through the 1950s/1960s in promoting worker involvement in business planning and management, and demonstrating how better cooperation could underpin efficiency, profitability, and job satisfaction. Just as former military enemies could become fellow members of a transnational community of mutually supportive countries, workers and owners of capital might be able to join forces too, provided the ambition to dominate was truly set aside for a new era of solidarity. In order to determine what stance and strategy would be appropriate, one should gauge the intentions of the others, and whenever possible, explore the scope for genuine cooperation. There were owners of companies who would, to varying degrees, share decision-making and even ownership of their enterprises with those working in those organisations. From the John Lewis Partnership in the UK to Semco in Brazil, there were many examples of social and economic security being enhanced through the cooperative relations developed by those involved. Worker cooperatives also illustrated how the Rochdale Pioneers’ approach could continue to be effectively developed by new firms to secure economic sustainability and positive work experience (Pérotin 2016). In order to attain greater socio-economic security, people wanting to resist being treated as dispensable tools had to organise for two eventualities. One was the familiar one of having to act through trade unions when confronted by those powerful proprietors and top executives who, encouraged by the rise of the New Right throughout the 1980s, did not see why they should share power, least of all with those who depended on them for pay. The other was the increasingly important one of building a better alternative form of work community. While it was necessary to prepare for the first, especially when the worsening of employment terms and anti-union legislation were on the rise, it was vital to pursue the second as well because it offered a viable option for many to live and work together

16 It is no coincidence that right wing groups favouring nationalistic rivalry and conflicts would all in the 2010s try to undermine and dismantle the European Union so as to advance their own objectives.

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as mutually respecting persons. This called for much wider appreciation and adoption of a range of participatory practices.17 The most basic element was that of worker participation. As people’s livelihood was so dependent on the decisions taken by organisations in which they worked, to have no real influence at all over those decisions was deeply alienating, especially the outcomes could be ruinous for the disempowered individuals, their families and communities. The remedy was to develop the processes of organisations and the skills of those who worked in them so that the latter could play a meaningful part in considering options and supporting those which would best serve all members of the organisation, not just a small elite. Not surprisingly, there would be claims that workers lacked the interest and ability to participate in organisational deliberations and everyone would be better off if that was left off the agenda. Quite apart from that being a stale variant of the old argument against democracy, empirical studies showed that worker participation was not only feasible, but beneficial in improving organisations (Pateman 1970). The Mondragon Corporation in the Basque region demonstrated over decades how cooperative working with members’ participation at its heart led to sustained business success in financial and social terms (Bradley 1982). Established by students at a college set up by José María Arizmendiarrieta Madariaga (1915–1976) to inculcate cooperative ideas and practices redolent of Owenite communitarian pioneers, it grew from its beginning as a small local enterprise in 1956 to a global business with e12 billion in revenue, generated by over 74,000 workers in 261 businesses based in 41 countries around the world (2015 figures). As individual workers would cooperate with each other within their business, businesses that are part of Mondragon would cooperate with one another so that decisions would draw on the input on all involved and reflect a shared assessment of what would most help the corporation, member businesses, and individual workers overall. Critics of the Mondragon example often argued that it was not so perfect to have always avoided financial or job losses, but by comparison with companies that denied all meaningful participation

17 We

will look at an extensive range of examples in Chapter 7.

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by their workers, it had thrived as a business and delivered much greater socio-economic security for their members (Kasmir 2016; Ayo 2016). One of the key lessons from Mondragon and other large-scale enterprises such as the cooperative clusters of Emilia-Romagna in Italy (Thompson 2003) is that isolated efforts cannot build an enlightened community. Security for all will not be achieved if only a few scattered groups adopt mutuality as their mode of interaction. With Mondragon and EmiliaRomagna, cooperative business entities remained relatively small for their members to have meaningful discussions together, but they networked and federated with others to attain much greater strength to compete with firms that preferred not to operate on cooperative principles. Another feature of their development has been the cooperation with state institutions which, at the national and regional level, were willing to facilitate cooperative ventures by recognising their social orientation in safeguarding the interests of the workers and local communities. As G. D. H. Cole (1889–1959) advocated, instead of assuming the state should either take total control of the economy or leave individuals to engage in any kind of business dealings regardless of the consequences, we should aim for a pluralist form of government that would provide a suitable legal framework and supportive political environment for diverse cooperative organisations to connect their respective members and other potential business partners in pursuit of economic security and prosperity (1920, 1972). The final area where the market-led ideology of depersonalisation opposed attempts for communitarian reforms for greater inclusion was to be found in relation to the right to respect. The callous treatment to which millions of people had been subjected through the Great Depression and the Second World War had focused post-war attention on the importance of ensuring that all human beings would from then on be protected from neglect, discrimination, and cruelty. A consensus emerged to demand that communities from the local to the global level work together to translate the commitment to assist anyone vulnerable to offensive conduct into a right to respect that is guaranteed. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights provided an historic framework for defining what members of the global community should expect without exception as minimum standards for how they were to be treated by others.

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While the Declaration did not have a direct enforcement mechanism to track and tackle mistreatment, it was an inspirational platform for legal experts and community activists to launch their initiatives to advance the cause of universal respect for human beings. Unfortunately, not everyone was ready to accept that there should be limits to how they might treat other people; and those with greater economic power readily bought into the market ideology that substituted the moral person by the economic agent as the centre of political discourse. It enabled them to claim that any outside intervention with market interactions was bound to undermine the autonomy and efficiency of the market, and that would pose a threat to the ultimate source of value in society. Accordingly, economic agents should be left to themselves to determine what they would buy or sell, hire or fire, or invest in or ignore. From a communitarian perspective, however, this conception of human association was both empirically flawed and normatively misguided. To begin with, everyday market dealings require trust and stability to sustain. Without rules, supervision and impartial enforcement, suspicion and conflicts will constantly undermine attempts at wealth generation. Furthermore, both deliberately irresponsible behaviour and unintended side-effects have routinely been found to cause significant damages in terms of unemployment, below-subsistence pay, pollution, unsafe products, unaffordable provisions, and environmental degradation. For conscientious economic agents to do something about these problems, they need collective rules and regulations if their efforts are not to be under-cut by others who try to take unfair advantage of them. Normatively, the likely consequence of allowing any society to be so deregulated to approach the state of an idealised market points to an even greater indictment. To reduce human beings to nothing more than economic agents is to discard all other qualities which render a person worthy of respect, and to insist that what matters is solely down to what an individual happens to possess that is relevant to economic bargaining (e.g., inherited or acquired wealth, skills at bluffing or intimidating in negotiation, readiness to sacrifice others to increase personal gains, support

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from others with money, power or status) is to ignore moral relations altogether.18 Michael Young (1915–2002), argued that communities should enable their members to flourish by developing their respective talents. In his 1958 book, The Rise of the Meritocracy, he satirised the absurdity of privileging one set of narrowly defined attributes, and dismissing the plight of all those without them as beyond the scope of collective redress (1994). He set up the Institute of Community Studies to promote ideas and practices for developing mutual support (Butler 2015); he helped to establish the Consumers’ Association (to provide impartial advice to consumers on potential purchases) along with the National Consumer Council (a statutory public body tasked with the protection of consumer interests); he provided the template for the Open University that was created in 1964 by the Labour Government to extend affordable higher education through distance learning; he also co-founded numerous other organisations such as Grandparents Plus to involve wider family members in looking after children because of the economic pressures on parents.19 But while some in the business sector welcomed Young’s kind of interventions, many others remained dubious about activities external to the market that could intrude into the autonomy of market interactions. Above all, they insisted that, as economic agents, they should be able to decide who they recruit, whom they serve, or who else they do business with. This might sound innocuous until it is invoked to turn down people because of their colour, gender, religion or some other irrelevant factor. Market ideologues were often as relaxed about discrimination as they were offended by anti-discriminatory regulation. Ronald Reagan, an iconic figure of the New Right, campaigned in 1966 with the public statement, ‘If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in

18 Macpherson has argued that so long as people prioritise their own identity as consumers above that as workers, it would limit the prospects of industrial democracy ever being realised (1987, p. 41). 19 Young was a thinker of the classic communitarian mode. His concerns covered community development at every level. He advised on community housing at the local level (Young and Lemos 1997) and at the same time helped to set up organisations such as International Alert to support conflict-resolution and peace building.

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selling or renting his house, it is his right to do so’,20 and it was an outlook that had continued to grow in many plutocratic circles.21 Against the exclusionary acts shielded by racist market ideologues, Martin Luther King (1929–1968) called for resistance in the name of, not identity politics, but communitarian unity. For him, the injustice in question was not just directed at one racial group; it was directed at the entire community which ought to ensure every member of it was accorded due respect. His rallying cry was for the common dignity of all: ‘Let us be dissatisfied until rat-infested, vermin-filled slums will be a thing of a dark past and every family will have a decent sanitary house in which to live. Let us be dissatisfied until the empty stomachs of Mississippi are filled and the idle industries of Appalachia are revitalized’ (King 1968, pp. 110–111). For this vision to be realised, King urged alliances to be formed between all individuals and groups concerned with equality of respect and treatment amongst all citizens, and recommended policies such as a guaranteed universal income22 as a unifying remedy: The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain, and when he knows he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts … will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on a scale of dollars is eliminated. (King 2010, p. 173)

Critiques of the Atomistic Self During the 1970s, advocacy for communities to be developed in line with more enlightened ideas and inclusive practices was continuously countered 20 Reagan’s

statement was part of his speech in which he attacked the Fair Housing Act. As US President, he granted tax exemption to schools that segregated on racial grounds. For more, see Gilmore (2004). Both Reagan and Thatcher opposed sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa. 21 Long before he became US President, Trump’s family business was sued by the Department of Justice for refusing to rent or negotiate rentals ‘because of race and color’ (Lartey 2018). See also Hayes (2018). 22 Pegged to the median income of society.

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by claims that such advocacy was misguided. These claims dismissed concerns with reducing power and wealth inequalities, and prioritising the needs of the disadvantaged as being derived from envy, confusion about values, ignorance of the utilitarian superiority of the market system, or a combination of all three. Some felt that these claims could only be tackled with a comprehensive theory that would give indisputable rational underpinning to a pro-egalitarian conception of justice. One prominent candidate for providing such a theory was John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1972), which set out a series of quasi-Kantian arguments that purported to establish why any reasonable person must accept principles that supported the general reduction of inequality and urgent curtailment in cases affecting the most marginalised. It particularly appealed to intellectuals and reformists who had been looking for an indubitable foundation to make their case. They were impressed by the Rawlsian approach which, rather than getting drawn into empirical disputes about whether or not poorly regulated market systems led to worse outcomes for communities, rejected utilitarian consequentialism altogether. But as we have seen, communitarian thinkers had always been suspicious of attempts to champion the cause of reciprocity and interpersonal cooperation on the basis of some form of a priori reasoning. They shared the outlook that no argument in favour of one form of human relations over others could coherently be separated from our experiences of different forms of community life. It meant that we could not ascertain how we should live through abstract reason alone. Throughout the 1980s, a number of philosophers who objected to the rampant marketisation of society expressed their dissatisfaction with Rawls’ theory as the appropriate antidote to be relied on. In the works of Alasdair MacIntyre (1981, 1988), Michael Sandel (1982), Michael Walzer (1983, 1987), and Charles Taylor (1985, 1989), Rawls’ defence of the foundation of a just society was criticised for assuming that such a foundation could be established without reference to how people had developed and interacted with each other in actual communities. While communitarian ideas had emphasised learning from experienced relationships and adjusting our attitudes thereafter, Rawls had gone in the opposite direction and sought to determine what people ought to think prior to any experience that might impact on their lives.

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In trying to bypass empirical assessments about the effects of different arrangements on people, Rawls had resorted to relying on what rational beings as he conceived them would choose if they were ignorant of how those choices might affect them personally. The problem arises with Rawls’ contention that it would be indisputable how these rational beings would choose. His reflective procedure is not meant to be a practical one that people can engage in and consider what outcomes ensue. It is devised as an abstraction to illustrate how people, under certain description, must opt for. For Rawls, they would undoubtedly give their backing to two principles: first, ‘each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all’, and second, ‘social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity’ (Rawls 1972, p. 302). But why should anyone be left with no doubt that people would have only one rational choice to make? Might they not have different concerns, desires, priorities that could lead them to choose differently without the choice becoming an irrational one? For example, suppose some of them thought that rather than going with principles that would equalise basic liberties and permit social and economic inequalities only in so far as that would help the least advantaged or reward what has been attained through fair applications, they would rather see them distributed according to some traditional customs that link inequalities to a venerated hierarchy. Another group might prefer not to have any overriding principles governing their lives at all, as they would find it much more exciting to discover if they would get a fortune from the luck of the draw—and should it turn out they would end up with barely enough to live on, they would still prefer that to a life that was boringly predictable. Rawls, however, would not allow any of this because the people behind the ‘veil of ignorance’ are actually abstractions of the rational ‘self ’. These people are not supposed, as part of the premise, to have any feelings about diverse forms of life or any attachment to particular cultural or personal norms. They are devoid of yearnings for what they might in real life be fondly accustomed to, and they have no inclinations as risk-takers or seekers of tranquil routines. But that means the ‘rational’ beings Rawls’ theory relies on to ground the

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principles of justice are little more than arbitrary constructs with hardly any characteristic that would ordinarily be associated with personhood. Although the communitarian critics of Rawls are sometimes presented as being in an opposite camp to liberals, they are themselves liberals in the sense that they support greater socio-economic equality, and oppose the market ideology of plutocratic conservatives and laissez faire libertarians. Their objection was not directed at social justice or the welfare policies Rawls might back, but at his particular philosophical strategy for justifying the development of such policies.23 Such a strategy struck them as flawed in its reliance on a distorted conception of the self, and misleading in what it took to be the reason for reforming society. MacIntyre, for example, maintained that we could only reflect on values to guide community development in the context of a moral tradition that would give human beings a purpose or ideal to fulfil. With a moral tradition, we could differentiate and revise what should be recognised as goals to pursue. Without such a framework, we could not assume that a group of ‘rational beings’ could simply put together an alternative by exercising their reasoning capacity in the absence of any prior values. Rawls might think that the neutrality of reason could only be preserved by excluding all values from its operation, but any premise which keeps values at bay is also one which is incapable of engaging with anyone’s sense of values. The moral vacuum thus created would actually allow quite different constructs of the ‘rational self ’ to be put forward, and could just as easily lead to the endorsement of anti-egalitarian principles.24 Some might argue that there are moral traditions that reinforce growing inequalities and oppression against the marginalised. But MacIntyre’s position is not that any moral tradition is as valid as any other. Traditions evolve over time, and they impact on people who live under them. Importantly, they are not hermetically sealed, and people experience elements 23 Rawls’ strategy was a variation of Kantian reasoning, which was supposed to secure indubitable truths beyond all possible empirical falsification. There is a common mistaken tendency to equate this rationalist outlook with the Enlightenment, especially as it ignores the pragmatic strand that ran through Francis Bacon to David Hume and Denis Diderot, and which was highly influential amongst the philosophes. For more on the extent to which Rawls revised his arguments in the light of communitarian criticisms, see Mulhall and Swift (1992). 24 Robert Nozick used abstract arguments to support libertarian conclusions (1974), and came under criticisms from MacIntyre as well (1992).

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of different traditions. In people’s experiences of how they and others are treated, how their interactions with people they care about are affected, and the threats and promises they encounter in planning for future relations, they will sense where particular traditions may lead them. Those that pull in opposite directions will in effect be contesting each other, and people cannot ignore the problems the lack of a resolution will raise because they will be confronted by what MacIntyre called ‘epistemological crises’, and these will persist until or unless they have been dealt with through appropriate adjustment (1988, 1990). For MacIntyre, some form of civic equality and pursuit of virtues reminiscent of the Aristotelian quest for ethical development would be found in those moral traditions that are more likely to overcome such crises. The criticism of Rawls from Sandel is directed at the incoherence of any notion of personal identity with all its constitutive elements removed. Human beings, in order to be moral agents, must draw on the beliefs, attitudes and values they have acquired as members of communities. Discarding all those factors would leave such unencumbered selves with no bearing on what choices to make. Spreading life-chances and resources as evenly as possible would be no more ‘rational’ or ‘preferable’ in itself than arranging them to fit with various alternative patterns or no pattern at all. We cannot begin to engage with choosing what rules and structures to endorse for the lives we are to lead if we cut ourselves off from what we have actually made of the lives we have experienced. The debate over policies and regulations flows from the history of a community. It is rooted in what people have tried, what they have found wanting, and what they want to explore further. Sandel insisted that far from pretending that the past was irrelevant, discussions about the US, for instance, must connect with how it had developed from its founding as a civic republican experiment to become more of an enlightened community than other Western countries of the eighteenth century, taking into account what had helped to move it forward and what had set it back (1996). Those experiences inform people’s thoughts and values about what kind of society they want to live in, and must be at the heart of shaping plans relating to what changes ought to be brought in for the future. It would be misleading to think of the past as a static culture, when in fact

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it contained aspirations, struggles, and adaptations from which new ideas would emerge. From a communitarian perspective, it is not so much Rawls’ specific formulation but his general reliance on an atomistic self as the source of ethical validity that is misguided. Taylor challenged the notion that we could deduce what a mind without any socio-cultural connection with other thinking and feeling beings may consider to be the most rational principles to live by. Echoing Wittgenstein’s insight that rule-setting and rule-following are inextricably linked to the form of life that calls for rules in the first place, Taylor argued that rival interpretations of what might make a better rule could not be settled in an isolated mind. Within the solipsist inner sanctum of an isolated self, we would not find pure rationality, just the absence of any objectivity with which to draw any kind of reliable distinction. The only way of testing claims is to subject them to the evaluation by a community which can relate to what the claim is about. One set of judgement can be reviewed with the help of another round of scrutiny, or investigators who have gathered new evidence, but there is no absolute foundation that can guarantee truth for eternity. This can, of course, be regarded as opening the door to scepticism or relativism, but to say that something is to be accepted as true, subject to possible revision in the light of relevant new information, is not to say that nothing (or anything) can be legitimately believed. Far from disputing that without a philosophy of rationalist certainty, rival claims will clash, Taylor readily accepted that such clashes could persist. However, like MacIntyre, he believed that people’s experiences of different claims and their practical implications could lead them to discern the greater ‘epistemic gains’ offered by some compared with others.25 And though some claims may be strictly incommensurable with others being put forward, in the sense that neither side would 25Taylor’s

notion of ‘epistemic gains’ can be illustrated with the contrast between one set of beliefs that leads to more problems we cannot deal with, and another set of beliefs that enables us to work out more sustainable solutions. For example, take a customary belief such as one that supposes that by sacrificing a human victim each year, all will be well at harvest time; and compare it with another belief that holds that sowing seeds and ploughing the fields in certain ways rather than getting drawn into human sacrifices will produce better harvests and greater social harmony. Subscribers to the former belief may insist that only their ‘god’ can judge what is ‘well’ or not, but the latter belief can nonetheless win over more people because it solves more of the problems they actually have to face.

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acknowledge any common criterion for assessing them, it is nonetheless possible for them to be found to be superior to others because, when people have lived or tried to live in accordance with them, they cannot ignore the contrasting experiences that ensued or might continue without a change of belief (1982). Walzer’s disagreement with Rawlsian rational justice stems from his understanding that our moral views about what people should be allowed to do, or how resources should be shared, are derived from the social meanings members of a community attach to different activities and resources. What are regarded as infringing on the wellbeing of others, what ought to be accessible to everyone, and what may be left to individuals’ own consideration, are questions that relate to social interactions and expectations that may change over time, and cannot be answered a priori by a ‘self ’ with no social dispositions whatsoever. Recognising that social meanings could be reactionary or even oppressive, Walzer pointed out that throughout history, social critics and reformists had sought to transform social meanings and practices, not by invoking ideas totally unconnected with any aspect of their communities, but by drawing attention to the flaws in particular prevailing attitudes or arrangements which could be seen more clearly when placed alongside the commitments to respect, honour, compassion, reciprocity, and other relevant values embedded in their culture (1987). Progressive improvements were thus made possible through critical exposures of callousness and hypocrisy. But a conundrum remained for the communitarian critics of Rawlsian rationalism, and indeed for the opponents of all forms of depersonalisation. If we are not to be defined simply by the personal qualities we have acquired through our respective community experiences, why should some qualities be favoured and championed, while others are to be criticised and relentlessly highlighted for abandonment? Is there a deeper basis for resolving the differences over what to conserve and what to reform? Or must communitarians concede that there is no non-subjective rationale to justify their stance over that of their opponents? These are the issues to take centre stage in the next phase of the evolution of communitarian ideas, which we will look at in Chapter 6.

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References Arendt, H. (1958). The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Arendt, H. (1973). The Origins of Totalitarianism. Orlando: Harcourt Brace & Co. Ayo, I. S. C. (2016). Mondragon’s Third Way: Reply to Sharryn Kasmir. Global Dialogue, 6 (3). http://isa-global-dialogue.net/mondragons-third-way-replyto-sharryn-kasmir/. Bartholomew, J. (2006). The Welfare State We’re In. London: Politico’s Books. Beveridge, W. (1942). Social Insurance and Allied Services. London: HMSO. Bradley, K. (1982). Cooperation at Work: The Mondragon Experience. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books. Buber, M. (1970). I and Thou (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). New York: Simon & Schuster. Buber, M. (1996). Paths in Utopia. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Butler, L. (2015, June 1). Michael Young, the Institute of Community Studies, and the Politics of Kinship. Twentieth Century British History, 26 (2), 203–224. Canovan, M. (1992). Hannah Arendt: A Reinterpretation of Her Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cole, G. D. H. (1920). The Social Theory. London: Methuen & Co. Cole, G. D. H. (1972). Self-Government in Industry. London: Hutchinson. Deweer, D. (2013). The Political Theory of Personalism: Maritain and Mounier on Personhood and Citizenship. International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, 74 (2), 108–126. Etzioni, A. (1999, July). Communitarian Elements in Select Works of Martin Buber. The Journal of Value Inquiry, 33(2), 151–169. Fielding, M. (2012, December). Education as If People Matter: John Macmurray, Community and the Struggle for Democracy. Oxford Review of Education, 38(6), 675–692. Gilmore, B. (2004, June 8). Nostalgia for Reagan Distorts His Policies Against Blacks. The Progressive. https://progressive.org/op-eds/nostalgiareagan-distorts-policies-blacks/. Harris, J., & Alexander, D. (1991). Beyond Capitalism and Socialism: The Communitarian Alternative. Environments, 21(2), 29–37. Harvey, D. (2007). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hayes, C. (2018, August 15). Here Are 10 Times President Trump’s Comments Have Been Called Racist. USA Today. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/

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politics/onpolitics/2018/08/14/times-president-trump-comments-calledracist/985438002/. Kasmir, S. (2016). The Mondragon Cooperatives: Successes and Challenges. Global Dialogue, 6 (1). http://isa-global-dialogue.net/the-mondragoncooperatives-successes-and-challenges/. King, D. S. (1987). The New Right: Politics, Markets and Citizenship. Basingstoke: Macmillan. King, M. L. (1968, Spring). Honoring Dr. Du Bois. In Freedomways, Second Quarter, VIII, No. 2. New York: Freedomways Associates. King, M. L. (2010). Where Do We Go from Here? From Chaos to Community. Boston: Beacon Press. Kinsky, F. (2001). Federalism and the Personalist Tradition. In H. Tam (Ed.), Progressive Politics in the Global Age (pp. 54–65). Cambridge: Polity Press. Lartey, J. (2018, January 12). Racism and Donald Trump: A Common Thread Running Throughout His Career and Life. The Guardian. https:// www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/12/racism-and-donald-trump-acommon-thread-throughout-his-career-and-life. Macpherson, C. B. (1962). The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Macpherson, C. B. (1987). The Rise and Fall of Economic Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. MacIntyre, A. (1981). After Virtue. London: Duckworth. MacIntyre, A. (1988). Whose Justice? Which Rationality?. London: Duckworth. MacIntyre, A. (1990).Three RivalVersions of Moral Enquiry. London: Duckworth. MacIntyre, A. (1992). Justice as a Virtue: Changing Conceptions. In S. Avineri & A. de-Shalit (Eds.), Communitarianism and Individualism (pp. 51–64). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Macmurray, J. (1932). Freedom in the Modern World. London: Faber. Macmurray, J. (1935). Reason and Emotion. London: Faber. Macmurray, J. (1996). The Personal World (P. Conford, Ed.). Edinburgh: Floris Books. Macmurray, J. (2012, December). Learning to Be Human. Oxford Review of Education, 38(6), 665–674. Mounier, E. (1938). A Personalist Manifesto. London: Longman. Mounier, E. (1952). Personalism (P. Mairet, Trans.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Mulhall, S., & Swift, A. (1992). Liberals & Communitarians. Oxford: Blackwell. Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State & Utopia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Palmer, T. G. (Ed.). (2012). After the Welfare State. Ottawa, IL: Jameson BooksStudents of Liberty. Pateman, C. (1970). Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pérotin, V. (2016). What Do We Really Know About Worker Co-operatives? Cooperatives UK. https://www.uk.coop/resources/what-do-we-really-knowabout-worker-co-operatives. Polanyi, K. (1957). The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon Press. Rawls, J. (1972). A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sandel, M. (1982). Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sandel, M. (1996). Democracy’s Discontent. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schumacher, E. F. (1993). Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as If People Mattered. New York: Vintage. Strang, H., & Braithwaite, J. (Eds.). (2001). Restorative Justice and Civil Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tam, H. (2015). Against Power Inequalities: A History of the Progressive Struggle. London: Birkbeck. Tawney, R. H. (1927). The Acquisitive Society. London: G. Bell & Sons. Tawney, R. H. (1964). Equality. London: George Allen & Unwin. Taylor, C. (1982). Rationality. In M. Hollis & S. Lukes (Eds.), Rationality and Relativism (pp. 87–105). Oxford: Blackwell. Taylor, C. (1985). Philosophical Papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thompson, D. J. (2003, November–December). Italy’s Emilia Romagna Clustering Co-op Development. Cooperative Grocer, No. 109. http://base.socioeco. org/docs/emilia_romagna_by_david_thompson_110604.pdf. Timmins, N. (1996). The Five Giants—A Biography of the Welfare State. London: Fontana Press. Titmuss, R. M. (1967). Commitment to Welfare. London: George Allen & Unwin. Walzer, M. (1983). Spheres of Justice. New York: Basic Books. Walzer, M. (1987). Interpretation and Social Criticism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Young, M. (1994). The Rise of the Meritocracy. London: Taylor & Francis. Young, M., & Lemos, G. (1997). The Communities We Have Lost and Can Regain. London: Lemos & Crane.

6 Communitarianism Articulated: 1989–2001

The decade that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 witnessed a succession of publications putting forward communitarian theories on how to develop society and the economy. These included Market, State and Community (Miller 1989a); Community and the Economy: The Theory of Public cooperation (Boswell 1990); The Good Society (Bellah et al. 1991); The Moral Commonwealth: Social Theory and the Promise of Community (Selznick 1992); ‘A Communitarian Approach to Local Governance’ (Ostrom 1993); The Spirit of Community: Rights, Responsibilities, and the Communitarian Agenda (Etzioni 1993); What’s Left? Radical Politics in the Postcommunist Era (Derber et al. 1995); and Communitarianism: A New Agenda for Politics and Citizenship (Tam 1998). The appearance of these works and other related writings by their authors represented a watershed in the development of communitarianism as a distinct reformist philosophy.1 Their analyses of interpersonal

1 While

these writings share a number of key themes and approaches, they do not subscribe to a single all-encompassing communitarian doctrine. In that respect, communitarianism is no different from liberalism, socialism, feminism, anarchism, or conservatism, in that its exponents may disagree with each other in a variety of ways despite having certain core characteristics in common. © The Author(s) 2019 H. Tam, The Evolution of Communitarian Ideas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26558-8_6

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solidarity and proposals for the development of cooperative communities, shared important elements with each other, and with the outlook of the two groups who had up to then been described as communitarians: the Owenite cooperators of the nineteenth century and the communitycentric critics of Rawls in the 1980s. Together they provided a coherent basis for tracing the intellectual lineage of communitarian thinking, exploring the evolution of related ideas in earlier centuries, and assessing their practical implications for contemporary social and political issues. Prior to the 1990s, there was arguably more nomenclatural space to ascribe the term ‘communitarian’ to whatever notion one might like to associate it with. But after that period when specific formulations of communitarianism had been publicly articulated, it is vital to differentiate between what could and could not be considered core features of communitarian thinking. For example, communitarian ideas have at times been wrongly thought to favour the reduction of government in order to strengthen the vitality of communities, as though it is a zero-sum process. While there have been writers from the conservative right to the anarchist left who argued for government institutions to be rolled back so that communities could be left to thrive without state involvement, this is not a position adopted by any of the authors of the defining communitarian texts. Some conservative writers have indeed suggested that communities were unable to fulfil their traditional functions under the weight of government, and called for the role of the state to be minimised (Nisbet 1970). And there are anarchists who believe that, if only government would move out of the way completely, people would form mutually supportive communities based on their own experiences, without any top-down imposition (Kropotkin 2009). Yet whatever the merits of these contentions might be, they were not presented or developed by any thinker as part of a ‘communitarian’ argument. By contrast, the communitarian texts of 1989–1998 were united in recognising the wide range of critical social and economic challenges which communities could not deal with on their own, and setting out how better and more extensive state-community collaboration could be

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developed to help people lead more fulfilling lives as community members and citizens.2 Another misconception associates communitarian thinking with promoting some ideal of community that is worryingly deficient for one reason or another in the minds of different critics. Marilyn Friedman, for example, complained that ‘communitarian theory fails to acknowledge that many communities make illegitimate moral claims on their members, linked to hierarchies of domination and subordination. … [And] the specific communities of family, neighbourhood, and nation so commonly invoked by communitarians are troubling paradigms of social relationship and communal life’ (1989, p. 279). She argued instead for friendship as the model relation to be cultivated in human relations, because people should be free to choose those they wish to be closer to and not be tied by unjustifiable demands or expectations. But for Iris Marion Young, a key problem with the ideal of community was precisely its privileging of friendship as the goal of human association. For the sake of ‘community’, people would then seek to associate only with those with whom they could get on well. She wrote, ‘Many feminist groups, for example, have sought to foster relations of equality and reciprocity of understanding in such a way that disagreement, difference and deviation have been interpreted as a breach of sisterhood, the destruction of personal relatedness and community … Many other progressive political organizations and movements founder on the same desire for community. Too often people in political groups take mutual friendship to be a goal of the group, and thus find themselves wanting as a group when they do not achieve such commonality’ (Young 1986, pp. 13–14). Different thinkers’ conception of what counts as good community life may strike others as placing too much or too little emphasis on friendship (or fellowship, family bonds, traditional ties, etc.),3 but amongst the authors of the defining communitarian texts, it is the conditions that 2 Kropotkin’s writings on mutual aid first appeared in 1902; Nisbet’s book, The Quest for Community,

was originally published in 1952. Neither of them described their outlook as communitarian, and their views on government institutions were substantially different from those contained in established communitarian writings. 3 For example, McCulloch (1984) compares the views of Morris and Kropotkin on fellowship, and assumes they can be used as a basis for deducing what must be implied by communitarian theory.

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facilitate mutually respectful and cooperative endeavours in general, rather than some specific type of relationship, that ought to be promoted. Accordingly, communitarianism’s focus is on the major barriers to non-oppressive interactions, and how they can be removed when people on their own are unlikely to be able to shift them. It is no coincidence that during the 1980s/1990s two trends emerged that would pose the greatest threats to inclusive community development. The first of these trends is the spread of market individualism, buoyed by the rise of the New Right in the UK and the US, and vindicated in the minds of its advocates by the decline (and ultimate demise) of Soviet communism. Francis Fukuyama even proclaimed the ‘end of history’ when he thought the neoliberal economic and political system had established its credentials beyond any future improvement (1989, 1992). The other trend is the fuelling of nostalgic authoritarianism. With marketisation appearing to take over every aspect of life, leaving more and more people economically insecure and socio-culturally disorientated, there was a growing tendency to yearn for a return to some glorified past where strong leaders would enforce rigid traditions, faiths, or ideologies. Fukuyama himself believed that in an inescapably market-dominated society, ‘no fundamental strengthening of community life will be possible unless individuals give back certain of their rights to communities, and accept the return of certain historical forms of intolerance’ (1992, p. 326). The communitarian ideas advanced from 1989 on criticised both these trends as corrosive of inclusive community life, and rejected any supposition that they were somehow unavoidable. Instead, they offered a range of options to transform society by nurturing interpersonal understanding, reforming institutions, and devising public policies to deal with otherwise intractable problems. While they differ in their emphasis and approach in a number of areas, there are many shared features which underpin their common adoption of the communitarian label.4 In the next two sections 4 Although

it is not uncommon to come across casual references to ‘conservative communitarianism’, there has been no systematic work to present any such theory. When Winfried Brugger put forward his three-way differentiation of liberal communitarianism, egalitarian-universalist communitarianism, and conservative communitarianism, he rightly cited Selznick and Etzioni as liberal communitarians, oddly classified Dworkin and Habermas as egalitarian-universalist communitarians, and cited no thinker other than T¨onnies as an advocate of conservative communitarianism (Brugger 2004). As we have seen in Chapter 4, it is the rejection, rather than acceptance, of T¨onnies’

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we will look at what may be termed, respectively, the democratic communitarian responses to the problem of market forces, and the liberal communitarian responses to the problem of moral clashes. In the concluding section, we will examine a synthesis of communitarian ideas to guide reforms in the twenty-first century.

Democratic Communitarian Responses to Market Forces Market relations cover the acquisition, production, and exchange of resources and support sought by people, and can be shaped by a variety of rules and expectations. What these rules are and how expectations are enforced in practice play a critical role in determining what kind of life is open to individuals and their communities. Instead of supposing that society should have a single absolute authority to control all its market relations, or there should be little to no authority from any collective body to regulate them, communitarian theorists focus on finding ways for such relations to be better governed through a diverse range of voluntary and statutory arrangements. Jonathan Boswell coined the term ‘democratic communitarianism’ (1990) to describe an approach based on enabling communities to have democratic control over market forces.5 Robert Bellah adopted the same term to reflect commonalities in his and Boswell’s ideas (1995). Charles Derber described his communitarian approach to rein in unaccountable corporate powers as ‘the politics of democratic community’6 (Derber et al. 1995, p. 113). Elinor Ostrom explained why democracy should be developed beyond the narrow conception of a top-down elected authority to sustain communitarian governance in relation to local services and a wide range of common pool resources (1990, 1993). One of the first theorists to give a detailed exposition of why and how communities should be misconceived Gemeinschaft -Gesellschaft dichotomy that distinguishes communitarian thinking from nostalgic pining for traditional communities. 5There are important similarities between Jonathan Boswell’s democratic communitarianism and Paul Hirst’s associative democracy (Hirst 1994). 6 He also referred to it as a form of ‘left communitarianism’ (Derber et al. 1995, pp. 196–213).

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empowered democratically to have a meaningful say about the causes and consequences of market behaviour, David Miller, argued for a democratic and communitarian form of market socialism (1989a, b). Let us begin with Miller’s argument that since market forces have widespread and significant effects on people’s lives, they should not be left to operate without any kind of control by those they impact on. To leave everything to ‘market neutrality’ would in effect be to suppose that there is no moral difference between any form of transactional activity at all. But commodity-based valuations of the good should only be left to supply and demand in so far as they remain within broader ethical parameters; otherwise, it would be permissible for everyone to buy or sell anything.7 It is not sufficient to say that the law can rule on what is an acceptable transaction, when what is to be made illegal or not can be contested on moral grounds. Miller warned that we should not jump from recognising the need to temper market forces, to making the mistaken assumption that a centralised state should by itself displace all market-based decisions. There are three main reasons for this. First, while not all market-based activities are morally neutral, many are. From choosing the flavour of ice-cream, to selecting the colour of shoes, there are numerous goods and services that are most sensibly, and efficiently, left to buyers and sellers to determine without some state institution second-guessing what would be the ‘best’ outcome. Secondly, the interactions within and between businesses that shape many aspects of market behaviour can be modified by new forms of intra and inter business arrangements independently of any government. Thirdly, even when the state needs to step in, what it decides to do should be guided by the informed deliberations of the affected communities, and not be finalised without citizen involvement. The market socialism Miller advocated would leave the market to operate freely up to the point where its activities would otherwise damage people’s lives, most notably through deception of consumers, exploitation of workers, and devastation of local communities or the wider environment. As to how the boundaries are to be set and who should determine 7 For

example, should the freedom to transact cover the buying and selling of children, the ordering of contract killing, or the private acquisition of all drinkable water in a defined area?

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what should be done to minimise moral violations, there are two strands of communitarian modification to be brought in. At the level of businesses themselves, Miller held that the adoption of cooperative structures and practices could improve the fairness and efficacy of decision-making. Members of worker cooperatives are able to judge for themselves what investment priorities, pay differentials, production improvements, training support would deliver most for their shared objectives. Moreover, they will be making those judgements with real experience of how things work in their enterprise, and what implications different options may have on their lives. In the absence of substantial power inequalities often found in non-cooperative firms, those involved are more likely to act with mutual responsibility and make decisions that take into account the concerns of others as well their own. Miller recognised that in order for cooperatives to remain small enough for meaningful deliberations to be promoted and sustained, individual cooperatives may not be sufficiently large to generate economies of scale or build up funds for future investment. In addition to the tried and tested approach of federation and cross-sector collaboration to improve efficiencies,8 he recommends the setting up of one or more cooperative investment agencies that will raise funds to provide a source of investment for individual cooperatives. He observes that cooperatives may value the opportunity to pool their investment resources and spread them across diverse member firms, so not all their financial eggs are in one basket.9 There may, of course, still be problems that, even with the improved market interactions of worker cooperative, are likely to persist unless a collective authority steps in to deal with them. This is where the second strand of communitarian modification comes in. For Miller, diverse communities could only exert informed control over an authority capable of tackling poverty, discrimination, pollution, large-scale economic disruptions etc., if they could unite around a ruling body powerful enough to deal with such problems but not too powerful as to become unaccountable 8 As

with cooperative practices with Mondragon in the Basques region, the cooperative firms across the Emilia-Romagna region in Italy, and the Co-op Group in the UK. 9 A cooperative investment agency would be bound by its founding principles to serve the needs of cooperatives rather than simply providing returns to external investors. For an outline of what may be involved in such an agency, see Tam (2015).

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to the constituent communities. He maintained that a democratic government serving a country with a sense of national togetherness is the only realistic candidate. He stressed that this togetherness is not to be based on some purported biological characteristic, but on people possessing a shared civic culture and broad expectation that their state will respect and protect them.10 It underpins a vital bond between citizens without reducing diverse family or group affinities to a single unitary relation defined by the nation (Miller 1989a, pp. 245–251). Furthermore, this needs to be reinforced by a politics of dialogue which centres on informed engagement with citizens as an integral part of democratic governance. Multicultural education has a role to play in enabling citizens to appreciate the existence of different customs and attachments, but not to keep these apart as incompatible forms of life, and certainly not to present them as so sacrosanct as to be able to override the rule of law established by the democratic state (1989a, pp. 284–289). While Miller discussed communitarian modifications of business structures in broad terms, Jonathan Boswell set out detailed conditions necessary to bring about an economic system that can sustain democratic community life (1990). Influenced by Durkheim, the French Personalists, and civic humanists, he characterised this form of community life as exhibiting fraternal relations in the sense that people can get on regardless of superficial differences in customs and backgrounds; common pluralistic association with diverse groups up to the nation and beyond; and widespread readiness and opportunities to participate in sharing and shaping events that are important to society.11 Boswell set out six factors that will contribute to the advancement of democratic communitarianism. Four of these relate to structural issues. The first is threshold continuity, which points to the need for organisations in all sectors to have a long enough lifespan for their decision-makers to think beyond quick gains, consider long term costs and benefits, and take responsibility for consequences—good or bad—that will be connected 10 Miller’s ideal of the nation-state echoes the communitarian thinking of Mazzini, Bourgeois, and Croly, all of whom champion liberal, progressive, internationalist nations, and without exception against jingoistic nationalism. 11 He also drew on his extensive experience in examining business culture and practice to draw attention to what may help or hinder public cooperation (Boswell and Peters 1997).

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back to them. This means that any apparent advantages of restructuring, let alone total replacement, of organisations or rapid changes of post holders in key positions, should be balanced by the need for sufficient continuity to allow people to build up relationships and reliable expectations to cooperate for their mutual benefit.12 The second issue concerns conformable size relating to the scale and number of participants appropriate for strategic public cooperation. Like Miller, and for similar reasons, Boswell believed the key forum will have to be at the level under the effective jurisdiction of a national government. As a rough guide, a country with a few hundred but no more than a thousand key economic agents—encompassing the main corporations of different sectors, the largest unions, strategic public bodies, etc.—would be more likely to have a diverse yet compact set of decision makers who can meaningfully interact and formulate proposals to secure country-wide improvements. The third structural factor is that of transparency aided by social monitoring. When people are ignorant or misled about what public policies or business practices are leading to, they may give their support to harmful ones but object to those that actually contribute to social wellbeing. Institutional arrangements to assess likely impact and emerging consequences should be set up on a voluntary basis where possible, but on a statutory basis if necessary. These should be complemented by the fourth and final structural factor, namely, that of enhanced social proximity between different sections/levels of society, to be generated by intermediaries and forums who are given the support to promote wider understanding of matters of common concern, and facilitate collaboration that might otherwise be blocked by conventional organisational barriers. In addition to the structural factors, Boswell highlighted two other conditions that can make a critical difference. One is the prevailing intellectual culture which may undervalue or simply overlook the need to develop better and more widespread understanding of how cooperation can improve social and economic relations. The mantra of leaving decisions to individuals, firms or the state would reinforce myopic practices that fail to explore approaches to formulate shared solutions. The other condition is 12This line of thinking on continuity is backed by game theory analysis that shows that the tendency

to cooperate is reinforced by a long sequence of play, whereas temptations to back out or cheat are increased if only a few moves in a short exchange are expected to take place.

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potential cultural shift in the face of national emergencies. An economic crisis could pave the way for a country to pull together with multi-sector partnerships and collective actions, but if the opportunity is missed, it could lead to even worse fragmentation. Although Miller and Boswell focused in their own works on the cultures, structures and processes for national decision-making, they both recognised that many issues could and should be left to be dealt with at a more local level. Elinor Ostrom argued that too often the wrong assumptions had been made about how to manage public services for a locality or the resources on which a community is dependent. She particularly challenged the view that people must either be left to meet their needs on their own, or hand over responsibility to a remote authority that will determine what would be best for them. Instead of leaving matters of common concern to public officials sealed off from deliberative interactions with the people they are meant to serve, or placing blind faith in the unregulated activities of individuals, she explained that citizens should be co-producers, working with public servants on the ground; elected officials with statutory responsibilities; and appointed heads of agencies, to shape the policies and services that would meet the needs of their communities (Ostrom 1993). Not only would this improve the quality and efficiency of public actions, it would also enhance people’s understanding of the difficulties involved in public policy development, and give them greater insight in what would be feasible and what should be prioritised.13 Ostrom elaborated her thinking on co-production in relation to the management of common pool resources—resources which can meet the needs of various people provided they are not spoilt or exhausted by poorly coordinated individual actions. Her advice is to build durable cooperative institutions that are organized and governed by the resource users themselves (Ostrom 1990). She examined a wide range of cases such as village-level collaboration in different countries from Switzerland to Japan;

13 Many of these ideas have also been critically explored and their potential application explained in the works of John Stewart. See, e.g., Ranson and Stewart (1994), Prior et al. (1995), and Clarke and Stewart (1999).

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diverse historical contexts with irrigation communities in fifteenth century Spain and seventeenth century Philippines; and fishing arrangements in parts of Turkey, Sri Lanka, and Nova Scotia. Based on her findings relating to successful and not so successful attempts to manage common pool resources, she put forward eight design principles that should guide the development of shared oversight and collaboration. These can be viewed as four pairs of recommendations. The first pair signal the need for clear and appropriate parameters. What are and what are not to be treated as common pool resources should be sharply defined, and the scoping should be relevant to local conditions so that neither too much nor too little resources are brought into the arrangement. The second pair concern the active involvement of those who are meant to benefit from being able to access and utilise the resources. Most, if not all, of those who are part of the collective-choice arrangements should be able to participate in the decision-making processes put in place, and the implementation of what is decided should be effectively monitored by the designated members or accountable to them. Next we come to the realistic anticipation that disputes could arise. In order to deal with people being tempted to break the rules or drawn into conflicts about interpretations of the rules, a scale of graduated sanctions should be established and enforced to curtail the violation of community rules, and there must be affordable and accessible mechanisms to resolve disagreement about what was permissible or not. Finally, we have two principles relating to subsidiarity. In relation to higher-level authorities, there should be agreement covering the issues over which the local community is granted self-determination. In relation to subsets of arrangements within the community, there should be multiple layers with each one given its respective level of autonomy down to the smallest unit. In contrast to abstract and futile debates about whether or not communities can collectively manage pooled resources, Ostrom pointed to conditions that, if properly put in place, would more likely lead to effective and sustainable joint management by members of any given community (Wilson 2016; Wall 2017). Her assessments, along with Miller’s and Boswell’s, of what would support or hinder healthy social and economic relations, provide detailed guidance on the arrangements that ought to be

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introduced. Yet there is continued resistance to bringing in such arrangements because many of those who benefit most from being able to amass power and wealth under the status quo want people to believe there is no viable alternative. This led critics such as Robert Bellah and Charles Derber to intensify their challenge to the New Right’s market ideology. In solidarity with Boswell’s philosophy of democratic communitarianism, Bellah debunked misrepresentation of the kind of community life they championed (Bellah 1995). Healthy community relations are necessary for the healthy development of individuals, who need to experience reciprocity to attain their own human potential. Such relations are not to be confined to small-scale, all absorbing groups, but must be cultivated through a multiplicity of complementary communities to which people belong. For this to happen, an enfeebled state, as much as an overbearing one must be held to account democratically and made to fulfil its duties to the citizens as co-producers of the public good.14 Standing in the way of a re-orientation towards democratic community development is a deceptive image of the market. Bellah exposed the contradictions between the supposed benign influence of ‘neutral’ market transactions and their increasingly oppressive effects when left unchecked by rules, monitoring, and sanctions. More and more individuals, having been repeatedly told that all would work out in the best possible way for them, find that they are the ones who have to submit to dire health, housing, environmental conditions, work for below-subsistence wages, and lose all they have when they cannot pay back the borrowing on which they have had to rely to get by. The winner-takes-all polarisation is replicated at the level of corporations. At one end, they are commodified, assetstripped, and their workers cut back to boost short-term share gains. At the other end, those that have amassed enough power dictate terms to state organisations so their own legal rights proliferate while they cast aside any enforceable duty they owe to the wider society (Bellah et al. 1991).

14 Bellah insisted that he regarded himself a communitarian only on the basis that communitarians are understood as believing that ‘more substantive ethical identities and a more active participation in a democratic polity are necessary for the functioning of any decent society’ (Bellah et al. 1991, p. 6).

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Derber explained that demanding businesses to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions is no more ‘anti-business’ than it would be ‘anti-people’ to require citizens to comply with civic expectations. Just as individuals rely on others behaving responsibly in their community and should not act without due regard for others in return, businesses must not be allowed to position themselves as though they have the absolute right to do whatever they want when their very existence depends on the support in numerous ways from the rest of society (Derber 1998). To integrate responsible corporate behaviour into positive community development, Derber points to actions in three areas. First, given the success of Scandinavian social democracy over American laissez faire capitalism, especially in terms of wider prosperity and stability, and the greater economic sustainability and job satisfaction delivered by cooperatives such as the Mondragon Corporation compared with firms driven by shortterm profits for shareholders, the economy should embrace both a higher degree of social market management and an expansion of worker cooperative enterprises (1994). Secondly, movements should be organised to raise public understanding and galvanise demands for change. These ought to cover the championing of working people15 and their role in maintaining economic security for their families and local communities; the engagement of voluntary organisations in speaking up for people’s needs (rather than staying trapped in bidding for government or corporate funding); the multiculturalist defence of all who are discriminated against; and the focussing of environmental campaigns on changing business behaviour (instead of reinforcing the line that it is up to consumers what they buy) (1998). Lastly, advocates for communitarian reforms should be clear and consistent in presenting the wielding of excessive corporate wealth and power as a key threat the tackling of which must be prioritised (Derber et al. 1995, Chapter 9). The focus of Derber and those at the forefront of democratic communitarianism can be summed up in the words of Bellah and his co-authors of Habits of the Heart: ‘if communitarianism means opposition to the neocapitalist agenda and to a theoretical liberalism for which autonomy is 15These

will include those who are worried about long term job security, those pressured into accepting undesirable terms, and those who need to find work but are unable to do so.

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almost the only virtue, then we are communitarians’ (Bellah et al. 1996, p. xxviii). In the context of the evolution of communitarian ideas, past aspirations were fused into a new objective—as David Marquand remarked: ‘The goal was a marriage between the communitarian, decentralist, participatory radicalism to which the Liberal Democrats16 were heirs, and the communitarian, decentralist, participatory strands in the socialist inheritance: a marriage between Thomas Paine and William Morris’ (1999, p. 232).17

Liberal Communitarian Responses to Moral Clashes Moral disagreement is to be expected in any pluralist society, as there is no monolithic conception of what constitutes the good, or comprehensive classification of what is acceptable or forbidden in every sphere of life. However, where the disagreement extends to what is to be set as a necessary requirement for everyone to comply with, or what an individual or group insists on doing despite the strongest objections raised by others, we are faced with moral clashes that threaten the cohesiveness of society itself. Communitarian critiques of attempts to anchor ethics and politics with some form of rationalist indubitability go back beyond the critics of Rawls in the 1980s, through the Pragmatists’ (most prominently, Dewey) rejection of the quest for certainty, to the nineteenth century resistance against a priori reasoning, and the experimentalist strand of the Enlightenment. A recurring complaint about these critiques is that they leave a relativist door open for endless contests for moral validation that can never be resolved. 16 In the UK, the Liberal Democrats were itself formed from a merger of the old Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party that split from the Labour Party in 1981. 17 Although Marquand’s ideas have often been described by commentators as ‘civic republican’, when writing on the problem of market forces, he set out ‘an alternative response based on the notions of community and social capital … [which] stands for a stakeholder economy, in which market works for the public good instead of against it; for a vibrant public domain … [and] for bottom-up, locally led development instead of a centralist Fabianism of the past’, and he called it the ‘vision of a communitarian ethical socialism, combining individual empowerment with social solidarity’ (1995). Both Marquand and Miller advocated communitarian reorientation of socialism—some may say, back to its cooperative roots. See also Marquand (1988).

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In the 1990s, a number of social and political thinkers responded to this with a set of ideas that are often characterised as ‘liberal communitarian’, because instead of granting credence to a misleading ‘liberal versus communitarian’ dichotomy, they wanted to explore how many central liberal concerns could be better addressed through a broader communitarian conception of values and conflict resolution. Attention was directed towards approaches such as deliberative dialogues, civic education, consensus building, the civil use of language, and cultivation of reciprocity in expectations. Variations of the term ‘communitarian liberalism/liberal communitarianism’ were adopted by Philip Selznick (1994), Thomas A. Spragens (1995), and Amitai Etzioni (Schilche 1999; Etzioni 2018). William Galston (1991) developed liberal and communitarian ideas as an integrated political philosophy. And Amy Gutmann (1992) argued that communitarian values could improve liberal thinking on how our common good might be pursued.18 Philip Selznick, whose communitarian-liberal thinking echoed the philosophy of John Dewey and the British New Liberals, paid special attention to the legal dimension of how conflicting beliefs and behaviours are to be settled (1992; Kagan et al. 2002). Many contested claims, especially if they involve possible harm to the wellbeing of particular individuals or the public in general, cannot be left unresolved. Selznick argued that while critics such as Marx and Foucault might be right that a society’s legal system could be manipulated to help an elite dominate the majority of the people, it was possible, and indeed necessary, for manipulation to be countered in practice by public accountability arrangements and civic vigilance. Most people’s chances of getting fair treatment are dependent on impartial legal processes. Instead of sweepingly dismissing all judicial actions as biased, we should focus on making them as objective and responsive as possible to the communities they serve.

18 While liberal communitarian thinking rejects the characterisation of liberal and communitarian ideas as inherently opposed to each other, it maintains that the extent to which the two can be integrated depends on the principles invoked in particular formulations. As we saw in Chapter 4, although major liberal theorists such as Dewey and Hobhouse sought to develop liberalism in a more communitarian direction, this is not something embraced by everyone whose political views exhibit liberal features.

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Freedom from oppression and equality before the law are two sides of the same coin. People do not become more free as the law retreats. Laws are enacted, in a democratic society, to offer protection which individuals on their own could not secure. Without laws, a powerful few may well impose their will on others. But public rules are liable to be distorted or usurped by the unscrupulous. To prevent that from happening, all citizens must be guaranteed equal respect and treatment before the law. This means that legal protection must deal with all threats to freedom, not just those that an elite may find troublesome. It needs to secure liberation for everyone from intimidation, dogmas, interference by vested interests, ignorance, repression, and arbitrary convention (Selznick 1992, p. 373). And to do so, it requires public institutions that are both powerful enough to counter the irresponsible acts of individuals and organisations, and democratically accountable enough to be held back from any irresponsible action of their own. Selznick warned that attempts to undermine equality before the law by ‘suspect classification’ must be challenged. It is not acceptable to pretend that the law is being applied ‘equally’ when it is designed to penalise certain groups or perpetuate their vulnerability to oppression by others. As Selznick explained, ‘The doctrine of suspect classification speaks specifically to the experience of subordination and oppression. A classification is suspect if it arises and tends to perpetuate a system of domination, especially when the subordinate group is stigmatized as inherently inferior. Race, sex, illegitimacy, and alienage are categories that have sustained domination, disadvantage, exploitation, and worse’ (1992, p. 487). For example, a law that threatens corporal punishment against the theft of even a small amount of food, or one that protects the right of businesses to turn away customers on account of their ethnicity, may be presented as applicable to rich and poor alike, or people of all racial types, but its most likely impact reveals its discriminatory intent. Sometimes there may not be the intent to discriminate, but the mere indifference to how lives are affected by mechanical application of rules and procedures as a result of what Selznick called ‘the decay of legality to legalism’, is enough to trap people in endless though perfectly unavoidable suffering (1992, p. 330). A two-fold response is necessary. On the one hand, the processes of developing and administering laws must incorporate

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social values, purposes and sensibilities that should inform the course of conduct. The teaching of law should open minds to a broader and deeper appreciation of how it relates to diverse aspects of human experience. On the other hand, the people who are meant to be beneficiaries of the rule of law must engage deliberatively in shaping the laws that govern them. Such engagement will involve not just discussion of policy options or scrutiny of government proposals, but also, where necessary, confrontation against those laws and political programmes that callously marginalise particular groups in society. Recalling Martin Luther King’s rallying of communitywide opposition to the unjust treatment of those who cannot defend themselves on their own, Selznick was adamant that the voices of those who might otherwise remain unheard—‘those of minorities, women, the poor’—must be amplified through organised struggles (2002, pp. 84–85). Thomas Spragens took as his starting point our need for a shared understanding of reasonable discourse to resolve our differences, because otherwise moral clashes might simply persist until some arbitrary force succeeds in declaring one side the winner. However, like Selznick, he rejected the absolutist model of rationality as untenable. Reviewing development in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of language, Spragens concluded that rational behaviour should be understood in terms of adaptation towards common interests. There is no guaranteed formula that would reveal an indubitably correct answer to any question regarding what we should do. Instead, he proposed what he termed ‘politics as a rational enterprise’, in which the legitimacy of community norms would be derived from mutual commitment to reason-giving and critical assessment of the impact of provisional positions adopted (1990). Aware of the need to explicate how assumptions about prevailing attitudes and practices are to be justifiably questioned and revised, Spragens set out a framework for exchanging coherent analyses and open examining of evidence as the pre-condition for community deliberations. People must be supported in developing their capability for reasoned discussions; assured that they could question others and put forward their own suggestions, provided they do so without thereby deceiving or intimidating others; and required to respect others who must also be given due opportunities to share their views. The exact components of such a civic framework cannot be prescribed a priori, but are developed over time

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through the efforts of diverse pursuits of information and learning in different fields. Instituting, revising, and protecting this framework for citizen participation is then what provides the basis for guiding changes in any community’s moral culture and public policies. It is a perennial temptation in moral and political philosophy to come up with a definitive theory that will designate as supreme some formulation of, say, individual autonomy, fair distribution, civic virtue, national pride, or human happiness. But that would be to set up as the premise of political exploration what is in fact a continuously revisable conclusion. Different values, objectives, needs have to be weighed up under different circumstances by the citizens involved to see what would command assent on any given occasion. There may be irreconcilable differences in some situations, but equally, rational discourse can bring about informed consensus. We can be confident that progress is possible, not despite the indeterminacy at the heart of the enquiring process, but because of it. Spragens readily recognised it might not be easy to maintain an effective framework for civic deliberations. However, given the alternative is to have individuals declaring their personal ‘truths’ as beyond questioning by anyone else, it is the only viable way that may lead to thoughtful agreement. Yet even as efforts are channelled towards developing a framework for rational discourse, polarising public debates are continuing to put the cohesiveness of society under strain. The push for more radical reforms on a wide range of social issues in the 1960s/1970s, for example, was met by a fervent conservative backlash in the 1980s/1990s, leading to what came to be known as the ‘culture war’ (Hunter 1991). Against this backdrop, Amitai Etzioni collaborated with William Galston and other colleagues in advocating a communitarian perspective in steering a way through the impasse.19 Etzioni’s prime concern was that dogmatic adherence to a single position, with no room for engagement or rethinking with others in the community, would lock people into fierce disputes that would undermine civil

19 In 1991 they developed a position paper, ‘The Responsive Communitarian Platform’, outlining their thinking. It is reprinted in Etzioni (1993). For an account of the propagation of policy ideas associated with that position paper, see Etzioni (2003).

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co-existence (1993). His approach was to illustrate with practical examples how assumed dichotomies could be transcended if people were willing to explore new options together (Schilche 1999; Watson 1999). For example, instead of insisting that people should conform to one exclusive ‘traditional’ conception of what constitutes a ‘family’, or have no guidance whatsoever, it would be better to consider how parental support for children could be better enhanced through enabling those who are going to be parents to fulfil their duty to their dependants. This may involve couple counselling factoring in the needs of children as well as the two adults, and employers being more responsive to granting parental leave. In the case of education, there is no reason why the choice should be limited to teaching some arbitrary moral doctrine that is to be imposed on everyone, or avoiding all forms of moral education altogether. From kindergartens to universities, teachers ought to be aware that there are common moral values that people share, and these should be explained and transmitted to the younger generation so concerns for mutual respect, honesty, courtesy, standing up to cruelty, are not eroded by relativist attitudes which react to all forms of behaviour with the same moral indifference. With issues of public safety, Etzioni cited the common polarisation towards either treating any form of scrutiny of individual behaviour as an absolutely unacceptable violation of personal freedom, or giving a blanket justification in the name of protecting the public. But headline conflicts often mask the real options. Faced with the real possibility of some individuals taking drug or alcohol that may lead to them endangering others’ lives when they drive, or purchasing weapons that can be used to kill innocent people on a large scale, communities should explore how proportionate checking and restrictions could be devised to strike an appropriate balance between people’s rights to choose their own course of action and their duties to comply with society’s expectations in minimising avoidable harm. Critics of Etzioni tend to object to this communitarian approach of resolving differences through moral dialogues because they do not see

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how it can proceed.20 For them, neither side would ever concede since the slightest departure from their absolute position would be regarded as opening the floodgate to more concessions, and a resolute principle would in no time have given way to excesses on every front. Etzioni responded by pointing to four practical criteria that can help to facilitate moral dialogues (1993, pp. 177–189). The first relates to the recognition of ‘clear and present danger’. If people recognise that the polarised options on the table will not be generally acceptable in dealing with a serious problem that will not go away, they will need to consider other types of solution. It is possible that any new proposal may at the outset be met with kneejerk rejection, which is why the second criterion checks if there is any alternative way to proceed. For example, if not even a modest form of government inspection is allowed with judicial oversight, then short of telepathy, the most dangerous threats will not be detected. Thirdly, the changes to be brought in should be as limited as possible, rather than granting blanket powers just in case more are needed. And fourthly, any implementation is to be predicated on there being ample opportunities to minimise, avoid or treat side effects. So any reservations are taken on board, not as the basis of a veto, but as grounds for mitigating and dealing with problematic issues that may arise. Some may retort that none of these criteria is precise in its assessment or logically incontrovertible. But in reality, they are more likely to be utilised as guidance for those seeking common ground than some absolute principle that will only command the allegiance of one side or the other. Nonetheless, there may be deeper opposition to the prospect of moral dialogues as a result of the entire enterprise being dismissed as tainted by communal prejudices. What if some groups insist that their passionately held views override everything else others may put forward? Who will be the arbiters of a community’s values? According to Etzioni, there are a number of incremental stages at which conflicting values can be considered (1996, Chapter 8), beginning with engagement in local democratic 20There are also critics who focus on the policy proposals Etzioni put forward, but their disagreement

is with specific details of Etzioni’s policy proposals rather than his broader communitarian conception of how to approach public policy deliberations. Communitarian thinkers can share the higher-level conception while coming to contrasting policy recommendations (just as liberal and conservative thinkers do). On Etzioni’s policy views on families and education, see Demaine (1996).

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processes and social consensus-building to discover what come close to attaining general support. Then any particular outlook that appears to have local backing should be tested against more widely established societal values; for example, even if a majority in an area should believe they have a right to deprive their children of nourishment as a form of punishment, it would not be acceptable because it violates deeply held principles enshrined in the country’s laws to protect children. At the next stage, even long-standing values may have ceased to be held by everyone, and cross-societal moral dialogues may be called upon to test to what extent attitudes may be ready to shift. Finally, groups of countries may differ on what is acceptable in certain cases, and matters may have to be subject to global cross-cultural judgement. Despite the attention given to instances of moral disagreement, the fact remains that there are many common values found in different cultures around the world. The extent to which contrasting views may in practice come to be succeeded by a revised outlook that is more widely supported, depends on there being a real commitment to express and pursue the common good. Galston argued that any insistence on moral neutrality would leave society vulnerable to interminable factionalism. Leaving aside the matters that people could believe or act on without interfering with others’ lives, there would still be countless issues on which disagreement signals incompatible behaviour.21 Teaching one’s children to despise people with darker skin tone; dismissing people’s suitability based on their gender; or denouncing someone’s character because that person does not subscribe to one’s religious doctrine; these and other similar tendencies would keep eroding civic bonds and fragment society, unless we take a moral stand against them. Galston’s communitarian account of a liberal polity is one that can be viewed as ‘a cooperative endeavour to create and sustain circumstances within which individuals may pursue – and to the greatest possible extent

21 Even

what may be regarded as a matter of personal taste can be escalated into a social conflict. For example, immigrants can be castigated for eating ‘ethnic’ food rather than switching to national dishes (whatever those maybe); and one British politician infamously claimed in the 1980s that people were not real citizens of the country if they in sports supported another country’s sports team.

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achieve – their good’ (Galston 1991, p. 183). As to what good encompasses, he highlighted elements that people generally, on reflection, would recognise: possession of life that is of worth to oneself and not likely to destroy the life of others; normal development of basic human capacities; fulfilment of interests and purposes that do not suppress the chance of others to do likewise; freedom from groundless coercion; sufficient rationality to engage in meaningful deliberation with others; healthy relations with others in diverse social contexts; and degrees of subjective satisfaction, other things being equal (1991, pp. 174–177). It is by focusing on our shared needs to pursue common elements of the good life, Galston argued, that we can begin to devise collective plans of action. Underlying this process is the cultivation of virtues—dispositions that will aid, rather than hinder, the kind of interactions that make moral dialogues productive. To advance the appropriate character development across society, three areas call for special attention. First, civic education should go beyond a mere enumeration of facts and figures about political institutions, and teach people why and how collective decisions should be informed, assessed, and where necessary, revised. People should learn about both how they may participate in policy decisions themselves, and how they should evaluate, choose and hold to account representatives who will make decisions on their behalf. Secondly, public virtues should help define the common ground between secular universalist parameters and traditional particularist faiths.22 While there are fundamentalist religious doctrines that may advocate harm to certain individuals and groups, and hence unacceptable to society in general, there are many religious beliefs held that are inspiring in the nurturing of love and respect, and they should not be excluded from broader alliances to promote ethical behaviour in the public realm. Thirdly, there needs to be greater pragmatic recognition of the need for collectively binding rules so citizens can appreciate what they can secure in their community in return for reasonable limits being placed on what individuals can do. From the avoidance of devastating conflicts, and the prevention of a powerful 22 Galston was especially concerned that a simplistic demarcation of public affairs and religious activities could lead to unwarranted mutual distrust. Much more attention, he believed, should be given to enabling people with different religious views and/or secular commitments to support each other in pursuing goals that (even if it is for different reasons) they regard as morally important.

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few forcing others to submit to them, to the concerted minimisation of brutality and poverty, and the safeguarding of values such as diversity and privacy, freedom is not to be misrepresented as the enemy of law and order, but as being protected by their democratic establishment. From a liberal-communitarian perspective, moral clashes can be more often resolved satisfactorily if the deployment of safeguards against intimidation and oppression is guided by broader cultural concerns with enabling people to learn, deliberate and revise their views on what may affect their communities. Amy Gutmann observed that ‘Communitarianism has the potential for helping us discover a politics that combines community with a commitment to basic liberal values’ (1992, p. 133). She has exemplified this with her exposition of deliberative democracy and political education. Gutmann explained that there would always be moral conflicts, and we could only deal with them effectively, not by trying in vain to get everyone to adopt identical first-order views about what was right or wrong, but by persuading them to share second-order judgement on how to manage disagreement. Individuals might for a variety of reasons hold contrasting opinions about what was or was not acceptable to them, but they could also potentially recognise that they live in communities in which they could not have everything their own way. Arrangements are necessary to reconcile differences. She cited reciprocity, publicity, and accountability as key factors needed for effective deliberative arrangements (Gutmann and Thompson 1996). Reciprocity would ensure that members of communities could express their thoughts and feelings in an open and mutually acceptable manner. People would have the opportunity for their arguments to be heard with due consideration on the understanding they would treat what others put forward in the same way. Publicity would secure transparency so relevant information would be placed accessibly in the public domain, and attempts to deceive or misdirect would be readily exposed. And accountability would require those acting as political representatives to speak for not just those who have voted for them, but for all whose wellbeing could be affected by the decisions they make. Gutmann argued that to bring these factors into play, we must give communities the necessary support. For example, reciprocity, publicity, and accountability can be realised ‘only to the extent that each citizen

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has sufficient social and economic standing to meet his or her fellows on terms of equal respect’, and the readiness of government ‘to make decent work or basic income available helps create the background circumstances that are necessary for adequate deliberation itself ’ (Gutmann and Thompson 1996, p. 349). Furthermore, education at every level should be steered towards inculcating the skills of critical thinking, receptiveness to thoughtful explorations, awareness of diverse cultural practices, and other ingredients that are vital for democratic deliberation. She was unequivocal in declaring ‘that “political education” – the cultivation of the virtues, knowledge, and skills necessary for political participation – has moral primacy over other purposes of public education in a democratic society’ (Gutmann 1999, p. 287).

Communitarianism: Towards a Progressive Synthesis Towards the end of the 1990s, scholarly use of the term ‘communitarian’ could be found in four distinct, if related, compartments.23 Historians would use it to refer to the ideas for setting up new communities put forward by Owenites and cooperative advocates. Commentators on political philosophy would use it to describe the critiques of Rawls advanced by MacIntyre, Sandel, Walzer, and Taylor. Miller and Boswell in the UK and others elsewhere arguing for alternative economic models would describe their inclusive proposals as communitarian. And a group that included Etzioni, Galston, Spragens and others would champion the social movement they instigated in the US under the communitarian banner. Superficially, with their different primary concerns and the variety of adjectives associated with their respective communitarian outlooks— ‘philosophical’, ‘political’, ‘democratic’, ‘responsive’, ‘cooperative’, ‘liberal’—it may appear these are separate currents of thought that happen to share the ‘communitarian’ name. However, a closer look would reveal a

23 As explained in Chapter 1, we will leave aside generic, rhetorical, and pre-conceived uses of the term as these have little connection with the intellectual development of communitarian thinking.

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number of significant connections between them. Henry Tam’s Communitarianism (1998) extracted the key elements of communitarian thinking from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and synthesised them into an overall philosophy of how we should live—setting out systematically why and how communities at all levels should be improved to enable their members to attain a better quality of life socially, economically, and politically. The core focus of this philosophy is on the nature of human interaction. The golden rule of ethics in all civilisations is directed, not at solitary behaviour, but at how people treat one another. We need others—practically and emotionally—to lead a satisfactory life, and we cannot have the respect and support from others to do so if we are not willing to reciprocate in return. This calls for rules, customs, dispositions, and sufficient shared understanding that will facilitate, rather than undermine, reciprocal interactions. But as communities change over time, and with more groups and structures emerging with their own aims and activities, it can become increasingly difficult for the golden rule to be sustained. Some people lose sight of why certain requirements are necessary for long term mutuality. Some exploit the lack of transparency or an imbalance in power to take unfair advantage of others. And some are overwhelmed by the uncertainty and complexity of new systems, and back away from reciprocal arrangements for fear they will not be honoured by others. The common thread running through communitarian assessments of this problem is that it can only be effectively addressed if communities are developed in the direction of greater inclusiveness and cooperation. There is no such thing as the ideal community to be established and preserved for all time. Instead, the on-going development of any community should be guided by the three principles of mutual responsibility, cooperative enquiry, and citizen participation (Tam 1998). These principles deal, respectively, with the three core issues concerning human interactions (as identified in Chapter 2): • What should people care about? • What should people believe? • What actions should people decide to take?

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First, in relation to what people should care about, the principle of mutual responsibility requires all members of any community to learn to take responsibility for the wellbeing of each other in line with reciprocal concerns and expectations. For any community to hold together, it must be able to minimise the extent to which individuals behave without regard for the consequences that will befall others, or worse, act with the intention of benefiting themselves through harming others. Beyond the generally sought values of love, wisdom,24 justice, and fulfilment, people may have other qualities and experiences they value, and so long as the pursuit of these does not inherently inflict harm or deprivation on others, there should be no attempt to block their realisation. On the other hand, many things we value—a safe environment, societal stability, cultural enrichment, etc.—can only be secured with the support of others, and that means we must be prepared to provide our support in return. In practice, this points to the need to cultivate a sense of shared mission; widespread mutual respect that transcends differences connected with income, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc.; and coherent arrangements that can be relied on for bringing in or excluding members for reasons relevant to the wellbeing of the community. Secondly, regarding what people should believe, the principle of cooperative enquiry demands any claim to be judged with reference to the extent to which informed participants deliberating under conditions of thoughtful and un-coerced exchanges would concur with its reliability. A community cannot reach any shared understanding of what is to be believed, or resolve serious disagreement about rival claims, if there is no objective means for people to examine each other’s arguments or revise their assumptions. With cooperative enquiry, the strength of any truth claim would rest with the likelihood of that claim surviving the critical deliberations of ever expanding circles of enquirers. Any provisional consensus reached by one group of individuals must in turn be open to possible revisions subject to scrutiny carried out with input from other groups. The practical implication of this is that we should promote the development of collaborative learning in all research and educational institutions; the 24The

ability to understand how to differentiate what warrants acceptance as true and what should be rejected as dubious or unsubstantiated.

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advancement of cultural and organisational support for conducting critical re-examination of contested claims; and an enforceable framework that aids responsible communication and penalises deliberate public deception. Thirdly, in terms of what actions people should decide to take, the principle of citizen participation calls for all those affected by any given power structure to be able to participate as equal citizens in determining how the power in question is to be exercised. Whenever power is excessively concentrated in a few individuals or groups, it is likely they would take unilateral decisions to suit themselves at the expense of others. To counter this possibility, all those subject to potentially binding decisions should be entitled to learn about, review, and reshape prevailing decisionmaking arrangements. None should be left in a position where unpalatable demands had to be accepted because of one’s social or economic vulnerabilities. This applies to not only relations involving government institutions, but also businesses, schools and community organisations. There should accordingly be a widening of and improvement to participatory decisionmaking; effective support for attaining greater civic parity in terms of the resources and influence possessed by members of a community; and a strengthening of public accountability to underpin trust in cooperative action (Tam 2018). The three principles should be used to ascertain the extent to which any given community—at the workplace, neighbourhood, a voluntary association, a nation, a transnational federation—is inclusive and cooperative in terms of its members’ interactions. The identified gaps then provide a basis for designing policies and practices that will bring about improvements. There is no presumption that any particular tradition or innovation must necessarily be good to preserve or introduce. It is up to cooperative enquirers to examine the arguments and evidence to form their judgement. We cannot determine in the abstract what aspect of a community should be changed. We must first discover how it is operating, how it treats its members, and how it interacts with other communities, especially those to which its members also belong. Then we can consider what changes ought to be brought about to its approaches to family, education, social attitudes, business, resource distribution, civic cohesion, and government.

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Communitarianism is thus, intellectually and politically, a counterpoise to the polarising dichotomy of authoritarian control and anarchic free-forall. Through the ages, communities have been pressed by rival camps at one extreme to submit to an unquestionable authority that will tell them what to value, what to believe, and what they must or must not do; and at the other extreme, to leave everyone to value, believe, and do whatever they want without any collective adjudication.25 Instead of conceding to these extremes, adopting one or the other for different issues, or trying to map out a halfway point as a coherent compromise, communitarianism sets out an alternative framework for assessing values, beliefs, and decision-making in every sphere of human interaction.26 For example, it is not about leaving everything that may affect people’s lives to the government, the market, the voluntary sector, or individuals on their own, irrespective of what they may do; but about assigning appropriate responsibilities to each so that through their cooperation, all will have greater freedom to pursue socially acceptable goals. No one should be so powerful that without any meaningful counterweight or restraint they are in effect free to dictate whatever terms they want to others; and whatever domain in which they are operating—manufacturing, finance, education, healthcare, policing, etc.—they can only be made accountable to those their actions will affect with an extensively democratised process of decision-making. Values are not to be laid down exclusively by any particular religious sect, a political party, one group’s interpretation of a country’s traditions, or some charismatic leader with a large following; but that does not mean there are no common values at all, as these can be discerned when people have the opportunity to engage with each other in 25 As we saw in Chapter 2, when the debates about what should guide the development of communities emerged and intensified over the period of sixth to first century BC, the leading advocates could be grouped under the headings of ‘absolutist’, ‘detached’, ‘egoistic’, and ‘reciprocal’. Proponents of absolutist views wanted to close off enquiries on every front by giving the last word to an authority that is beyond challenge. Those who favoured detached views insisted that individuals could go with whatever answers they wanted. Those with egoistic views about the superiority of their own ideas, tended to support an authoritarian position if they or people they were aligned with could wield that authority, but would otherwise switch to sweeping rejection of authority so it is less likely that they could be held back from pushing their agenda when that is damaging for others. The quest for a reciprocal alternative led to subsequent development of communitarian ideas. 26 Examples of how this can be taken forward in practice are set out in Chapter 7; see also Tam (2011).

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a civil manner. As for people’s sense of identity and belonging, it should neither be abstracted as some notion that individuals can switch to or suspend at will, nor treated as a psychological straitjacket tied to a single group; since in reality, people can have strong, multiple, overlapping connections with different communities, and it would be as wrong to reduce their sense of who they are to some ‘unencumbered self ’ as it would be to define them exclusively by their membership of just one.27 In 2000 a group of social and political theorists, including Bellah, Derber, Selznick, and Tam, collaborated on a project to consider the progressive synthesis of communitarian ideas and its implications for the twentyfirst century (Tam 2001). They examined the key challenges to which communitarian theory and practice would need to respond, without conceding to either extreme of the old authoritarian-anarchic dichotomy, or simply adopting an anodyne middle as some third way. In the next two chapters, we will look at how these challenges are likely to affect the future development of community life, and what communitarian thinking has to offer in dealing with the recurrence of long-standing problems and the emergence of new threats in the twenty-first century.

References Bellah, R. N. (1995, Winter). Community Properly Understood: A Defense of “Democratic” Communitarianism. The Responsive Community, 6 (1), 49–54. Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A., & Tipton, S. M. (1991). The Good Society. New York: Knopf. Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A., & Tipton, S. M. (1996). Habits of the Heart (Updated ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. Bellah, R. N., & Sullivan, W. M. (2001). Cultural Resources for a Progressive Alternative. In Tam (2001), pp. 21–35. Boswell, J. (1990). Community and the Economy: The Theory of Public Cooperation. London: Routledge.

27 As

Anne Phillips observed, ‘we are a network of beliefs, desires and emotions that constantly reweaves itself … There is no “core” self behind all our differences, but neither is there one difference that essentially constitutes our self ’ (Phillips 1991, p. 58).

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Boswell, J., & Peters, J. (1997). Capitalism in Contention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brugger, W. (2004). Communitarianism as the Social and Legal Theory Behind the German Constitution. International Journal of Constitutional Law, 2(3), 431–460. Clarke, M., & Stewart, J. (1999). Community Governance, Community Leadership and the New Local Government. London: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Demaine, J. (1996). Education and Families in The Spirit of Community: Questions of Identity, Individuality and Diversity. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 6 (1), 37–48. Derber, C. (1994, Fall). Communitarian Economics: Criticisms and Suggestions from the Left. The Responsive Community, 4 (4), 29–42. Derber, C. (1998). Corporation Nation. New York: St Martin’s Griffin. Derber, C. (2001). Corporate Power in the New Gilded Age. In Tam (2001), pp. 182–192. Derber, C., Ferroggiaro, K. M., Ortiz, J. A., Schwerner, C., & Vela-McConnell, J. A. (1995). What’s Left? Radical Politics in the Postcommunist Era. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Etzioni, A. (1993). The Spirit of Community: Rights, Responsibilities, and the Communitarian Agenda. New York: Crown Publishers. Etzioni, A. (1996). The New Golden Rule: Community and Morality in a Democratic Society. New York: Basic Books. Etzioni, A. (2003). My Brother’s Keeper. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Etzioni, A. (2018). Happiness Is the Wrong Metric: A Liberal Communitarian Response to Populism. Cham: Springer. Friedman, M. (1989). Feminism and Modern Friendship: Dislocating the Community. Ethics, 99 (2), 275–290. Fukuyama, F. (1989, Summer). End of History? The National Interest (16), 3–18. Fukuyama, F. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. London: Hamish Hamilton. Galston, W. A. (1991). Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues, and Diversity in the Liberal State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gutmann, A. (1992). Communitarian Critics of Liberalism. In S. Avineri & A. de-Shalit (Eds.), Communitarianism and Individualism (pp. 120–136). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gutmann, A. (1999). Democratic Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gutmann, A., & Thompson, D. (1996). Democracy and Disagreement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Hirst, P. (1994). Associative Democracy: New Forms of Economic and Social Governance. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hunter, J. D. (1991). Culture War: The Struggle to Define America. New York: Basic Books. Kagan, R. A., Krygier, M., & Winston, K. (Eds.). (2002). Legality and Community: On the Intellectual Legacy of Philip Selznick. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Kropotkin, P. (2009). Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution. New York: Cosimo Classics. Marquand, D. (1988). The Unprincipled Society. London: Fontana. Marquand, D. (1995, February 3). The Political Lowlands’ Flood of Fears’. The Guardian. Marquand, D. (1999). The Progressive Dilemma. London: Phoenix. McCulloch, C. (1984). The Problem of Fellowship in Communitarian Theory: William Morris and Peter Kropotkin. Political Studies, XXXII, 437–450. Miller, D. (1989a). Market, State and Community: Theoretical Foundations of Market Socialism. Oxford: Clarendon. Miller, D. (1989b). In What Sense Must Socialism Be Communitarian? Social Philosophy and Policy, 6, 57–74. Nisbet, R. N. (1970). The Quest for Community. New York: Oxford University Press. Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ostrom, E. (1993, Summer). A Communitarian Approach to Local Governance. National Civic Review, 82, 226–233. Phillips, A. (1991). Engendering Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Prior, D., Stewart, J., & Walsh, K. (1995). Citizenship: Rights, Community & Participation. London: Pitman Publishing. Ranson, S., & Stewart, J. (1994). Managing for the Public Domain: Enabling the Learning Society. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press. Schilche, B. (1999). Etzioni’s New Theory: A Synthesis of Liberal and Communitarian Views. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 28(4), 429–438. Selznick, P. (1992). The Moral Commonwealth: Social Theory and the Promise of Community. Berkeley: University of California Press. Selznick, P. (1994, Fall). Foundations of Communitarian Liberalism. The Responsive Community, 4 (4), 16–28. Selznick, P. (2001). A Quest for Community. In Tam (2001), pp. 80–92. Selznick, P. (2002). The Communitarian Persuasion. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

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Spragens, T. A. (1990). Reason and Democracy. Durham: Duke University Press. Spragens, T. A. (1995). Communitarian Liberalism. In A. Etzioni (Ed.), New Communitarian Thinking: Persons, Virtues, Institutions, and Communities (pp. 37–51). Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Tam, H. (1998). Communitarianism: A New Agenda for Politics and Citizenship. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Tam, H. (Ed.). (2001). Progressive Politics in the Global Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Tam, H. (2011). Rejuvenating Democracy: Lessons from a Communitarian Experiment. Forum, 53(3), 407–420. Tam, H. (2015). Towards an Open Cooperativist Development Agency. P2P Foundation. https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/towards-an-open-cooperativistdevelopment-agency-henry-tam/2015/03/04. Tam, H. (2018). Time to Save Democracy: How to Govern Ourselves in the Age of Anti-politics. Bristol: Policy Press. Wall, D. (2017). Elinor Ostrom’s Rules for Radicals: Cooperative Alternatives Beyond Markets and States. London: Pluto Press. Watson, B. C. S. (1999). Liberal Communitarianism as Political Theory. Perspectives on Political Science, 28(4), 211–217. Wilson, D. S. (2016). Tragedy of the Commons: How Elinor Ostrom Solved One of Life’s Greatest Dilemmas. Evonomics. http://evonomics.com/tragedyof-the-commons-elinor-ostrom/. Young, I. M. (1986, Spring). The Ideal of Community and the Politics of Difference. Social Theory and Practice, 12(1), 1–26.

7 Tackling Community Disempowerment Post-2001

Communitarian ideas have continuously evolved to explicate why and how we should develop an ever more inclusive and cooperative form of community life. Such development is required to help us steer clear of both authoritarian controls and anarchic chaos. Instead of viewing the pursuit of order and freedom as a zero-sum game that inevitably takes from one to give to the other, the relationship between collective safety and individual liberty should be recognised as a symbiotic one. The two have to be nurtured and connected together for both to flourish. Unless communities are sufficiently organised to establish rules and practices that serve the wellbeing of all their members, the irresponsible behaviour of a few could ruin the lives of countless others. Accordingly, laws, policies, adjudication, and enforcement are necessary to ensure that people would not be subject to exploitation, intimidation, or oppression by others. And these need to be formulated and managed with the informed input from members of the communities concerned—individuals, groups, religious and secular organisations, businesses, and government representatives—so that they can confidently take ownership of the outcomes. However, as we saw in the last chapter, towards the end of the twentieth century, two forces inimical to communitarian development began © The Author(s) 2019 H. Tam, The Evolution of Communitarian Ideas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26558-8_7

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to grow in strength and influence. One was that of the plutocratic creed which sought to privilege wealth as an unrivalled power to manipulate people and resources to benefit the few. The other was the nostalgic yearning for authoritarian rejection of science, compassion, and democracy as hindrance to recovering various ‘superior’ values that had been lost. Alarmingly, these were increasingly combined to form a counter-communitarian stratagem to maximise social divisiveness. Against mutual responsibility, it would promote the perception of a variety of people as unworthy of respect or support—immigrants, benefit claimants, people with the wrong or no religion, anyone not conforming to ‘traditional’ values, liberal dogooders, etc. Against cooperative enquiry, it would endorse irrational and dogmatic claims, and dismiss objective evidence-based assessment as arbitrary. Against citizen participation, it would celebrate the words and deeds of authoritarian leaders, and insist on curtailing the informed involvement of people in decisions that affect their lives. As the influence of market fundamentalism and religious extremism spread across the world (Barber 1995), the risk of a seismic gestalt shift in politics intensified. When the 9/11 terrorist attack came in 2001, while attention understandably focussed on the immediate response to be taken to the shocking atrocity, there was a deeper question to be addressed about the underlying threats and how they should be tackled without exacerbating the problems confronting society. From a communitarian perspective, the crisis called for an extensive engagement with members of diverse communities to develop a shared understanding of the real causes of insecurity. Such engagement was needed to bring people together to identify the social, economic and political practices that were chiefly responsible for growing alienation, polarisation, despair, anger, and extremist behaviour; and enable them to consider the pros and cons of different options for remedial action. However, it was those who favoured the counter-communitarian approach who established themselves as the dominant voice in shaping what was to come. In the next section we will look at what this meant in altering the political culture across the world. We would go on to examine how, in reaction against this development, more communitarian ideas and practices have been advanced to empower communities to formulate their considered and collective views on what they should do. This chapter will

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conclude with a case study of the communitarian initiatives of the UK government from 2000 to 2010 to renew inclusive and cooperative community relations, the impact of their abandonment in the 2010s,1 and the global lessons to be drawn from those experiences.

Disempowerment and the Counter-Communitarian Stratagem Conventional political party labels are no longer clear markers for policy intentions, as fewer and fewer people identify with established parties in relation to their own visions and concerns.2 Since 2001, the trend has been for political advocacy to polarise between those who plan to increase their own wealth and power by adopting some form of counter-communitarian stratagem to lead more people to become susceptible to their manipulative agenda, and those who call for resistance to that agenda. By the 2010s, it transpired that while the former had built effective alliances that unite plutocratic ambitions with ‘populist’ pretensions in disempowering communities, the latter was divided into many groups and factions without a common front. At its core, this form of disempowerment politics is driven by the twin egoistic-absolutist outlook that, as we saw in Chapter 2, could be found in almost all the authoritarian regimes that dominated the world from ancient times on, and remained prevalent until it came to be progressively challenged by the emergence of communitarian ideas during the Renaissance and subsequent eras. What is distinctive about its development in

1The Labour Government lost power in 2010 and was succeeded by a Conservative-led coalition government. 2 In all European countries (excepting Austria, Cyprus, and Finland), the average percentage of the electorate who belong to a political party is around 5%, with both France and UK under 2% (Van Biezen et al. 2011; Keen and Audickas 2016). In the US, more Americans consider themselves ‘independent’ (42%) than either Democrats (29%) or Republicans (26%) (Jones 2016). The decline in identification with these parties corresponds to a drop in support for them. In both the UK and the US, it is common for around a third of registered voters not to vote at all. In the UK, even the ‘exceptionally high’ turnout for the 2017 election only reached 68.7%. In the US, turnout for presidential elections is generally below 65%.

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the twenty-first century is that it has happened in countries where inclusive democratic culture was thought to have taken root. Arrangements that had during the previous century come to be established to enhance community wellbeing by supporting evidence-based research and investigation; safeguarding human rights; promoting crosscultural and international cooperation; and increasing informed participation in public policy making; were subject to relentless onslaught that was often inconsistent, at times without any factual backing, but for a large number of people, psychologically potent. Terms such as ‘freedom’, ‘security’, ‘patriotism’, ‘traditional values’, ‘God’, would be deployed, not to convey any coherent ideology, but tactically to divert people from rejecting the exploitation and oppression that are upon them, and lead them instead towards targeting scapegoats and embracing policies that are actually detrimental to themselves. The plutocratic elite behind the counter-communitarian manoeuvres seek to accumulate wealth and power irrespective of the consequences for the many communities affected by their actions. They fund politicians who would in turn use the power of government to get rid of or bring in legislation and practices in order to help them make more money, even though that could leave workers worse off, pollute the environment, create harmful addictions, or damage entire neighbourhoods and towns. They push for socio-economic arrangements that will inexorably widen the gap between the powerful few and everyone else (Freeland 2012; Formisano 2015). They exploit financial deregulation that would lead to severe banking crises, knowing they would get bailout from public budgets while most people would suffer from the austerity policies subsequently imposed (Mason 2010). They promote the sale of arms, launch wars, profit from the reconstruction contracts to be paid for by the countries that were bombed, and stir up public animosity against the refugees trying to escape war-torn areas (Klein 2008). The generation of chaos and insecurity is not so much a by-product but an integral part of their plans. Furthermore, they would collaborate with religious fundamentalists, militant nationalists, and intolerant extremists in so far as it would win them popular support.3 3 Contrary

to claims that there are civilisational differences that underpin the ideological clashes between the West and countries with contrasting cultural traditions, the counter-communitarian

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The counter-communitarian approach to disempowerment may on the surface appear paradoxical with its mix of libertarian rhetoric and authoritarian stance. However, on closer inspection, its consistent opposition to reciprocal relations becomes transparent. To begin with, it invokes ‘security’ not as a goal for communities to attain, but only as a symbolic signal for actions that are actually designed to leave people more vulnerable than ever. For example, after the 9/11 attacks, the ‘USA PATRIOT’ (an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act was brought in to give statutory backing to, inter alia, the indefinite detentions of immigrants; law enforcement agents carrying out searches of a home or business without the owner’s or the occupant’s consent or knowledge; the clandestine scrutiny of telephone calls, emails, and financial records without a court order; and the arrest and holding of anyone suspected of connection with terrorist activities without being charged with any specific offence. Some of these measures may be necessary under particular circumstances, but they need to be closely scrutinised to prevent them from being permanently deployed or arbitrarily abused. Yet anyone questioning the USA PATRIOT Act would be presented, not too subtly, as anti-USA and unpatriotic. The disingenuous invocation of ‘security’ is completely at odds with any serious concern with the protection of communities’ wellbeing. No community would want any threat to be tackled in a way that would land it with even greater risks and damages. The argument of whether the ends justify the means does not even arise when the proposed means will actually get in the way of pursuing the ends. Without statutory restrictions or independent oversight, the ever-widening powers to fight crime and terrorism are liable to be erroneously applied, or even deliberately abused, especially when communities are left in the dark about how those powers are used and what their effects are. Could the data taken from them be used against them in situations that were unconnected with any crime? How would they like it if their friends or family members were to be detained politics of the US and UK are echoed by the ruling regimes of Saudi Arabia, Russia and China, where religious fundamentalism or nationalist chauvinism would be readily co-opted to divert attention away from the elite accumulating their respective country’s wealth, and channel people’s frustrations towards reviled ‘enemies’ instead.

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indefinitely with no charge or relevant evidence presented to them? What if the military action abroad and hostile propaganda at home, far from deterring threats that were at best marginal, were in fact provoking and radicalising greater numbers into supporting terrorist activities against one’s country? In the name of ‘security’, the global movement of people has been increasingly presented as an inherent threat against which we must guard. Immigrants are portrayed as people who take jobs away from the local population, and refugees are depicted as drainers of resources or terrorists in disguise. On the one hand then, the physical and economic security of the people are supposedly to be protected by keeping immigrants and refugees away—even if the vast majority of those settling in their new home country contribute to its wellbeing as workers, volunteers and taxpayers. On the other hand, arms sales and military intervention across borders are promoted even though they escalate tension and conflicts in other parts of the world, increasing the number of people seeking asylum in the arms exporting countries. And such an approach to security only makes sense for those pushing it because it generates profits for them, renders the general population fearful, and diverts distrust and resentment towards scapegoats who are least able to rebut relentlessly false accusations.4 The formulation of exaggerated and fake threats is an essential element of counter-communitarian advocacy. Without sustained deception and misdirection, communities will over time come to discern what truly endangers them, and what collective response they should undertake. The breaking down of prejudices, particularly from the 1960s/1970s on, shows how attitudinal barriers to cooperation can be overcome. Equally, the resurgence of such prejudices in the opening decades of the twenty-first century also points to how easily the trend can be reversed through sustained manipulation. From the fomenting of Islamophobia since 9/11 in 2001 through to rising hate crime following the campaign for Brexit in the UK and the emboldening of far right rallying after Trump became US 4 ‘Globalisation’ is also attacked by a transnational network of counter-communitarian groups in the

US and Europe because they want to undermine international cooperation (in the form of the EU and the UN) and revive nationalistic conflicts, which are more likely to help engender the kind of conditions conducive to their own authoritarian dominance (Cf. the vitriolic defiance against the League of Nations in the run-up to Second World War).

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President in 2016, large numbers of people in two of the hitherto most tolerant societies had been encouraged to embrace and express racist, sexist, homophobic, and other forms of bigoted views.5 Their frustration with job insecurity and impoverished quality of life is steered away from those who are responsible for underpaying their workers, moving jobs abroad, creating economic instability through irresponsible financial speculation, and is directed instead towards foreign countries, migrant workers, and anybody who would not conform to the promoted image of a true ‘Brit’ or ‘American’ (or the equivalent in other countries). Those who dare to speak up for tolerance and understanding are abused as ‘politically correct’, ‘snowflakes’ or ‘SJWs’ (social justice warriors). By breaking down social cohesion in this way, the real threats posed by irresponsible plutocrats are conveniently hidden by the fabricated dangers associated with ‘aliens’ and ‘unbelievers’. Politically, this has translated into a surge of support for leaders who despised consensus and favoured authoritarian intervention (Foa and Mounk 2017). Political leaders such as Theresa May in the UK, and George W. Bush and Donald Trump in the US had consistently through the 2010s lent support to rhetoric and policies that would undermine mutual respect of human rights and stigmatise ‘outsiders’. Bush authorised a radical change of policy to permit the torturing of terrorism-related suspects, even though there might not be any substantial evidence to designate someone a suspect, or any means to seek judicial oversight of any arrest and interrogation being carried out.6 May as Prime Minister made cutting down immigration a central issue for her in securing the UK’s departure from the European Union. Previously as the country’s Home Secretary, she advocated withdrawing the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights and abolishing the Human Rights Act. The remit, budget, and staffing level of the Equality and Human Rights Commission were severely cut.7 She also ordered the development of the ‘Hostile Environment’ strategy 5The trends had also spread in the 2010s to countries noted for their culture of tolerance such as the Netherlands and Sweden. 6 Bush’s administration also declared that waterboarding was not a form of torture. 7The Equality and Human Rights Commission was required to reduce its staff by 60% from 455 to 180 (Ramesh 2012), and cut its overall funding by 73%, from £62 million to £17 million (Pring 2016).

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to make the UK as unwelcoming as possible to potential migrants and refugees (exception was made for wealthy foreigners to live and buy up assets in the country). That strategy included sending vans around carrying a large poster with the message ‘In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest’ (Hattenstone 2018); and callously deporting people who had in fact been legal residents of the UK for many decades. Trump would go even further and pretend there is no moral difference between racist extremists and anti-fascist campaigners. He attacked the Geneva Convention as holding back US military activities, and would deploy troops to the southern US border in the name of a fabricated ‘invasion’ of people who were in fact civilians escaping chaos and violence in their home countries. The atmosphere and culture of intimidation were not just a matter of verbal assault. From the making of death threats against British MPs criticising extremist views on Brexit, the sending of nail bombs to critics of Trump by one of his fanatical supporters, to the actual murder of British MP, Jo Cox, by a far-right terrorist for her advocacy for tolerance, the safety of people seeking to expose the systemic deception associated with the politics of disempowerment is in jeopardy. Some may argue that assessment of threats will always be debatable, and mistaken projections may not necessarily be intentional lies. But it is not only telling that while so much effort goes into misrepresenting harmless people as threats, real threats from xenophobic extremists, corporate polluters, dismantlers of public health provisions, and many others, are rarely given the same level of attention by those whose priority is anything but the security of the people. A common counter-communitarian move is to separate threats which the nation as a whole ought to deal with, from threats which individuals themselves should take sole responsibility for. Any failure to deal with the latter would then be blamed on individuals. But the work of individuals may not be enough. What can one person do to repel the attack of a violent group armed with automatic weapons? If one is supposed to buy protection from other sources, there is a limit to how much money one can make, especially when the system may be structured to disadvantage most workers. For example, from 1995 to 2000, when productivity in the US grew by 13% overall, median family income rose by 11%, and significantly, among the bottom 20% of earners, income went up by 23.4%.

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Yet from 2001 to 2007, after George W. Bush took over the presidency from Bill Clinton, and brought in tax changes that were directed at benefiting the rich most of all, even though productivity kept improving by 2.5% per year, the income of the average working family fell during that time by 3.7%. The rich simply paid themselves more, their workers less, and pocketed generous tax cuts.8 If the national income of the US was distributed in 2004 (at the end of Bush’s first term), as it had been in 1981 (just before the New Right dominance arrived with Ronald Reagan becoming president), the top 1% would have had $640 billion less, while the bottom 80% would have had $637 billion more (Sperling 2009). If people were to be more aware of the real threats they should direct their personal and collective energy to tackling, the strategies to disempower communities would be much less likely to succeed. And that is precisely why processes for cooperative enquiry, essential for the objective assessment of threats and responses, have been systemically undermined. From the ‘discovery’ of non-existent weapons of mass destruction as the justification for going to war, to ‘confirmation’ that warnings about climate change are wholly unwarranted, the embrace of fabrication and fuelling of irrationality are integral to preventing communities from reaching an informed consensus about what should be done. The reliability of rational, scientific assessments depends on how closely they enable expertise to be built up over continuous experimentation and mutual scrutiny, and facilitate on-going revisions that are responsive to new evidence. It is important for people to understand why such assessments are more dependable and learn to trust them rather than claims that distort the relative level of threats and appropriateness of remedial actions. It is no coincidence that the rise of counter-communitarian politics has happened alongside the growth of coordinated onslaught on expert reasoning and objective investigation. From the unsubstantiated criticisms of the MMR vaccine (and corresponding neglect to warn of the real public health perils from the spread of measles, mumps, and rubella without comprehensive vaccination); the denial of the blatant dangers from fracking operations; to the attack on expert analyses of the severe damages that 8 One

reason why tax cuts for the poor can lead to no improvement for them is that their employers believe they can then cut their wages to leave them with the same take-home pay as before (Hartmann 2017).

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would be caused by the UK leaving the European Union; it would appear that the more the public could be left not knowing what to think anymore, the more anti-rationality initiatives would be backed by those who seek to disempower communities from working to get solutions to aid the common good and halt exploitation by a few. None epitomises this better than Donald Trump. As Emily Holden pointed out in her article, ‘Trump’s war on science: how the US is putting politics above evidence’, quite apart from his own campaign to deny climate change for the benefit of his political backers in the fossil fuel business, his appointees were ordering announcements that went against scientific findings to serve selective corporate interests: ‘The agriculture department … rolled back standards for schools to serve more whole grains, less salt and non-fat flavored milk. Department officials claimed schools struggled with the programs because students wouldn’t eat healthier foods. But research found the food changes didn’t deter students from getting lunch and didn’t cause more plate waste. And the healthier food requirements were projected to be effective: one study estimated they could prevent 1.8 million cases of childhood obesity over a decade’9 (Holden 2019). The cumulative effect of counter-communitarian disempowerment can leave people feeling uncertain as to what to believe, and sceptical about the prospect of ever agreeing to cooperating to advance any particular solution. Communitarian thinkers and practitioners, however, have put forward ideas and approaches that can rebuild confidence and show how communities can act together rationally and inclusively.

Empowering Communities (1): Deliberative Participation The widespread disempowerment of communities in early twenty-first century is not down to the rational cogency of some unique political theory. It is primarily sustained by the alienation, often deliberately fuelled, of people from opportunities to understand or contribute to decisions 9Trump’s Republican predecessor in the White House, G. W. Bush, was also cited for his administration’s role in weakening or suppressing public health findings (Holden 2019).

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that affect their lives. Accordingly, the antidote can only come from the extensive reconnection of members of diverse communities with decisionmaking at every level. This can be achieved, as communitarian participatory practices have shown, by properly facilitated processes that enable people to reflect on specific issues and develop joint responses regarding how to proceed. Scholars and practitioners have gathered evidence, examined the efficacy of a range of approaches, and collaborated in producing advice on how to engender deliberative participation.10 Contrary to assumptions that people would not through joint discussions come up with informed and reasoned conclusions, the cumulative findings unequivocally demonstrated that deliberative participation was not only possible, but it consistently led to higher levels of trust, better achievement of agreed objectives, and greater satisfaction with the ensuing outcomes. The key was to acquire a genuine understanding of what process to use in different circumstances, and apply it accurately with expert facilitation and support. Let us look at some of these approaches. Audit to Action involved bringing communities and statutory agencies together to assess serious or persistent problems and work out what should be done about them. It is commonly supposed that people would distrust enforcement officials, disagree amongst themselves, or be too prone to complain, that getting them to participate in shaping collective actions would not work very well. However, in practice, provided the representatives of the public bodies in question are responsive, approachable, and engage in an inclusive manner, substantial improvements can be obtained. For example, in Bexley in London, police officers and elected councillors offered routine meetings with members of a neighbourhood community about their concern with crime in the area. Those meetings would take place informally in the local streets rather than in an official building, and residents would both give their views and hear from those with a statutory role what parameters under which they were operating. Over months, actions would be taken, and adjustments made after local residents were given feedback. The result was 10 One

such group met in 2012 at a conference held at the University of Cambridge to discuss and agree a set of evidence-based principles on how to facilitate cooperative problem-solving (Tam 2012). Further work was carried out by leading experts who drew on case examples from around the world and produced critical guidance on how to advance deliberative engagement (Tam 2019).

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significantly increased trust in the police and the local authority, reduced crime, and most notably the percentage of residents in the neighbourhood feeling safe to go out after dark went up from just 22 to 93% (Tam 2018a). Audit to Action was also deployed in Birmingham, UK, in five targeted wards over a fifteen-month period. It enabled people to discuss on an on-going basis with enforcement agencies what should be done and how they could help. It reduced crime across those areas by an average of 14%, twice that of other comparator areas, while youth crime was reduced by 29% compared with a 12% drop elsewhere.11 In cases where people have different views as to what the solution should be, one can turn to Planning for Real, an approach developed by the Neighbourhood Initiatives Foundation to bring people together to make a 3-D model of their locality, which would then act as a focal point for people to express and consider their respective priorities before moving towards a shared understanding of what give-and-take could lead to an acceptable outcome overall (Gibson 1998). It is frequently used in cases of disputed urban planning proposals. Instead of people pressing for their own preferences regardless of the implications for others, over days, or even weeks, they are invited to drop in to a public place (e.g., a school) to look at the 3-D model and select cards expressing their initial views to place on sites on the model. Experiencing what others are putting forward and discovering what adjustments are possible from all sides, everyone has a chance to change their mind by selecting different cards. There is no perfect solution, just outcomes that informed participants learn to shape and live with. Another method for engaging people in public decisions is Participatory Budgeting, which originated in Brazil. It works by inviting people in a defined area (based on the jurisdiction or financial scope of the public body in question) to put forward, explain, consider and vote on proposals for spending specified public money. A facilitator will ensure discussions are conducted in a civil and inclusive manner, and participants have real 11 For details, see the evidence submitted by Crime Concern to UK House of Commons Select Committee on Home Affairs, 15 March 2005: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/ cmselect/cmhaff/80/80we33.htm.

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opportunities to question proposals and review their own preferences. People learn about the reasons behind different proposals, the impact on others’ lives if different ones are chosen, and through their involvement, come to gain a greater sense of ownership and satisfaction with the spending priorities they have helped to shape. It has worked effectively in Latin America and many other parts of the world (Röcke 2014). Significantly, this approach can engender a greater sense of solidarity amongst those involved. Feedback has shown that, far from people with contrasting characteristics refusing to listen to each other, young people, for example, had suggested switching provisional allocations to projects for elderly people; while people from different ethnic backgrounds offered support for one another’s proposals after hearing why they were needed. Beyond participation in everyday policy issues, deliberative engagement can also bridge the trust/understanding gap between policy experts and ordinary citizens in dealing with complex and potentially controversial issues (Burall 2019). It was applied, for example, in relation to mitochondrial transfer, a process needed to treat a disorder caused by mutations to mitochondrial DNA. The treatment requires taking the nucleus from an egg containing defective mitochondria and transferring it to an egg with healthy mitochondria from a second woman. The resulting embryo contains DNA from the mother, father and the person who donated the healthy mitochondria. Before deciding if the law should be changed to allow this process, the UK government and the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA), commissioned a public deliberative dialogue. Participants were recruited to represent a range of demographic criteria; and they would discuss issues with scientific experts and bio-ethicists (Sciencewise 2014). The outcome of the dialogue helped to develop the government’s policy and led to new regulations that permitted changes to mitochondrial DNA under strict safeguards and oversight. The effectiveness of deliberative participation is not limited to local and national issues either. In order to enable global views to feed in an informed manner into policies to tackle climate change, an international coalition of civil society organisations12 developed and applied the World Wide 12 Members included the secretariat of UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change),

the Danish Board of Technology, Missions Publiques, and the French National Commission for Public Debate.

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Views (WWViews) process (World Wide Views 2018), which involved facilitated deliberations with around 10,000 people in 76 countries across five continents (Bedsted et al. 2015). At the end of the process, participants voted on 34 common questions, and those responses helped the UN and national governments understand which options the public supported and which they did not, and formulate policies that reflected the informed consensus of people around the world. Successive evaluations found that people’s trust and satisfaction in public policy decisions correlated with how extensively they had been engaged in giving their informed input into those decisions. Furthermore, their participation helped to improve prioritisation and reduce wastage. The National Audit Office (2004) stated that ‘community participation is vital in ensuring value for money in public services. Services designed and delivered without community input risk wasting public money because they will be unused or underused if they are not what people need. Local people must have the opportunities to identify their needs and contribute to finding solutions, rather than feel powerless in the face of public authorities that deliver services on their behalf.’ Research commissioned to assess the impact of Neighbourhood Management, which had at its heart ongoing arrangements to enable local residents to discuss and request service alterations, found that satisfaction with improvement achieved was consistently higher compared with areas without Neighbourhood Management; fear of crime was lower; satisfaction with public services rose13 (Department for Communities and Local Government 2006). The Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection (2009) reviewed a wide range of evidence and concluded that there is ‘a remarkable consensus among patients, the public and [NHS] trusts on the benefits of effective engagement - people and communities feel valued and health services provide better care.’14 Despite these findings, however, there are still many reservations raised about the development of deliberative participation as an antidote to the

13 Satisfaction with street cleaning increased by 8%, while it fell by 2% in comparable neighbourhoods; and satisfaction with policing increased by 6%, while there was no change in comparable neighbourhoods. 14 For more on participatory techniques and their impact, see Fung and Wright (2003), Smith (2009), and Tam (2019).

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alienation of communities from the decisions that affect them. The reservations put forward tend to fall into one of three categories. First, there is the claim that it is not realistic to think that people would have the interest, opportunity, or power to become sufficiently involved in public policies to shape them (Achen and Bartels 2016; Shapiro 2017). As a general statement this is simply false. People want to be involved, provided the process would give them genuine influence. But in practice, opportunities are dependent on specific public institutions’ readiness and know-how in putting in place arrangements to facilitate citizens’ participation. Some are indeed unwilling or lacking the expertise to reach out to the public, but this can change. At the same time, many do come around to this approach, which shows that there is nothing inherently unrealistic about it. What is contestable is how often will the tussle between those who do not want to engage with the wider community and those who regard such engagement as integral to good governance be won by one side or the other. So-called ‘realist’ assumptions about those with power never being prepared to share it are in fact naïvely pessimistic. The fact is that the scale and success of deliberative participation are dependent on the interest and capability of politicians, public officials and community activists, and enough of them have demonstrated that engagement can enrich shared civic understanding and collective decision-making, and counter the politics of disempowerment (Pearce 2019). Secondly, there is the concern that many institutions wanting to move forward with some form of deliberative participation do not understand how to proceed. As we have seen, there are many different techniques, and their efficacy depends on what contexts they are used in, and what skill-sets are required for a given method (Nabatchi and Leighninger 2015; Smith 2019). From the common error of simply inviting people into a hall and asking them to give their views without any clear parameters or proper facilitation, to not reaching out to a sufficiently diverse group of participants or putting in charge of the process someone who is not truly ready to listen to what others have to say, failures to organise effective engagement can end up exacerbating the problem of disillusionment. The solution, however, is not to abandon engagement, but to learn more about how to make it work and ensure the relevant expertise and arrangements are put in place (Gutmann and Thompson 2004; Fishkin 2009).

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This takes us to third type of reservation, which is directed at the lack of know-how. It is not just about public bodies not having the expertise to facilitate participation. The behaviour of many voters in referendums or elections when they accept lies, even blatant ones, as true, and back policies that actually diminish their already unfavourable life-chances for the benefit of the wealthy elite, is often cited as a reason why giving the public a say can cause serious problems. The key, however, is the extent to which the element of deliberation is cultivated and sustained. This requires education across society to promote critical understanding through cooperative enquiry so that citizens can become better equipped with the capability to grasp the basis for assessing claims, reason with others in an objective manner, see through fallacies and misdirection, and weigh up evidence and arguments. For example, teachings on the approach of ‘community of inquiry’ (Lipman 2003) or those on ‘cooperative problemsolving’ (Tam 2013, 2018a), ought to be made more widely available so that the standards in deliberation can be improved. There is no inherent barrier to this happening, and many educators at all levels from schools to adult learning have shown that cooperative problem-solving can be integrated into their work (Martin 2013; Walker 2013). In addition, research has found that students in more democratically participatory schools were happier and felt more in control of their learning; where students were enabled to give feedback on teaching, it had the twin effect of teachers’ practice improving and students gaining in awareness of the learning process; participation enhanced skills of communication and competence as a learner; and disruptive behaviour in class was reduced (Lynn Davis et al. 2006).15

Empowering Communities (2): Empathic Connection Although there is substantial evidence that deliberative participation can help members of different types of community, from the local to global 15The

issue of how to improve learning for deliberative participation needs to be addressed with reference to what approaches have worked well, and what have not (Sloam 2019).

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level, engage with each other cooperatively to devise solutions for the challenges they face, and avoid being misled by disempowering deception, there is a perennial question mark over the prospect of this happening when the people involved are deeply divided by their attitudes, beliefs, customs, or some conflicting loyalties. Doubt is thus cast on the communitarian ideal of people coming together to find common cause and work things out together, because there are just too many sources of divisiveness. While it is true that social and cultural divisions can get in the way of communities acting in thoughtful unison, in practice the extent to which they can be overcome depends on what actions are being taken. It would be a self-fulfilling prophecy to accept them as permanent barriers on the grounds that nothing could be done to remove them. A wide range of responses have in fact been developed in diverse contexts, and many have played a key role in resolving differences and building relationships so that cooperative deliberations become not just possible, but welcome. Central to them is the cultivation of empathic connection, which requires enabling people to see beyond distorted preconceptions and recognise others as fellow beings with whom ideas and concerns can be respectfully and reciprocally exchanged. At the most basic level, familiarisation is a reliable bridge-builder. For the vast majority of people, suspicion of strangers steadily give way to broader understanding and mutual respect when encounters with ‘others’ is regularised into experience of ‘people we know’. In the field of community safety, one of the problems known in many large urban areas is that of alienation between young and elderly residents. Elderly people complain that they feel unsafe because groups of young people are hanging around the streets whenever they go out. Young people are in turn disgruntled because they dislike being looked upon as an unwelcome nuisance, or threat even. One of the most successful, and yet simplest, initiatives to deal with this problem was organising events that would provide free cake and a hot beverage that specifically bring in elderly and young residents from the neighbourhood. Following these events, having got to know each other’s name and a little of one another’s background, the elderly felt positively assured when they saw the young people whenever they went out because the youths were now viewed as people who could come to their aid if the need should arise. The young people in turn were pleased

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that the older residents would greet them with a smile instead of showing distrust.16 Arranging for people who might otherwise know little about each other to come together is increasingly recognised as an effective way to develop trust and understanding. For example, Upbeat Communities in the UK organised community meals to bring residents from varied cultural backgrounds together to sample diverse home-prepared cuisines. Similarly, initiatives such as the Refugees Food Festival in Paris, and Eat Offbeat which delivered ethnic meals prepared by refugees settled in New York City, have helped to nudge people through culinary experiences to lower any default blinkers about people from ‘elsewhere’. More generally, any experiences that can be shared—sporting events, concerts, art projects, and community activities—can be arranged to encourage people of contrasting age, religion, ethnicity, etc. to interact in an atmosphere conducive to participants attaining greater mutual appreciation (Mayo et al. 2013). The London Council of Barking and Dagenham, responding to the community divisions that had fuelled the spread of far-right politics in the borough, worked with the Participatory City Foundation in developing a holistic programme (involving thousands of local people in sharing, food growing, skills learning, community meals and entertainment, mutual care, etc.) that played a key part in the borough’s transformation and the fading of far-right influence (Monbiot 2019). There is a clear correlation between levels of prejudice and the lack of cross-group familiarisation. Over 500 studies have confirmed that prejudice is more prevalent in proportion to diminished degrees of contact across groups (Pettigrew and Tropp 2006). For example, in the UK’s 2016 referendum about the country’s membership of the European Union, according to YouGov figures, amongst young people (aged 18–24)—most of whom would have mixed with other European youths as a routine part of their lives—71% backed Remain and just 29% backed Leave; but amongst those aged 65 and over—the majority of whom seldom travelled abroad or conversed with the comparatively rare visitors from other European countries—36% backed Remain and 64% backed Leave (Moore 2016). 16 Examples of this type of intergenerational familiarisation were drawn to my attention during my time as the UK government’s Home Office Director (East of England) and were subsequently included in the good practices promoted for resident groups and local authorities to adopt.

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A study into the psychology of prejudice and intergroup contact found that of the 270 districts that had a lower proportion than average of people born outside the UK in 2011, 229 of them (85%) voted Leave; while of the 78 districts with a higher than average population born outside the UK, only 44% voted Leave (Meleady et al. 2017)—suggesting that the fewer chances people have of coming across immigrants, the more likely they are to buy into rhetoric and policy that emphasise the need to cut immigration.17 Of course, simply creating more opportunities for cross-group interaction may not be enough.The garden city movement pioneered by Ebenezer Howard was designed to develop communitarian cities where residents can not only meet in open and relaxed surroundings that are conducive to the formation of cordial relationships, but also remain in control of their home towns’ future as external private finance would be excluded from buying up land and properties for purposes contrary to the founding principles (Howard 2010). However, proponents of disempowerment politics have already tried to use the ‘garden city’ brand to promote development which would in fact encourage private investment to profit from turning inclusive neighbourhoods into ones polarised between the rich and poor (Conaty 2019). For familiarisation initiatives to work, they must be protected from deliberate subversion or unintended destabilisation. An example of the latter can be found with the attempts in the 1960s in the US to integrate youths from contrasting ethnic backgrounds in schools. Initially, the results appeared to worsen relations between white and black students. On closer inspection, it was discovered that conventional competitive processes in tests and games aggravated antagonism and resentment between current and new members of the schools involved. Educators then developed new collaborative approaches such as joint projects with mixed teams, and each team could attain the required results only if their team members of diverse ethnicities all pulled together. From then on, inter-racial relationships improved (Cialdini 2007).

17 One

of the core themes of the Leave campaign was that there were too many immigrants from EU countries in the UK, and leaving the EU would end such freedom of movement of people not born in the UK.

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Advocates and practitioners of community development in the US and UK have consistently made the case for organising sustained outreach to ensure diverse members of communities become more familiar with each other, and better disposed to share their views and concerns in determining what should be done for their common wellbeing (Gilchrist 2009). And they are well aware that empathy, organisation, and resilience are vital ingredients in building up cooperative relationships; while vigilance is necessary against counter-communitarian manoeuvres to leave intractable problems to communities as government support is withdrawn (Emejulu 2016; Taylor 2019). Nonetheless, recognising that considerable expertise and experience are needed to advance community development should not detract from the substantial impact it can make in promoting social cohesion and facilitating collective action. In 2009, the UK government’s Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears, highlighted the value of bringing communities together to work in partnership with democratically accountable bodies (Blears 2009). The cases she cited covered many areas where earlier neglect or current socio-economic challenges had given rise to a wide range of problems which, without communities being empowered to shape suitable policy responses, would have remained unsolved. For example, Brighton and Hove City Council ensured that with extensive community outreach, its housing strategies were jointly developed with many hitherto marginalised groups such as the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, and older people whose views were also often neglected. As a result of the new policies and ongoing contact, sheltered housing requests from gay elderly men, for example, were handled twice as fast as previously by council staff who became more conscious of the hate crime and safety fears that such groups faced. More widely, services were reprioritised to reduce the impact of homelessness, through better awareness of its linkages to mental health problems, substance misuse and sexual vulnerability. In 2006 Great Yarmouth Council decided to rethink its activities in one of its most deprived localities with the help of a community development approach that enabled groups not previously engaged to play an active part. Experienced community workers met with diverse residents on a

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regular basis. Collective confidence rose as communication channels were improved, environmental problems were dealt with, and by 2008 antisocial behaviour was reduced by 70%. Community development has also been at the forefront of community planning, through which people who might have hitherto viewed each other as relative strangers are brought together over time to appreciate each other’s perspectives and form shared priorities. In Liverpool, the ‘INclude’ project organised regular roadshows and workshops, held elections for community representatives from all parts of the thirteen neighbourhoods involved, and worked with local people to come up with regeneration initiatives that reduced unemployment from 14.6 to 6.3%, raised education attainment, and halved the level of burglaries in the area. The approach worked successfully in rural as well as urban areas. ACRE (Action with Communities in Rural England) collaborated with 231 communities across the East of England to develop their own plans which set out what local people would be prepared to organise to carry out themselves and what public service providers would arrange to implement on their behalf. In many cases, community cooperation was further energised and sustained by the development of community monitoring. Residents of the local St. James’ Park in the Barton and Tredworth area in Gloucester city, were found to have the lowest satisfaction with the quality of their public open spaces (38% compared to 62% satisfaction across the city). Further to their involvement in redesigning the park and improving the maintenance schedules, local people were supported in forming the Friends of St. James’ Park, which went on to play a long-term role in checking on the facilities and ensuring that good standards were maintained.18 Apart from parks and other leisure facilities, community monitoring was also adopted by local authorities and housing associations in engaging local residents as street and housing monitors to provide a constant and direct community input into detecting problems and securing appropriate solutions. There will be situations where familiarisation is not enough to build relations. Conflicts, violations, or a long history of resentment and hostility, can render it extremely difficult for people to come together to

18 Satisfaction

levels quickly rose to the same as that across the city.

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work out a way forward. However, even in such cases, the communitarian approach of exploring the scope for empathic connection has been effectively applied through reconciliation practices. By combining the principles of mutual respect, cooperative enquiry, and citizen participation, a range of restorative processes have helped people overcome deep emotional barriers and reach a new understanding. These principles are embodied in arrangements that persuade participants seeking a way out of an impasse to abide by the precondition of civility, remain open-minded in listening and responding to what others have to say, and actively participate in formulating possible options for moving forward. For example, what came to be known as the Community Conference process was pioneered by the Thames Valley Constabulary to deal with neighbourhood disputes in danger of spilling over into violent conflicts. In response to reports received, a trained police facilitator would gather those involved—anyone who might have made provocative remarks, issued threats, felt intimidated, or had become aggrieved or angry—and guide them through discussions during which contrasting perspectives would be shared, emotional baggage unpacked, uncalled for utterances acknowledged, and most importantly, ideas for behavioural change considered and agreed (Thames Valley Partnership 2002). Instead of repeated police visits in response to complaints, the Thames Valley force found that overall, disputes were more quickly and permanently resolved, and it saved substantial police time and resources. In schools, the technique of Restorative Justice (RJ) has had a notable impact. A number of teachers would be trained as facilitators, and they would bring together pupils who have intimidated, caused emotional distress, or physically bullied others, along with those who fear or resent them.19 The facilitator would invite those present to express their feelings and motivations, so everyone could better understand how others actually felt and why some might have behaved in the way they did. Exchanges would be guided towards exploring what restorative resolutions could be

19 Some schools, where Restorative Justice has been successfully established, have trained volunteer pupils to become facilitators for others in lower age-group classes, and the practice has worked just as well.

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adopted. Unlike mere verbal castigation by teachers or a period of exclusion from school (which often simply left bullied children dreading the day the bullies would be returning to school), RJ would in most cases lead to perpetrators and victims formulating an agreement on what they would or would not do in the future. Research (over the period 2001–2004) found that in 93% of RJ sessions, an agreement was reached on what changed behaviour should henceforth be adhered to, and in 96% of the cases the agreement thus reached was kept (Wilcox and Hoyle 2004). Offences were seldom repeated, and the confidence of all in attaining more relaxed and respectful relations in the future was enhanced.20 Processes such as Community Conference and Restorative Justice have a wide range of applications (Johnstone 2011). Indeed, the underlying principles have been embedded in much work to promote peace building and reconciliation at the national and global level (Long and Brecke 2003; Bar-Siman-Tov 2004). From ending the conflicts between nationalist and unionist communities in Northern Ireland, to finding a path to peaceful co-existence after the Apartheid era in South Africa, rapprochement would have been unlikely without the commitment to bring all sides to appreciate what others had gone through, exchange views in an honest and civil manner, and search cooperatively for workable arrangements rather than make impossible demands as part of one’s bargaining strategy. That kind of commitment, in turn, requires those facilitating the dialogues to possess qualities such as mediation skills and respected neutrality. Empathic reconciliations following some of the most harrowing conflicts around the world would suggest that it is possible, and vital, to develop those qualities.

The Renewal of Community Cooperation Against the currents of counter-communitarian advocacy, many ideas and practices have continued to be put forward since 2001 that exemplified how marginalised and fragmented communities could overcome divisions and work towards common solutions. One residual doubt concerns the 20 Restorative

Justice has also been found to be highly valuable in conflict resolution in schools in New Zealand (Drewery 2013).

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likelihood of these ideas and practices being taken up sufficiently to serve as an antidote to the politics of disempowerment. Lessons can be drawn from the approach taken forward by the UK’s Labour Government to advance community empowerment over the 2001–2010 period, and what happened after it lost power in 2010. As we will see, it is possible to implement coordinated, large-scale programmes to build stronger reciprocal relations amongst members of diverse communities in the exploration and pursuit of common goals. But the sustainability of such efforts depends on political will, communitarian know-how, and socio-economic arrangements that cannot always be guaranteed. It is the confluence of these factors that is critical to the renewal of community cooperation. Labour’s tendency, under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, to use ‘community’ as a key political concept, led to polarised commentaries that either suggested that all their major policies were ‘communitarian’ or dismissed their administrations as not communitarian in any significant sense at all (Goes 2004; Hale 2006). In reality, as it is usually the case with democratic governments, not all politicians and senior officials in an administration share identical views and priorities.21 Certainly, not everything the Labour Government did could be described as communitarian in the sense explicated in this book. Its specific policies for community empowerment and civil renewal, however, were taken forward by a group with a shared communitarian outlook and long-standing commitment to promote deliberative participation and empathic connection. These included David Blunkett (in his role as Secretary of State for Education, and as Home Secretary), Hazel Blears (Home Office Minister, and later Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government), Bernard Crick (Advisor on Citizenship), Nick Pearce (Head of No.10 Policy Unit); and Henry Tam (Head of Civil Renewal).22

21 Often different policy areas would be driven by different assumptions, preferences, and technical abilities. Even in the same policy areas, there could be compromises which might involve laws and practices being adopted, not because they reinforced each other, but that they kept politicians with contrasting ideas content. 22Their reflections on community empowerment and civil renewal can be found in Blears (2003, 2004), Blunkett (2001, 2003a, b), Blears and Blunkett (2019), Crick (2001), Crick and Lockyer (2010), Pearce (2004, 2019), Pearce et al. (2014), and Tam (2007, 2011a, 2019). Many others,

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The practices developed to strengthen community togetherness, cooperative learning, and informed involvement in decision-making covered a wide range of areas. Citizenship education became a statutory requirement of the school’s curriculum in England. Every pupil from primary school on would learn more each year about what would be involved in being an effective citizen (Kerr et al. 2003). Newcomers who wanted to settle in the UK would be given the opportunity to learn about the rights and responsibilities of being a citizen of the country. For people who were already British citizens, the Active Learning for Active Citizenship (later to be known as ‘Take Part’) community education programme was set up. Through partnerships with universities and community organisations, support was given to promote and improve the provision of learning to participate in democratic practice amongst all citizens, but particularly women, ethnic minority communities, tenants of social housing, migrant workers, refugees and asylum seekers, faith communities, people with disabilities and their carers. There was an emphasis upon experiential learning, both individually and collectively, through critical reflection, dialogue and joint action, based upon shared principles of equality, respect for diversity and co-operation, civic solidarity and social justice (Woodward 2004). Evaluation found increased readiness and confidence to participate in democratic deliberations and public sector decision-making arrangements (Miller and Hatamian 2011). In order to spread lessons from those who had found ways to improve community engagement with policy matters affecting them, there was an emphasis on practical and peer learning. For example, in partnership with the voluntary organisation, Housing Justice, the Guide Neighbourhoods scheme was set up, enabling residents from different parts of the country to learn from more established neighbourhood groups which had a good track record in shaping and improving the public services in their respective localities. The ‘guide’ neighbourhoods would be financially supported in hosting learning visits from residents of other areas, and good

amongst government Ministers, special advisors, and civil servants, also played a role in engaging the public in devising and implementing new policies and practices.

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practices were more readily replicated when people learnt from other residents they could relate to, rather than from professional consultants on how to develop effective engagement (McCabe et al. 2007). Another partnership—the Civic Pioneers—was established with local authorities so that those that had over time managed to increase deliberative participation and empathic connection amongst their communities, would be incentivised to share their experiences with other local authorities. National recognition for those with success stories to share and the prospect of increased public satisfaction for those not yet at the forefront of community empowerment, led to a growing number of councils getting involved in the Civic Pioneers project. The approach substantially increased awareness in the value of citizen engagement, and greater commitment to learn and apply techniques that had worked elsewhere (Gaffney 2005; Department for Communities and Local Government 2008b). The government’s Civil Renewal Unit drew together on-going findings (e.g., from the Citizenship Survey), reports collated by the Active Citizenship Research Centre, and commissioned evaluation studies of different approaches and their impact in diverse areas. Thorough assessments with recommendations and easy-to-use good practice guidance would be made widely accessible as well as channelled to targeted organisations through the publicly funded but independent Community Development Foundation, which in turn supported the learning and dissemination activities of the National and Regional Empowerment Partnerships (Sender et al. 2011). With specific improvement options, extensive research would be followed by initiatives to promote their adoption. For example, the Participatory Budgeting Unit was set up in collaboration with Church Action on Poverty to help local authorities and their communities learn how to use participatory budgeting to enable citizens to deliberate together in setting priorities for the use of public funds (SQW Consulting et al. 2011). As for how representative democracy could be enhanced through participatory engagement with local citizens, the Councillors Commission was established to study and put forward recommendations on what could be done differently in the future, to raise awareness of how community participation could strengthen representative democracy (Councillors Commission 2007).

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In parallel with promoting learning in democratic cooperation and community engagement, the Civil Renewal Unit’s cross-government programme, Together We Can, was also responsible for advising and assisting all government departments in adopting empowerment policies and practices.23 While its advice was not always taken up, and there would be times when the implementation fell short of what had been planned, many new approaches were incorporated across the board. Neighbourhood Management and Neighbourhood Policing, embedding public involvement in local prioritisation, were steadily rolled out to many parts of the country, and research found that the people who engaged were broadly representative of the population of the area in question (SQW Consulting 2008). Support was also provided for social landlords’ engagement with tenants to improve individual homes and whole estates. Community Justice Centres were introduced with locally based judges who regularly met with local people to ascertain their concerns; restorative justice practices were more widely offered, where appropriate, to engage offenders with their victims to cut reoffending; communities were involved in prioritising local environmental projects for offenders to carry out; and Targeted Neighbourhood Prevention Programmes were developed to facilitate the engagement of local people, families, victims and young people in preventing youth crime. At the same time, more people from diverse backgrounds were encouraged to become magistrates, members of youth referral panels, probation board and police authority members. In relation to health, initiatives such as the Communities for Health programme enabled local people to set health promotion priorities; the development of Healthy Communities Collaborative brought community workers, health professionals and local residents together to reduce problems such as falls, diabetes, and malnutrition; the regular involvement of people with mental health problems and their families helped to raise service providers’ understanding of stigma and where improvements were most needed; and the devolution of greater power to local NHS trusts

23 For details of the actions taken forward across the different government departments, see Together We Can: The Government Action Plan (H M Government 2005), and a review by the Secretaries of State from those departments, see Together We Can: Annual Review 2005/2006 (HM Government 2006).

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generated more scope for managers and clinicians to be responsive to the different problems of diverse localities. All departments’ policy development processes were required to seek young people’s input proactively in relation to issues such as the design of integrated children services, employment training, sports-based social inclusion and library service. The Active Citizens in Schools scheme increased the number of pupils taking part in public campaigns and community projects. Older people and people with disabilities were invited to serve as advisors on government policy development groups (Hayden and Boaz 2000; Department for Work and Pensions 2009). Local authorities were given incentives to engage local people more widely and effectively in neighbourhood and parish plans, spatial planning framework, and Home Zones (for residential street design). Extended schools were developed to draw the wider community into activities utilising school facilities. Parental involvement became standard in the development of Sure Start projects (for children). Support was given to engaging local people in ‘myth busting’ campaigns to tackle racism and misinformation, and to the use of mentors from within communities to work with refugees and build mutual understanding. The White Paper, Communities in Control : Real People, Real Power (2008a), set in motion policies on further investment in community organisations to strengthen their capacity to carry out outreach and bridgebuilding work to bring people together on a deliberative and cooperative basis. It also led to the implementation of the Quirk Review of community management and ownership of public assets (Quirk 2008), which involved the setting up of the independently run Asset Transfer Unit to help communities take over under-utilised public buildings when they could add greater value in meeting local needs. However, in 2010, the Labour Government lost its majority, and a Conservative-led coalition took power, to be followed by an exclusive Conservative Government from 2015.24 If the decade leading up to 2010 had shown how communities could be empowered on a large scale to gain greater confidence, ability, and satisfaction in working out solutions in a 24The

Conservatives called an election in 2017 and lost their majority, but was able to continue as a minority government with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (of Northern Ireland).

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civil and informed manner, the decade since 2010 could serve as a case study in how disempowerment could rapidly reassert itself in the absence of strong progressive leadership and effective community involvement. After the change of government, it soon became apparent that the political agenda for empowerment would be comprehensively jettisoned. Citizenship education was swiftly marginalised in schools (Weinberg and Flinders 2019). For new arrivals, instead of learning about rights and responsibilities, a citizenship test was developed to focus on historical facts and trivial information which few native-born Britons would know or care about. Funding for adult education was reduced to narrowly defined vocational training. The vast majority of supportive programmes for community empowerment were terminated. The ‘Big Society’ rhetoric barely disguised the underlying strategic move to cut off public funding and leave communities to solve problems in isolation from statutory agencies (Tam 2011b). Instead of being encouraged and supported to engage with their communities, local authorities were hit with severe cuts25 and were told to pass responsibilities to individuals and the diminishing number of community groups to deal with growing poverty, homelessness, hunger, and social tension. Many of the national organisations that had been playing a vital role in supporting communities in improving their resilience and capacity were denied funding until they were forced to close in quick succession—the Community Development Foundation, the Community Sector Coalition, Community Matters, People Can,26 the Neighbourhood Initiatives Foundation, Urban Forum, amongst others. Democratic participation, far from being embedded in policy development, was routinely subverted. In the high-profile public consultation exercise carried out on whether fracking for shale gas should be allowed under people’s homes without their permission, the Conservative Government found that 99.99% of respondents opposed the proposal to allow it, and the government went ahead regardless. With the European Union referendum held to decide if the UK should withdraw, the government 25 It

has been estimated that continuous cuts to government funding would by 2020 leave local authorities in England and Wales with just 40% of what they received to carry out their statutory duties a decade earlier in 2010 (Local Government Association 2018). 26 People Can was formerly known as the Novas Scarman Group.

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declined to set a threshold for a percentage of eligible voters to back any Leave decision, even though earlier it had insisted on setting a threshold of 40% of eligible union members as the minimum required for a vote for strike action in key public services to be considered valid. In the event, the Leave option was backed by just 37% of eligible voters, and furthermore the Leave campaign was found to have broken the law governing campaigns—yet the government insisted the result was valid. It also pushed ahead with voter registration changes that would leave many of the most marginalised unregistered, and introduced photo IDs for voting that would again prevent mainly disadvantaged groups from participating when there was no tangible evidence of any voter frauds arising from the lack of such identification.27 For any political group seeking to overcome the disempowerment of communities, what was achieved under the UK’s Labour Government in the opening decade of the twenty-first century showed that communitarian ideas about the development of more reciprocal and cooperative social relations could in practice be realised—provided the critical ingredients of leadership, expertise, partnerships with community groups and local authorities, long-term investment, sustained learning and dissemination, were in place together. Undoubtedly, even more could have been achieved if some of the statutory guidelines were more sharply drawn up,28 more resources were endowed to secure the future of key organisations, and the spread of effective arrangements and practices had gone more widely and quickly across the whole country. But it was never likely that everything could be achieved, let alone secured for all time, by the work done in a single decade. Its continued development depended on those civil renewal and community empowerment activities being further improved and implemented in the decades to come. The moment that forward momentum is lost, communitarian aspirations would once more be in jeopardy. So it was proven with the change of 27 According to research by the Electoral Commission, out of almost 45 million votes cast in 2017, there were just 28 alleged cases of someone voting with a false identity—i.e. the problem might have arisen in 0.00006% of votes cast (Bulman 2018). See also Tam (2018b). 28 For example, the guidelines for citizenship education were too broad that it was relatively easy for a subsequent regime that did not share the same civic intent to steer schools away from taking the subject seriously (Weinberg and Flinders 2019).

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government and policy direction in the UK in 2010. And the same can be expected whenever political power should fall in any country to those who are attracted to, or indeed in close alliance with, a counter-communitarian agenda focused on disempowering others (or a large enough number of them) so they could pursue their own self-serving ambitions—of the plutocratic, nationalist, and/or religious fundamentalist kind. As for the prospects of inclusive community development reasserting itself in the future, we will consider the obstacles and possible responses in our final chapter.

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8 Tomorrow’s Communities

Looking to the future, we can anticipate more changes in social attitudes, technology, resource distribution, and political influences, that will alter community structures and reshape interpersonal relations. Some communities will move in a more inclusive direction, and thrive on promoting mutual understanding, embracing new members and ways of living, and grow in strength and confidence. But there will be others that are gripped by fear and prejudice, torn by constant conflicts, and weakened through disintegration. In this final chapter, we will consider four inter-connected issues that are critical to the form tomorrow’s communities may take, and explore how communitarian thinking may be drawn on to guide their development. The four issues concern the social conception of personhood; the management of economic relations in the face of radical changes; the governance of a world that needs to pay much greater attention to both local and global demands; and the role education may play in nurturing values that are pluralistic as well as unifying. Few of us can predict the exact trajectories of societal changes for the rest of the twenty-first century, but the debating points about those changes will almost certainly involve the ideas set out below. © The Author(s) 2019 H. Tam, The Evolution of Communitarian Ideas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26558-8_8

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Tomorrow’s Personhood Reciprocal and cooperative communities regard their members as fellow beings deserving of respect and consideration. There are common rules that guarantee protection for those who comply with them, and carry penalties for their violation. Those rules are applied fairly without prejudice. In philosophical terms, the ascription of personhood to one another underpins the moral mutuality in their interactions (Downie and Telfer 1971; Torchia 2008). But throughout history, personhood had been denied to a wide range of people. There were individuals and groups who were perceived as not worthy of being accepted as a full member of a tribe, society, or country because they were poor, female, believers in a different religion, disabled, born elsewhere, behaving in ways not in line with prevailing customs, or merely appearing to have a darker skin tone. Advocates for greater communitarian inclusivity have for centuries tried to make the case on the ground that just as none of us would want others to exclude us from belonging to anything without considering the evidence that we could be as dependable members as they, we should not rule others out simply on untested assumptions about their attitudes or capabilities. Despite the progress made, threats of reversal had been gathering momentum in early twenty-first century (Berlet and Lyons 2000; Berezin 2009; Mudde 2016). Instead of traditional prejudices being phased out, they have been refuelled by new propaganda tactics that target inclusion as the enemy of a sense of ‘superior’ identity that is essentially anti-reciprocal. The politics behind this development is driven by a subset of the wealthy and powerful who believe that, not only should they take no responsibility for the plight of others who suffer as a consequence of their actions, but that their hold on power would be strengthened if enough people could be misled into thinking ‘positively’ about themselves through regarding various designated types of human beings as somehow ‘inferior’ and should therefore be denied reciprocal respect and treatment.1 1This stance is true of a subset of the rich and powerful who want to increase their own wealth and dominance at the expense of others, but it does not necessarily apply to all people with money or authority. Many prefer to ‘mind their own business’ or ‘keep things as they are’. Also, there is often a notable minority who want to use their wealth and power to improve society by removing the

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Such an approach has considerable appeal for many whose self-esteem has been undermined by the rapid changes in society that have left them feeling socio-economically insecure and culturally disorientated. Without someone reaching out to them to help them recognise the real causes of their problems, they easily fall prey to twisted narratives about how they can feel better by looking down on ‘others’. They rally to the depersonalisation of groups and individuals as a key means of boosting their own fractured egos. Women who ask to be treated on fair and equal terms are dismissed as raving feminists. ‘Foreigners’ who contribute to the wellbeing of society are decried as scroungers and criminals. Those gripped by poverty or disability are told they have only got themselves to blame. Transgender military personnel are told they would be banned from serving their country regardless of records of their commitment and bravery. In all such cases, those who come to feel superior by cheering on the discrimination of others, would be outraged if they were so discriminated against themselves. But the cutting off of reciprocity, the refusal to see those ‘others’ as real persons, is precisely what is at the heart of this outlook. Will more people be swept away by discriminatory politics in the guise of ‘populism’, or will fair-mindedness and objectivity reassert themselves? At one level, the extent to which views on personhood will change depends on how those with parental, educational, and political responsibilities behave. So long as they reject the false fatalism that prejudices are set to spread, and resolve instead to promote empathic connections systematically and imaginatively, the prognosis does not have to be a pessimistic one. At a deeper level, however, there are problems that cannot be solved through the cultivation of social understanding. While distorted projections of ‘inferiority’ can be countered by sensitive myth-dismantling and bridgebuilding exercises, the substantial widening of the gap in human capability may through the twenty-first century lead to radical divergence in conceptions of personhood. The current rapid technological advancement can secure unprecedented and permanent improvements for a few in relation

barriers to mutuality and cooperation. In the rhetoric of disempowerment politics, they are scorned as ‘the liberal establishment’.

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to everyone else, that the differences may become an unbridgeable chasm (Tegmark 2017; Reese 2018). This transformational gap can appear through one or more of three ways. First of all, there is the extensive augmentation of the self. The elite in society will increasingly be able to use fast-changing bio-technology both to improve the biological components of themselves and their offspring, and to enhance their physical and mental capability with added mechanical and computerised devices. If the utilisation of such technology could be widely taken up by everyone, it would not necessarily alter interpersonal relations in general. However, human augmentation technology is moving forward fast with its output affordable for only a small minority. The result along current trajectory could be one where a few would be able to live substantially longer, healthier lives; immune to most diseases; capable of recovering swiftly from serious injuries; ready to acquire, process, and retain complex information much more quickly and extensively; and backed by continuous improvements to their physical and intellectual functions (Herold 2016). Secondly, there is the expansion of AI-guided impersonal support. The emergence of the human species had involved the distinctive appreciation of interdependence and social cooperation. But technological aids have now reached a point on the developmental curve that we can envisage in the foreseeable future some individuals will have in their possession an array of devices that can cater to virtually all their needs and wants (Ford 2015). Renewable energy, captured at zero marginal cost, will power machines that between them can cover all that is asked of them. From basic chores to sophisticated problem-solving, innovation, learning from errors, they will be able to design, produce and deliver whatever is sought on request. Food, shelter, transportation, means for protection, sources of amusement, will with the help of continuously improving templates be provided to varied specifications.2 The few who are in a position to take control of this myriad of supportive devices will find that they have no need to call on other people for anything.

2The development of technological aids, especially through self-improving artificial intelligence, will also potentially give rise to a further ‘personhood’ debate about the possible ascription of consciousness to thinking machines/androids, and how ‘we’ should relate to ‘them’.

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Thirdly, there is the reshaping of habitable space. One of the key arguments for taking care of the areas in which we live is that any spoiling for others will ultimately be spoiling for ourselves. But when a minority can separate themselves away from others and live in their own technologically advanced sanctuary, the prospect of mutuality fades. The notion of the ‘gated community’ is beginning to move on to a different level altogether. Self-sufficient domains may one day be established in otherwise uninhabitable parts of deserts or on ocean floors (Tsuchiyama 2011). Enabling people to live in stations that orbit around Earth, or transporting them in suspended animation to distant planets to set up new colonies is no longer an idea confined to science fiction. Instead of shared common habitat, the future offers radical separation between areas an elite can damage and abandon with little impact on themselves, and areas that an elite can safely and comfortably retreat to indefinitely. As these trends move forward, the widening gap between the privileged and the rest will reach a point where the former’s conception of personhood ceases to apply to the latter. Aided by technology that is inaccessible to others, the privileged ones will live in a world fundamentally different to those left behind (Weinersmith and Weinersmith 2017; Harari 2018). From a distance, they may observe the less fortunate struggling to cope with dwindling resources and a deteriorating environment, but be it with pity, glee, or indifference, they most probably will not see them as fellow beings in any significant sense. If ‘no man is an island’ has in the past been a reminder of how our inter-connectedness pulls us towards inclusive community life, the emergence of self-contained, tech-based, highly exclusive utopias could in the future pave the way for a form of species divergence. The god-like few and the left-behind masses will have no basis for building any meaningful sense of solidarity. This is not to say that technological advancement will inevitably disrupt human relationships to such an extent that bonds of mutuality will vanish. Much will depend on what economic arrangements are in place to manage the changing means of resource production and deployment.

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Tomorrow’s Economy Without appropriate systems and regulations, a plutocratic elite will soon be able to transcend completely human interdependency, and henceforth pay no attention to what everyone else may have to endure. The communitarian alternative to this dystopian path would require the development of a much more inclusive type of economy (Restakis 2010; Wolff 2012). At its heart would be a model of cooperation that enables everyone to explore and engage in suitable roles to help sustain a meaningful existence for themselves and the wider society, and prevents any individual or group from accumulating so much power and resources that the wellbeing of others can be irreversibly damaged. This model requires dynamic arrangements to facilitate people’s engagement in productive and rewarding work; responsive pooling of resources to address common concerns; and effective mechanisms to counter the threat of economic polarisation. Let us look at these in turn. While it is generally recognised that it is important for people to have productive and rewarding work, the question of how to attain this goal has often been presented in popular commentary as one to be answered in terms of either completely leaving business owners to sort out their affairs or handing all control over to the state. In reality, both those positions have long been discredited. The practical solution lies in finding the right combination of entrepreneurial autonomy and equitable rules and enforcement so that there is no cheating, manipulation, or coercive bargaining that are damaging for business dealings in general (Anderson 1998; Shaffer et al. 2004). In order to get the appropriate balance, we need to have arrangements that are dynamically adjusted in response to changing social and technological circumstances. To begin with, we need a regulatory framework to promote fair play, so that no one can take advantage of others through subterfuge or holding them to ransom. Those with the initial resources to back a business should not be able to use their growing financial clout to pressure workers into accepting exploitative terms. Those whose work input contributes to the running of the business should not be able to disrupt that business by threatening to weaken its performance whenever they do not get what they demand. Rules are therefore required to halt the use of threats or

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deception to secure submission from some contributors to others. In recent decades, the tendency to add stringent rules to constrain workers but allow owners/employers to impose their preferences has resulted in far greater insecurity for everyone except those on the top rungs of corporate hierarchies. To redress the balance, it is essential that unacceptable contract terms are better regulated.3 Where proposed terms are disputed, a free and independent arbitration service should be available to assess competing claims and issue binding judgements. Beyond rules and arbitration, the prospects of mutually supportive working will also depend on the extent to which it is embedded in organisational practices. Cooperative structures are designed to incorporate systems and procedures that will enhance trust and collaboration, and increase resilience.4 Instead of having a problematic divide between owners/employers and workers/employees, we should apply the principles which have been devised, tried, and tested by the cooperative movement across the world. These cover the following seven aspects5 : 1. Voluntary and Open Membership: open to all persons able to use or contribute to their services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership (without gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination). 2. Democratic Member Control: controlled by their members, who actively participate in setting their policies and making decisions (one member, one vote). 3. Member Economic Participation: all members contribute equitably to the joint capital, and surpluses are only allocated for purposes approved by the membership.

3 E.g., unreasonable shift demands, zero-hour contracts, or the externalising of workers as contractors. 4 Between

2008 and 2011, when the UK was hit by a double-dip recession, the number of cooperatives grew by 23% to nearly 6000, while individual members grew by 19.7% to 13.5 million. During that period, as the UK economy shrunk by 1.7%, the turnover of the cooperative sector expanded by 19.6% to £35.6 billion. For more details, see Co-operatives UK: http://www.uk.coop/ performance-co-operative-economy. 5The full versions of the principles are codified and recorded by the International Co-operative Alliance: https://ica.coop/en/whats-co-op/co-operative-identity-values-principles.

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4. Autonomy and Independence: agreements with other organisations are to be done on terms that ensure democratic control by their members and maintain their co-operative autonomy. 5. Education, Training and Information: provide education and training for their members, elected representatives, managers, and employees so they can contribute effectively to the development of their cooperatives; and inform the general public about the nature and benefits of co-operation. 6. Co-operation among Co-operatives: work together with others through local, national, regional and international structures. 7. Concern for Community: work for the sustainable development of their communities through policies approved by their members. Experience has shown that these principles are more likely to be realised if they are backed by processes that keep members informed and interested in relation to key decisions, and facilitate deliberative discussions that will guide members’ input into the making of those decisions. When everyone involved in an enterprise is accorded the status of a member with an equal vote, the decisions made will reflect collective judgements rather than the interests of a few with controlling power. Whereas shareholder owners may lower the pay of workers or make large numbers redundant to generate short-term profits and hence higher share value before they sell up and move their investment elsewhere, worker-members take a holistic view and will balance long term value against short term gains. More widely, there should be collective support for individual firms that on their own cannot anticipate and respond to destabilising changes to supply and demand. For example, when certain sectors go into decline and new unmet needs are rising in other areas, firms may not be able to switch their focus with the necessary capital investment, training, and strategic overhaul to adapt and thrive in the changing conditions. Government agencies and business federations, at the local, regional, national, and transnational levels, should divert some of the profits of companies that have been growing in revenue because of the wider support provided by society (e.g., infrastructure, education and training, law and order), and invest it in enabling other companies to deal with new circumstances. This may encompass the development and application of technology on a scale

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that smaller firms cannot manage on their own, skills training, and setting up new clusters of businesses to meet different demands in communities that are in danger of losing outmoded jobs without adequate replacement. In addition to helping organisations adapt to large-scale changes in supply and demand so that there can be a steady flow of meaningful work opportunities, we need financial institutions that are tasked with pooling collective resources to address common concerns. This calls for the restructuring of the monetary system to stop the biased distribution of risks and opportunities. Prevailing arrangements rely on a sovereign state’s access to national resources as leverage to create money through loans and bonds to private financial institutions (Ingham 2014). But while all citizens have a duty to contribute to public finances and share the national debt, the private banks which draw on the public supply of money is not subject to any requirement to serve the public good. They are free to use the funds generated via the central bank to lend and invest solely on the basis of maximising their own profits. If their irresponsibility or miscalculation should lead to substantial losses that risk the savings of those who have deposited money with them, the state would use public funds to bail them out. The 2008 financial crisis was a prime example of how this could happen, and despite the disastrous consequences and glaring unfairness, no serious reforms followed. It is time for public criteria to be set out regarding the areas that lending and investment should be prioritised (for example, renewable energy, affordable healthcare provision, quality social housing, technology that can be made available on a wide scale at low cost), the sectors that should not be supported unless there are significant social and environmental returns that outweigh the damages they would cause (for example, those that cause widespread pollution, promote addiction, deplete health, carry high risks of injury), and the restrictions on the level of profits/bonuses to be obtained in relation to the actual benefits accrued to society. The communitarian emphasis on connecting money supply to social as well as economic returns has been taken on board by many practitioners in community development finance, ethical lending, and public investment, who are leading the way to channel funds towards goods and services in line with the criteria outlined above (Rosenthal 2018). Central banks and

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government financial bodies should learn from their experiences and jettison the flawed no-strings-attached approach in handing over billions to banks (and thus allowing them to continue with their irresponsible lending). They should instead ensure investment is directed above all towards activities that add to general wellbeing, and support sustainable employment (Brown 2013; Bollier 2016). Germany’s KfW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, or ‘Reconstruction Credit Institute’), for example, is a public sector development bank, which invests consistently in renewable energy (Brown 2019). Managing funds larger than those held by the World Bank, it exemplifies how socially responsible investment can be scaled up considerably. In France, many large companies enable their workers to invest 10% of their accumulating pension in a fond solidaire (solidarity fund), which supports unlisted social enterprises that commit any surplus they generate back into delivering their core social objectives (Chakrabortty 2018). In order to establish a strategic framework to plan for long term investment, there are emerging discussions about the setting up of an Open Cooperativist Development Agency to support business development in line with multi-stakeholder cooperative principles6 (Tam 2015). Such an agency would be tasked with channelling finances and advice towards firms to assist them in formulating a sustainable strategy to empower their workers to shape their future; anticipating and planning for wider societal concerns; and minimising the risk of future demutualisation by applying asset-locks to capital acquired through the investment provided.7 From the returns on its investment, the agency would make further investment to expand cooperative management practices. Since multi-stakeholder cooperatives share their decision-making and surplus with their workers and

6 Within

the co-operative sector, the main ownership models have often been single stakeholder— including consumer co-ops (food, retail and financial services), producer co-ops (workers and farmers), housing co-ops (tenants) and community benefit societies (for a defined community). Multiple stakeholder governance requires the empowerment of all stakeholders to have a real say about the direction of an enterprise. 7 In the past, provided a majority of members are prepared to sell, the assets built up by all can be irreversibly taken over by corporations with no interest in cooperative working. It is vital that investment made available to create multi-stakeholder cooperatives is protected by effective legal instruments.

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customers, engage suppliers and local communities in their strategic planning, they are in a stronger position to withstand unfavourable circumstances and find ways to improve their performance (Conaty 2019). Concerted efforts to develop cooperative enterprises have been proven to yield long term success. In the 1970s Italy suffered from high levels of inflation and unemployment. In the Emilia Romagna region, cooperative advocates, politicians, workers collaborated in promoting the development of a range of worker-owned enterprises. Research partnerships between city officials, local universities, the co-op movement and local businesses investigated how to connect product and service development to meet local needs (Restakis 2010). In 1985, legislation was passed to enable companies to sell their business to their workforce. Through the law the state co-developed a public-cooperative financing system to increase the number of worker co-operative buy-outs. This was followed by another law in 1991 that helped to expand co-operatives in the fields of social care, public health, and education (Conaty 2014, 2015). Emilia Romagna now has over 8000 cooperatives,8 giving it the highest density of co-operative ownership in Europe and accounts for 40% of the region’s GDP (Mayo 2015). It also has one of the lowest levels of inequality in Europe along with the Basque country where the Mondragon co-operatives are located. The strategic development of cooperative enterprises has been replicated in Quebec. Enabling legislation has also been passed in Portugal (1998), Spain (1999), France (2001) and Greece (2011) (Conaty 2014).9 Even with the development of more cooperative enterprises, however, a pluralist economy will continue to have many firms under the control of owners and board members not accountable to those who work there. And in any case, cooperative structures may reduce, but not by themselves eliminate, the likelihood of exploitation. In order to prevent society’s wealth from being taken over by an elite over time, we need to consider the third aspect of our model for economic cooperation—the

8 In

the whole of the UK, there are only 7000. examples of how multi-stakeholder governance can be achieved through the commoning approach, see, Bollier and Helfrich (2015). For a case study of the application of the communitarian cooperative approach to organic rice farming in South Korea, see Suh (2015).

9 For

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establishment of effective mechanisms to counter the threat of resource polarisation. There are at least four such mechanisms that policy makers should consider putting in place. The first is to have statutory assessments of any advancement in automation and artificial intelligence that is likely to have notable human-displacement effects. We can no longer rely on the market adjusting itself on the basis that there must be new jobs created to deliver enough consumers to buy the improved goods and services, because development is reaching the point where innovators (and those who have bought control of innovators and their work) do not need to sell to the general public what they produce to get the necessary funds to buy other things they want. They can either through second-level automation10 produce what they seek, or trade exclusively with their fellow top innovators to supply each other with what they want. Collective intervention may thus be essential to secure the agreement of the innovators to share the benefits of their innovations with the wider community, lest it leads to resentment, alienation, and large-scale breakdown of social cohesion.11 Secondly, in order to reduce destabilising pay differentials that can relentlessly widen the resource gap, there should be (a) a national minimum pay set at an agreed percentage rate of the average pay of the top 10% earners, and (b) a cap set by workers on the top pay in their company at an agreed multiple of the lowest paid workers in that firm. Members of the same organisation would not allow the valuation of their contributions to diverge radically for the sole purpose of enriching the few at the top, if they had a say in the process themselves. Research has shown that worker cooperatives are not only on average more productive and offer more stable employment, but they also have lower pay differentials (Pérotin 2016). Fellow workers recognise that some amongst them deserve to be rewarded with higher pay, but the extent to which that is agreed is linked to what they assess as greater contributions from those colleagues. It should be a 10 Second-level automation covers machines with sufficient degrees of artificial intelligence to design, plan, and organise the production of diverse forms of first-level automation to deliver different goods and services as required. 11 One way to do this could be through a society-wide resource-sharing scheme that transfers X% of the additional value generated through the replacement of workers by automation technology, to a public fund; another way to make a set proportion of the goods and services generated at zero marginal costs available to all citizens (Alperovitz 2013; Aronoff 2017).

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mandatory practice for all workers to engage in participatory decisionmaking to set their own pay differentials. Nationally, citizens should set the differential between their country’s average top pay and minimum pay. Thirdly, a community-wide safety net is needed for people who cannot find any vacancy for paid work to fill, or have care/support commitments to fulfil with no pay. Some form of universal supplement, combining a bursary (akin to a Universal Basic Income12 ) with accessible no-fees service to meet basic needs, should be devised to give all citizens the security to live. The public provisions must be adjusted continuously to ensure that all citizens can count on adequate support to live a decent life without having to succumb to any exploitative demands or resign to being abandoned. What is to be distributed in direct financial terms will depend on the range and quality of non-means tested provision of education, housing, childcare, and protection under the law; and adequate assistance for anyone with particular physical or mental health needs.13 Any diminution of public services would have to be balanced by a higher level of basic income to compensate for the costs of having to resort to fees-charging services. Finally, resource polarisation should be countered by setting civic limits on the power of wealth to obtain political influence. In the name of political donations, many irresponsible corporate leaders have been able to buy the policies that favour them at the expense of the general public by using their financial clout to help those who are willing to meet their policy demands win office.14 And in between elections, superrich firms and individuals have used their financial power to get rid of policy proposals they dislike,15 12 A

universal basic income is being explored in Finland as a counter-measure to low wages and automation-led reduction to jobs (Sodha 2017). See also Huws (2016). 13 Funding for public support can be derived from existing as well as new fiscal sources such as the Tobin Tax on financial transactions; land-value levies; enforced penalties on tax evasion; or a luxury tax (Yamamura 2017). 14 In the US presidential election of 2012, the executives of the top 10 publicly listed companies alone spent $102 million on political donations (Reeves 2016). Overall spending on federal campaigns in that one year was over $6.2 billion, and 68% of that money came from just 0.26% of the population. As to whether or not money has much to do with electoral outcomes, in each of the five bi-annual contests in the House of Representatives between 2004 and 2012, over 80% of the candidates who spent more than their rivals won (Prokop 2014). 15 Proposed reform of the poker machine business in Australia was dropped by the Labor Government after the gaming industry, which donated money to Labor, started to donate even more money to

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and undermine candidates critical of their outlook with orchestrated media attacks and a stream of misleading information. People who seek public office in line with democratic principles should be provided with public funds on an equal basis to compete for votes; but people who stand on antidemocratic and discriminatory platforms and thus threaten accountable governance should accordingly not receive any public support. In all cases private donations should not exceed in any given year a level pegged to a set percentage of the country’s agreed minimum pay, or else they would be treated as bribes. Those who are found to have taken bribes should be removed from office and in the most serious cases, prevented from standing for public office again in a set period, or even imprisoned.

Tomorrow’s Governance If tomorrow’s communities are to govern themselves in an inclusive and responsible manner, the social and economic changes that are necessary require political actions to enhance three aspects of civic togetherness, namely, the meaning of citizenship; the depth of democracy; and the robustness of public accountability. Citizens owe it to one another to ensure they are governed collectively for the wellbeing of each and all (Crick 2001). They confer on themselves a range of rights on the basis that they undertake to fulfil corresponding responsibilities without which the rights cannot be honoured. A political culture that dwells exclusively on rights promotes self-centred individualism. One that focuses solely on responsibilities reinforces top-down collectivism. If community members are to function as citizens, they need to have assigned to them—and understand what has been assigned to them—a meaningful set of rights and responsibilities they will uphold for themselves and their fellow citizens. In the absence of a clear notion of what their citizenship entails, people are unlikely to grasp what they ought or ought not to do. Phrases such as ‘freedom to express yourself ’, ‘freedom to worship as you wish’, ‘rights their rivals (the Liberal Party). When the Liberals came out against the proposals, Labor dropped them despite public support for the reform (Smith 2014).

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to liberty and the pursuit of happiness’, or ‘duty to support and defend the Constitution’, ‘duty to defend the country’ are rhetorically handy but so vague as to be useless in providing any real practical guidance. In fact, any interpretation of such injunctions as absolute without any qualification would be quite unacceptable—deception cannot be justified in the name of one’s freedom to express oneself; sadistic pleasures cannot be sanctioned in the name of the right to pursue happiness; the duty to defend the Constitution may require civil disobedience rather than following orders without question; and what the duty to defend one’s country entails is up for debate because the real threats could be disguised. Simplistic guides, irrelevant citizenship tests, and celebratory ceremonies cannot substitute for the proper induction of citizens, which should be carried out not just for new settlers to a country, but all who are born in it too.16 The implications of having defined rights and responsibilities should be spelt out; the consequences of not respecting them ought to be made clear; there should be helpful guidance on where to turn to when conflicting interpretations need to be resolved; and what form of redress can be expected if the demands on rights and responsibilities are breached. Instead of citizens being left to declare what they are bound by or not with reference to rhetorical invocation of rights or responsibilities, there should be a transparent system for determining what actually follows from their civic status. For example, an individual cannot claim it as a right to wave any weapon—be it a knife or a handgun—in the face of others since threatening behaviour in general ought to be curtailed. No one can insist that there is a right to do whatever one wants with one’s children that trumps one’s responsibility to safeguard the health of one’s children in accordance with the most advanced medical expertise regardless of what one’s spiritual beliefs might be. Furthermore, one cannot invoke one’s membership of some group that sanctions or demands certain actions as

16The UK has an online A-Z guide to what citizens can expect to request as citizens. In the 2010s, it

also developed a citizenship test containing many questions that most UK citizens would consider to have minor significance or not know the answers themselves. Singapore is one of the few countries where there is a more extensive programme of induction for new citizens. It brings together ‘an online self-study component, a tour of historical landmarks and national institutions, a community engagement session, and a citizenship ceremony’ (Mathews and Soon 2016).

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the basis of yet more inviolable rights if they conflict with the wider duty to society to refrain from objectively discernible harm. Not making the core entitlements and expectations associated with democratic citizenship widely known and understood has all too often been a source of confusion, or even deliberate distortion, in relation to what citizens owe each other in how they should behave. There are tensions that arise from indeterminate assessment of opposite demands—from what language should or should not be used in official discourse, or what dress code is to be deemed obligatory or offensive in certain public arena.17 But in such cases, government and society should be honest about the need to weigh rival arguments in the context of specific circumstances, and not pretend that there are immutable principles with which such disagreement can be resolved. Although some may think that talk of the meaning of citizenship may be vague and idealistic, its articulation is actually vital to connect citizens to their role as members of a self-governing democratic community. This can be seen most clearly when we consider the arrangements for the suspension and restoration of the entitlements of citizenship. Most arrangements for determining what are violations, how they are to be detected, and what should be done with those accused, are shrouded in bureaucratic jargon and opaqueness that few can penetrate. To counter the ignorance and misunderstanding of people’s duties as citizens and when their rights to protection may be suspended, much more needs to be done to raise citizens’ awareness of the relevant terms and conditions, and involve the public in reviewing them. Opinions are often polarised between viewing the response to certain irresponsible behaviour as too stringent or too lenient. But where citizens were given the chance to engage in deliberative discussions, research has found that their input helped to generate more constructive proposals for what to do with those accused of having violated the trust of their fellow citizens (Rethinking Crime & Punishment 2004). 17 For example, in a country like Canada, with about a fifth of its population speaking French as their first language, should its use and provision in everyday life and official business not be accommodated (Maris 1995)? Or how should the customs in some culture to wear clothes that conceal women’s faces in public be reconciled with concerns for security or judicial openness in countries that do not share such a culture?

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Although some citizens have through their severe crimes and their subsequent lack of remorse been found to pose such a danger to society that the only viable option is to keep them incarcerated, the majority of offenders can be reintegrated into society and thus regain the status of fully free and responsible citizens. Here restorative meditation can play a significant role in enabling offenders to face up to what they have done, learn from their victims, and respond accordingly. While some offenders decline to engage with their victims, many do go through the process with life-changing results for themselves, their victims, and for society in terms of lower rates of reoffending (Crosland and Liebmann 2003). Building on the greater clarity of what citizens should and should not do, the next challenge would be to enable citizens to pursue those objectives not just individually, but collectively as shapers of public policies. This poses a critical question about the depth of our democracy. One of the main reasons why authoritarian politics spread in the 2010s is because democracy had for decades been taken for granted. Too many people thought that a multi-party electoral system was sufficient to guarantee communities’ self-governance, when it was highly vulnerable to subversion and being dismantled by unscrupulous demagogues (Tam 2018a). To counter the weakening of democratic bonds, more needs to be done in the coming years to structure public decisions in line with subsidiarity; expand opportunities for decision-making roles; and strengthen existing voting arrangements. The principle of subsidiarity reminds us that decisions need to be made at the level closest to the people concerned where it can be taken forward effectively (Evans and Zimmermann 2014). If a decision is taken by a group of people in a powerful and remote organisation, it risks being disconnected from the experiences and interests of those who will be affected by that decision, and who may end up resenting the decision imposed on them. On the other hand, if a decision is taken at a very local level by a relatively small group without wider knowledge of the relevant issues relating to that decision, or the capability to carry out their decision, then the decision could be misguided, ineffectual, or both. Many problems of governance arise when decisions are dogmatically or arbitrarily pushed towards a higher or lower level without due consideration of which direction would make better sense in practice. There is in

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fact considerable scope to pass more decision-making powers to local associations to deal with a wide range of matters such as housing, education, energy, and local amenities (Hirst 1994; Cohen and Rogers 1995), with the proviso that such bodies are democratically inclusive themselves (Fung and Wright 2001). At the same time, where federations are necessary at the regional, national or transnational level, powers should be granted to them to solve the identified problems (e.g., international trade, climate change, cross-border crime), so long as they engage with those affected by their decisions. By contrast, authoritarian-minded politicians always press for more centralisation at whichever level they have secured power, and call for the rejection of higher-level institutions whenever these are beyond their direct control and possess powers that may restrain their irresponsible actions. Citizens should be encouraged to take on the greater number of decision-making roles created in line with subsidiarity. People with more involvement in making such decisions gain a better understanding of how they should be made. It is sometimes claimed that few citizens would be interested in taking on such roles, but it depends on what difference they can really make, the time they involve, and the support and financial compensation that are provided for taking them instead of carrying out some other paid work. In England, for example, it has become very difficult in many areas to find people to fill in vacancies on parish councils. But that is directly connected with those bodies possessing little power to act for local communities after waves of centralisation. By contrast, the greater the difference a statutory body can make, the more interest there will be in becoming involved in it. Notably, when devolved powers were proposed in the UK for the creation of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, and the North East Regional Assembly, public support was very strong with substantial powers proposed for the first, moderate with a more modest package for the second, and the last with few significant concessions of devolved power was rejected. For all public positions, established as well as newly created ones through devolved powers, special attention should be paid to members of communities who have traditionally been marginalised and hence sceptical about the relevance of their trying to obtain public positions. Research has found

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that dedicated initiatives to reach out to under-represented groups, promote familiarisation activities with statutory bodies, and develop deliberative and leadership skills, can significantly increase the number of those taking up public positions from neglected and disadvantaged areas (Mayo and Annette 2010). Alongside the development of public positions, the processes for citizens in general to express support for specific policies or elect representatives ought also to be strengthened. Wherever a voting system lacks proportionality, it means that someone can win power with the support of a minority of the electorate, and exercise that power regardless of what the majority of voters think. If vast numbers of voters are not to continue to have no realistic influence over the outcome of ‘contests’ in safe single member first-past-the post constituencies, we need to make sure that everyone’s vote counts equally in determining the result.18 The exact threshold for different types of issue or alteration to electoral arrangements is not to be decided in the abstract. Instead, constitutional conventions should be held so that the fundamental power allocation and decision-making procedures affecting a country can be deliberatively reviewed and re-ordered (White 2015). In the meantime, we must counter the attempts by those who, fearing that an inclusive electorate could make it too difficult for plutocratic interests to influence the outcome of elections, concoct voter registration procedures and identification arrangements to keep those most likely to object to them away from casting their vote. False accusations of mass voter fraud need to be swept away and every hurdle designed to hamper poor, young or transient voters from voting should be removed (Hardaway 2008). For voting that is directed at a single-issue referendum or citizens’ initiative, there are techniques for consensus building that can be adapted to bring out what people can most agree on, rather than leaving uninformed opinions to be polarised by prejudices and propaganda (Gastil 2000). Access to information prior to deliberative events, and support with dissemination afterwards in cases where the reflections of sample groups need to be shared with the whole electorate can be provided by dedicated civic 18 For

more details on the alternatives, from the single transferrable vote, the list system, to tworound contests, and mixed member constituencies, see Farrell (2011). For a detailed argument for bringing in a proportional electoral system, see Richie and Hill (1999).

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institutions, provided they have cross-party support.19 For some policies, because of the unprecedented disruption they may cause, or the threat they pose to vulnerable groups who cannot defend themselves, a higher threshold should be set when they are put to a deliberative referendum. If a two-thirds, or even three-quarters, majority cannot be obtained, it is better to settle for a suspended judgement with no ensuing action than to risk calamity when a significant number of people remain unconvinced. Finally, the prospect of communities securing genuine self-governance will require our system for public accountability to be considerably strengthened. Even if electoral systems are improved to enable citizens to make more informed selections of who should take up public office, there are long stretches between elections when there is generally little support to track, review and remedy irresponsible actions by those with governing power. There should be an independent accountability service that is available to all citizens should they wish to enquire about the acceptability of certain acts, complain about the treatment they have received, or provide critical information as whistle-blowers. It is difficult for people to take seriously the call to be vigilant in holding public servants to account, if there is no trustworthy and accessible body they can turn to for help. It would be vital for those with the investigative and adjudication powers to be selected on the basis of their expertise, dedication and integrity. In order to obtain public trust and shield such a body from smears, the selection process must be robust and transparent. The US Supreme Court provides an example of how a system of accountability can become questionable when at the highest level, who gets appointed for life depends on their personal alignment with the political agenda of the party that is currently in power. In fact, since the late 1980s, in virtually all the cases where the most politically contentious issues were decided by the Supreme Court on a tight 5-4 majority, members of the court backed the position favoured by the party of the president who nominated them20 (Kuhn 2012; Rodriguez 2016). Reforms from top to bottom are necessary to safeguard impartiality in judgement. One way would be for expert 19 In Germany, the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung ) provides impartial information in support of democratic participation: https://www.bpb.de/. 20 Between 1986 and 2012, the US Supreme Court decided by a 5-4 majority in over 20% of the cases.

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practitioners to form associations to vet and elect people to take on public positions that adjudicate on the legitimacy of government actions, and for scrutiny forums constituted by a random and representative sample of the population at the relevant level, backed by trained auditors, to oversee the expert associations in how they handle their electoral arrangements. Local authorities are well placed to assist communities in understanding and pursuing public accountability issues. They can draw on approaches such as community organising, where activists rally local people to look at specific problems they need to tackle, and help them organise themselves to press those with the relevant responsibility to act differently (Alinsky 2013); community development, which can through regular outreach bring local people and public sector bodies together to build long term working relations, and develop shared strategies to address people’s concerns (Gilchrist and Taylor 2011); and community-based alliances, which can be set up by residents’ groups to form partnerships with other local organisations to enter into a dialogue with public agencies in resolving disputes over what course of action would be acceptable. Research has found that most people know little about what councillors do, but those who have met with their local elected representatives tend to value what they do (Councillors Commission 2007). Therefore, more should be done to promote the convening of problem-solving meetings between councillors and their constituents, where accountabilities can be clarified, complaints addressed, and improvements reviewed (Baker et al. 2000; Gardiner 2010). Where an issue cannot be resolved with the local authority in question, or it lies outside its jurisdiction, citizens should be directed to the national public accountability service to find redress.21 The support for public accountability needs to be extended at transnational levels too. Multinational corporations, governments of other countries, international bodies, can all act in ways that bring about damages or prolong neglect for a large number of people. In the early twentyfirst century, there has been a tendency to attack institutions with crossborder jurisdiction as encroaching on national sovereignty, when in truth,

21 A

nation-wide public accountability service would also be able to cross-reference complaints and identify malicious, vexatious, and other types of complaint coming from individuals who do not have a legitimate case to be investigated.

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national governments would be quite powerless in dealing with transnational forces on their own. As the problems that cut across national boundaries will continue to be on the rise—fraudulent financial deals; environmental degradation; cyber-crime; conflicts fuelled by arms sales; people trafficking; child labour exploitation—we increasingly need international capability to deal with them (Walzer 1998; Gvosdev 2016). This requires the strengthening of existing UN institutions and the development of new global systems to formulate, adjudicate and enforce worldwide regulation (Tetalman and Belitsos 2005). Civil society’s NGOs will have an important part to play too as they can build on the global networks they have created, and exert greater influence over policies and practices that can help to counter crossborder threats (Diehl 1997; Cerny 2013). Through joint efforts to plan challenges to policies; demand critical reviews of proposed or ongoing practices; and organise large-scale campaigns to expose unacceptable consequences, they can bring considerable pressure to bear on issues ranging from international protection of children’s rights to the World Bank’s lending priorities (Covey 2000; Lent and Trivedy 2001).

Tomorrow’s Education In order to bring about the economic and political changes that are critical to steering communities’ future in a more inclusive and cooperative direction, people need to be able to learn to recognise the real problems they face, and understand what should be done to deal with them. However, the resurgence of authoritarian leadership and extremist movements has obstructed education in every sphere of life. Teachers, writers, researchers, reporters, have increasingly found that unless they put forward what those aligned with plutocratic and/or fundamentalist views want them to say, and stay silent on ‘proscribed’ matters, they would be lambasted for expressing bias, engaging in indoctrination, and disseminating false information. In order to counter this line of attack, communitarian advocacy will have to take aim at a number of fallacies and misdirection, and implement the necessary plans to transform the educational landscape. A familiar

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move by critics of inclusive education is to decry any form of teaching and communication which is grounded on the value of openness, responsibility and cooperation, as oppressive propaganda. They basically condemn as an onslaught on ‘freedom’ any attempt to explain why people should rule out arbitrary prejudices; narrow-minded discrimination; the irresponsible spreading of lies, rumours, and myths; and the use of bribe or intimidation to block off mutual respect. In the name of freedom, they can then deceive and misguide people so as to advance their own agenda. Many educators, writers, and broadcasters, who were once champions of rational analysis and thoughtful deliberation, have become defensive in the face of relentless accusations of failing to be truly impartial. They hold back on what they understand they ought to say, and go out of their way to give space to extremists to assert whatever they want. The model of a balanced discussion between people with relevant reasons and evidence to examine together, is displaced by a model of ‘debate’ between two sides with opposite views irrespective of how groundless the arguments are from one side. An underlying cause of this predicament can be attributed to the intellectual culture of relativism, which nurtures the outlook that there is no discernible difference between truth and falsehood, reason and irrationality, justifiable claim and arbitrary assertion, objective evidence and subjective conviction (Kusch 2019). The evolution of communitarian ideas, by contrast, has shown that society needs neither to succumb to anythinggoes chaos nor submit to some absolute answers from an unfathomable source from ‘on-high’. Educators should not give into the fantasy that everything is as arguable or believable as anything else. We can adjust and revise our beliefs in the light of the shared experiences of members of communities, and learn from reasoning techniques and their efficacy over time how to improve our approach to differentiating the credible from the dubious (Tam 2019b). All those with the relevant expertise to be an educator or opinion-former should help with dispelling the myth that there is no basis for establishing justifiable beliefs. They can form advisory networks that will provide guidance on key elements of collaborative learning such as ensuring critical discussions can take place without undue pressure from others with power

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advantage over them; facilitating input from anyone with useful contributions to make; putting in place a trusted facilitator or arbiter to keep at bay any unwarranted disruption; sourcing relevant witnesses and experts; keeping a watch over attempts to deflect people from clinical scrutiny of verifiable claims; welcoming diverse hypotheses and interpretations, and subjecting them to evidential and logical scrutiny; rating, in the light of how well the ideas have stood up, the findings in terms of their reliability from the unfounded to the probable; and declaring openly what informed consensus has been reached, while acknowledging the possibility of future revision (Tam 2013). These elements should be incorporated into teacher training and classroom deliberation. Teachers should explain that the skills and understanding required to be an effective citizen are connected with the critical ability to question claims and evaluate conflicting options.22 Both academic achievements and the ethos of democracy have been enhanced in schools where collaborative learning was mainstreamed (Fielding 2011). Through practices such as peer mentoring and teaching, pupils have learnt more effectively by supporting each other, and improved academically and behaviourally. Student-teacher learning partnerships have encouraged young people to think and act like co-researchers in working out what they would take on board as provisional findings; enabled them to explore curriculum topics and also wider school issues; and helped them understand what could be done differently and why certain arrangements had to remain in place (Davies et al. 2006). Although simplistic rhetoric is often deployed to argue that parents should be free to home school their children in any way they see fit, that ‘freedom’ cannot be the basis for people to treat their children in an oppressive manner or to indoctrinate them into believing dubious claims and obnoxious doctrines without ever learning about cogent arguments and evidence against them. More generally, without the experience of engaging with one’s fellow citizens in considering the merits of rival claims, dogmas and prejudices could simply be perpetuated. The same applies to lifelong learning, where it is not just the acquisition of new knowledge that 22 For more on how collaborative learning can strengthen citizenship education, see Crick and Lockyer (2010) and Weinberg and Flinders (2019).

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is valuable, but the active involvement in a shared pursuit of justifiable beliefs, and adjustments made in response to collegiate criticisms that help to strengthen people’s ability to think as citizens about the many issues that crop up in democratic deliberations (Mayo and Annette 2010). To support collaborative learning, there must be sufficient and sustained investment in developing the infrastructure for critical re-examination and in nurturing the cultural readiness to challenge both prevailing assumptions and radical new claims. Without institutions to support and protect people in acquiring and applying skills for investigation, evaluation and judgement in their chosen field, knowledge expansion would be stuck at a rudimentary level. One of the reasons why counter-communitarian advocates want to weaken trust in scientific experts, academic researchers, professional investigators and judges, etc., is that in the absence of recognised advisors and arbiters, they can get away so much more easily with half-truths and total fabrications. It is only through the continuous enhancement of our shared capability for subjecting claims to critical re-examination that society as a whole and individuals in diverse circumstances can have reliable assessments that determine what claims are no longer tenable and what should be retained since the calls for their rejection lack cogency themselves. One line of attack on the acceptability of such assessments is that if they were about certain types of belief or practice (tied to a group, a culture, a sect or faction), then they could have no validity unless they were made by people who subscribe to those beliefs or engage in the practices in question. This fallacy is frequently deployed to shield those who resent their dogmas and prejudices being questioned, but it is nothing more than a cloak for arbitrary declarations. People can study and become experts in understanding how certain groups, cultural practices, psychological dispositions function without being inclined to follow any of them. It is indeed helpful to be impartially detached to be able to examine ideas without fearing the ostracisation that might come in the wake of disagreement with one’s examination.23 23 By

contrast, with people whose unquestioning devotion to some cause or tradition means that they will not accept that any of their ‘sacred’ beliefs and practices can ever be found to be flawed in any way, are for that very reason unable to suspend their unyielding assumptions to cooperate with others in any serious process of re-examination.

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Without adequate institutional structures to clarify and defend what impartiality should mean, it would be extremely difficult for collaborative learning to develop without the notion of ‘bias’ being abused in distorting belief re-evaluation. Bias in the form of backing a claim because one has been bribed to do so or one fears retribution for casting doubt over it, must indeed be rooted out. But it would be disingenuous to accuse people of being biased on the ground that they are inclined to accept a particular claim, or have expressed support for those making that claim—if their views about the claim in question are based on reasons, evidence, analyses that can be subject to open scrutiny, and they are willing to change their mind provided a contrary case can be made with sufficient justification. Another key factor in determining how far people are disposed to learning through cooperative enquiry is that of the broader cultural readiness to rethink ideas without abandoning them with undue haste. The teaching of history provides an opportunity to engage enquiring minds in discovering how beliefs can be revised over time in a coherent manner through the sharing of perspectives and mutual examination of evidence and arguments. The role of critical thinking should be brought out much more in accounts of how the readiness to question prevailing assumptions was central, not only to scientific and technological advancement, but also to successful campaigns against slavery, torture, sexist abuse, child labour, and many other objectionable practices. And without critical re-examination of community relations, the once entrenched conflicts between Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland, for example, would not have given way to the peace process and reconciliation. At the same time, blinkered dismissals of the problem of climate change or the need for vaccinations, left unchallenged, would just keep reinforcing the damaging mindset of jumping to conclusions rashly and holding fast onto them regardless of what may be presented to the contrary. Many community leaders and opinion formers have too readily stepped back from exposing groundless, prejudicial and extremist views for fear of offending people who have been encouraged to spout such views, while those who despise reciprocity and cooperation have become more emboldened to spread their misleading claims ever more widely. Efforts to nurture

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the ethos of collaborative learning must, therefore, be backed by mechanisms to uphold objective deliberations that are integral to the rule of law. No society or government has ever interpreted the freedom of speech as one which defies every conceivable form of restraint. People need to be reminded that attempts to incite or provoke others into lawless behaviour must be curtailed, not just if the effect is imminent, but whenever it is intended and the connection a foreseeable one. It is noticeable that extremist politicians and their supporters will always decry restrictions that infringe on their freedom to express their vile derision of those they portray as barely human, even as they attack the government for failing to rein in the hate speech of those in rival extremist groups. The communication of false and misleading information is explicitly forbidden in commerce and medical treatment. There are rules preventing teachers from ignoring the approved curriculum and putting forward their own fabrications. Yet, in politics it is misguidedly supposed that it would be undemocratic to stop people lying, even though objectivity is recognised as indispensable in all other aspects of life. We can no longer assume the odd lies in politics will cancel each other and civility will constrain excessive incitement, because politics in 2010s, echoing the dark history of the 1930s, have shown that when public offices can fall to those who build their campaigns almost entirely on lies and hate speech, action must be taken to protect the rule of law from its enemies. Legislation to set clear boundaries, penalties that are proportionately sufficient to deter potential perpetrators, and strict enforcement, are long overdue.24 Despite the fact that there are long-established systems for adjudicating false, misleading and other unacceptable forms of communication, there is still the often-raised objection that there cannot be any impartial judgement process. It is sometimes conceded that, as a last resort, people can sue an individual or an organisation for promoting a harmful claim (because it damages someone’s reputation unfairly, incites hatred and violence, leads the message’s recipients into endangering themselves, etc.), but that option is only available to those with enough resources to take legal action. On the basis that objective assessment is recognised as feasible, the way forward 24 For

examples of some of the problems in the UK, see Tam (2018b).

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would be to develop a publicly funded, but independently run, media arbitration service. To be effective, such a service will need recruitment and staffing policies that will bring in people with peer-recognised expertise and proven integrity in upholding objective investigations. It requires resources to commission fact-checking and assessment of risks and harm. Its binding judgement must be backed by legal sanctions if those involved seek to reject their conclusion after any due appeal process. Some may argue that the internet has opened up unprecedented opportunities for people to express their views, and instead of trying to control the media, we should ensure everyone is liberated to say whatever they want—and the truth will always emerge through the unfettered contests of conflicting claims. Whether this is inspired by the naïve assumption that an unregulated internet cannot be severely manipulated by plutocrats and extremist groups to serve their ends, or by the talk of ‘freedom’ by those who intend to make the most from their manipulation, the fuelling of hateful prejudice, propensity to use violence, blatant lies, groundless conspiracies, via deceitful communications on the internet is clear for all to see. In parallel with regulation and arbitration to restrain cognitive, affective and conative manipulation, we should facilitate the responsible use of all forms of media to teach, report, explain, and share materials that are useful, interesting, or in any case harmless. This can be achieved by introducing a universal professional standards scheme. A major safeguard against unqualified people misleading ill patients about what drug or operation they should have is the medical licence, which helps to distinguish those with the appropriate training and experience from those without. But medical information is not the only thing that should meet formal standards, many other types of communication can seriously affect people’s lives, and there is a need for comparable standards and licensing arrangements to prevent those not meeting the standards from misleading others. The standards will cover both the technical aspects (e.g., of having the qualifications and minimum required experience in astronomical research, journalistic reporting, teaching at the specified level, engineering in a given field) and the general requirements of communicative integrity in not making unwarranted claims, taking bribes to support particular statements, or

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indulging in misleading assertions without due concern for their negative consequences. When claims are spread through any medium, people can check if the source has the relevant licence signifying compliance with the requisite standards. If the source has the licence, but is subsequently found to have made the claim irresponsibly, depending on the seriousness of the breach, a disciplinary hearing may be convened to determine if the licence should be suspended, or even revoked. This approach would help to enhance confidence in claims people should rightly learn from, and bring about swifter rejection of groundless claims and exposure of those responsible for them.

Conclusion Communitarian ideas have evolved over centuries in response to changing social, economic and political conditions. Its abiding focus has been the cultivation of reciprocal relations and the development of inclusive, selfgoverning communities. Although most human beings can relate to the golden rule of treating others as we would like them to treat us, the size of organisational structures and complexities of socio-economic interactions can make it difficult to see what would amount to truly mutual support. Furthermore, there will always be some who prefer to cheat and exploit others, and they will use deception, financial leverage, or force to take unfair advantage of other people. A recurring strategy they resort to is spread distrust of all efforts to advance objective, transparent and empirical systems for resolving disagreement. Communitarian thinkers recognise there are diverse values, customs and practices that people may have acquired and are reluctant to abandon. However, if some of these are found to be problematic in that they undermine themselves (for example, values that are in fact incompatible, or practices that render each other ineffectual) or block the pursuit of goals favoured by others, then there is a need to consider critically if they can be reconciled or else, some may have to give way. Authoritarians will seek to impose whatever that fits in best with their own preferences, and dismiss any call for rational discussion of options as misguided or disrespectful.

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Those with an anarchist or laissez faire outlook will insist that individuals should be left alone to sort out their differences, even if in practice it means that without universally binding rules, those with more power and resources can pressurise others into submitting to their demands. Mutual cooperation can only be attained if there are collective structures of authority which can both resolve disputes fairly and enable those under their jurisdiction to hold to account those granted authority. This has to happen at every level of social existence, from the local through to the global. Each generation needs to be socialised into thoughtful members of their community, and this involves a deeper commitment from here on to the approaches set out for education, governance, and economic management. Our sense of community has been under pressure from rapid cultural changes and intense economic disruptions. Plutocrats and extremists have tried to take advantage of this state of disorientation to expand their control over others’ lives to further their own ambition. But there is no inevitability to their oppressive models of society taking hold. There has always been an alternative vision of community life which, through ebbs and flows, has been realised to notable degrees as a result of its ideas being convincingly presented and its proposed practices tried, tested and adopted. It may not always be associated with the ‘communitarian’ label, but as we have seen in this book, its philosophy has been an inspirational force in the past, and has continued to be influential in emerging thinking today.25 And it continues to offer hope that reciprocal and inclusive interactions can bring diverse individuals and groups to work together in formulating and pursuing shared goals.

25 For a few examples of the diverse approaches adopted for exploring and advocating communitarian ideas and practices, see White and Leighton (2008), Paderes Carvjaval (2014), Reynolds (2016), Etzioni (2018), and Tam (2018a).

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Mudde, C. (Ed.). (2016). The Populist Radical Right: A Reader. London: Routledge. Paderes Carvjaval, J. (2014). Dissidence and Communitarian Feminism (M. Winograd, Trans.). Decolonial Gesture, 11(1). http://hemisphericinstitute.org/ hemi/en/emisferica-111-decolonial-gesture/paredes-carvajal. Pérotin, V. (2016). What Do We Really Know About Worker Co-operatives? Manchester: Co-operatives UK. Prokop, A. (2014). 40 Charts That Explain Money in Politics. Vox. http://www. vox.com/2014/7/30/5949581/money-in-politics-charts-explain. Reese, B. (2018). The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity. New York: Atria Books. Reeves, J. (2016). Top 10 List of Corporate Donors to Political Parties Reads like a Most-hated-companies Ranking. MarketWatch. http://www.marketwatch. com/story/these-10-companies-could-influence-the-presidential-electionagain-2016-06-16. Restakis, J. (2010). Humanizing the Economy: Co-operatives in the Age of Capital. Gabriola: New Society Publishers. Rethinking Crime & Punishment. (2004). Rethinking Crime & Punishment: The Report. London: Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. Reynolds, J. (2016). Reborn Social Democracy as “Progressive Communitarianism”. Social Europe. https://www.socialeurope.eu/social-democracy-nationalsocialism-possibility-progressive-communitarianism. Richie, R., & Hill, S. (1999). Reflecting All of Us: The Case for Proportional Representation. Boston: Beacon Press. Rodriguez, L. (2016). The Troubling Partisanship of the Supreme Court. Stanford Political Journal. https://stanfordpolitics.com/the-troubling-partisanshipof-the-supreme-court-da9fd5a900ac. Rosenthal, C. (2018). Democratizing Finance: Origins of the Community Development Financial Institutions Movement. Altona: FriesenPress. Shaffer, R., Deller, S., & Marcouiller, D. (2004). Community Economics: Linking Theory and Practice. Oxford: Blackwell. Smith, W. (2014). Political Donations Corrupt Democracy in Ways You Might Not Realise. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ 2014/sep/11/political-donations-corrupt-democracy-in-ways-you-mightnot-realise. Sodha, S. (2017). Is Finland’s Basic Universal Income a Solution to Automation, Fewer Jobs and Lower Wages? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/ society/2017/feb/19/basic-income-finland-low-wages-fewer-jobs.

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Index

A

Absolutist (outlook) 31, 32, 39, 63, 189 Accountability 43, 169, 177, 181, 238, 244, 245 Active Citizens in Schools 214 Active Learning for Active Citizenship 211 Addams, Jane 115, 116, 119 Anarchist 156, 254 Anti-Semitism 106 Arendt, Hannah 128, 133, 134 Aristotle/Aristotelian 17, 21, 31, 33, 36, 46, 49, 66, 82, 149 Arizmendiarrieta, José María 23, 141 Artificial intelligence (AI) 228, 236 Asymmetric treatment 2 Atomistic self 5, 145, 150 Audit to Action 197, 198 Aurelius, Marcus 33, 34, 66

Authentic relationship/interactions 1, 5, 8, 11, 21, 29, 31, 41, 42, 45, 49, 63, 69, 72, 92, 98, 99, 101, 107, 118, 119, 127–129, 131–134, 136, 138, 143, 144, 149, 151, 158, 160, 161, 164, 176, 179, 181, 226, 253, 254 Authoritarian 7, 8, 14, 20, 21, 32–34, 38, 39, 44, 77, 79, 104, 109, 116, 125, 182, 183, 187–189, 191–193, 241, 242, 246, 253

B

Bacon, Francis 22, 46–49, 69, 82, 93, 113, 116, 148 Belief(s) 11, 22, 30, 31, 43, 46, 51, 54, 61, 62, 68, 70–72, 74, 78, 81, 85, 100, 116, 125, 132,

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 H. Tam, The Evolution of Communitarian Ideas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26558-8

261

262

Index

149–151, 169, 176, 182, 183, 203, 239, 247, 249, 250 Bellah, Robert 6, 7, 23, 155, 159, 166, 167, 183 Bosanquet, Bernard 112 Boswell, Jonathan 6, 7, 23, 155, 159, 162–166, 178 Bourgeois, Léon 107–109, 115, 162 Bruni, Leonardo 36 Buber, Martin 23, 101, 128, 129, 131 Burke, Edmund 77, 78, 80, 99

C

Carneades 19 Cicero 33, 36, 66 Citizen participation 10, 12, 13, 23, 45, 54, 62, 85, 126, 172, 179, 181, 188, 208 Citizenship/civic education 7, 155, 169, 176, 210–212, 215, 216, 238–240, 244, 248 Civic Pioneers 212 Civic republican 33, 36, 40, 45, 149, 168 Civil renewal 210, 212, 213, 216 Cleisthenes 15 Cohesion 99, 128, 181, 193, 206, 236 Cole, G.D.H. 23, 142 Collectivist 105 Collins, Anthony 72 Common pool resources 159, 164, 165 Communism 130, 158 Communities for Health 213 Communities in Control 214 Community Conference 208, 209

Community development 7, 8, 14, 91, 99, 107, 115, 134, 144, 148, 158, 166, 167, 206, 207, 217, 233, 245 Community Justice Centres 213 Community monitoring 207 Community of enquiry 47 Community principle (Follett) 118, 119 Community-wide safety net 237 Confucius/confucian 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 33. See also Rujia Conservative/conservatism 3, 5, 7, 71, 72, 78, 84, 133, 148, 155, 156, 158, 172, 174, 189, 214, 215 Cooperative enquiry 9–12, 23, 47, 49–52, 58, 62, 69, 73, 75, 85, 86, 104, 112, 116, 126, 179, 180, 188, 195, 202, 208, 250 Cooperative (enterprise) 6, 74, 97, 108, 140–142, 161, 167, 235 Cooperators 93, 156 Co-production 164 Counter-communitarian 188–192, 194–196, 206, 209, 217, 249 Counter-Reformation 39 Critical communities 68 Croly, Herbert 117, 118, 162 Customs 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 29, 41, 61, 64–68, 71, 72, 74, 76, 98, 101, 105, 108, 125, 131, 147, 162, 179, 203, 226, 240, 253

D

D’Alembert, Jean le Rond 73, 74, 78 Daoists 19, 30 de Condorcet, Nicolas 82

Index

Deist/deism 79, 100 Deliberative/deliberations 87, 117, 119, 134, 141, 160, 161, 171, 172, 174, 180, 200, 203, 211, 249, 251 de Maistre, Joseph 99 Democracy 87, 96, 117, 141, 144, 159, 177, 188, 212, 238, 241, 248 Democratic communitarianism 6, 159, 162, 166, 167 Democratic communities 22, 75 Demutualisation 129, 234 Depersonalisation 23, 119, 125, 127–129, 133, 135, 142, 151, 227 Derber, Charles 6, 7, 155, 159, 166, 167, 183 Deregulation 137, 138, 190 Descartes 69 Detached (outlook) 29, 30 de Tocqueville, Alexis 22, 99 Dewey, John 47, 115–117, 130, 168, 169 d’Holbach, Baron 62, 92 Diderot, Denis 73, 74, 78, 148 Diggers 42, 43 Diogenes 19 Disempowerment 23, 187, 189, 191, 194, 196, 201, 205, 209, 214, 216, 227 Diversity 67, 177, 211 Durkheim, Emile 99, 105–107, 109, 130, 162 Duties 2, 19, 20, 64, 95, 102, 108, 166, 173, 215, 240

263

E

Economic/economy 2–5, 8, 13, 20, 23, 24, 54, 55, 61, 76, 81, 84, 95, 96, 104, 108, 109, 112, 115, 117, 129–131, 135–140, 142–144, 147, 148, 155, 156, 158, 161–165, 167, 168, 178, 181, 188, 190, 192, 193, 206, 210, 225, 229–231, 233, 235, 238, 246, 253, 254 Education 6, 8, 9, 15, 24, 43, 47, 48, 76, 80, 83, 84, 86, 93–95, 102, 107, 108, 116, 117, 126, 130, 132, 139, 144, 162, 173, 174, 177, 178, 181, 182, 202, 207, 210, 211, 215, 216, 225, 232, 235, 237, 242, 246–248, 254 Egoistic (outlook) 8, 29–32, 106, 109 Election 189, 214, 237 Emilia-Romagna 142, 161 Empathic communities 63, 68 Empathic connection 202, 203, 208, 210, 212, 227 Enlightened communities 22, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81, 85, 91, 92, 98, 105, 114, 127 Enlightenment 22, 32, 61, 62, 68, 69, 74, 78, 92, 148, 168 Epicurus 19, 30 Epistemological/epistemic/epistemology 4, 11, 17, 22, 38, 40, 46, 68–70, 113, 115, 116 Equality 15, 77, 83, 84, 93, 95, 105, 108, 111, 145, 147–149, 157, 170, 193, 211 Erasmus 37–39, 41, 81 Etzioni, Amitai 6, 7, 23, 101, 128, 155, 158, 169, 172–174, 178 Experimental (approach) 4, 46, 104

264

Index

F

Faith 2, 37, 40, 44, 46, 53, 63, 79, 107, 131, 132, 164, 211 Fascism 130 Federated/federalism 134, 142 Feuerbach, Ludwig 22, 100–102, 107, 128, 129 Follett, Mary Parker 118, 119 Fond solidaire (solidarity fund) 234 Fouillée, Alfred 108 Fox, George 44 Freedom of speech 251 Free thinking 240, 248 Friedman, Marilyn 157 Friedman, Milton 137 Friendship 66, 131, 132, 157 Fukuyama, Francis 158 Fundamentalist/fundamentalism 176, 188, 190, 191, 217, 246

G

Galston, William 6, 7, 169, 172, 175, 176, 178 Gemeinschaft 22, 91, 98, 99, 104, 106, 114, 159 General will 87, 113 Gesellschaft 22, 91, 98, 99, 104, 106, 109, 114, 159 Gibson, Tony 198 God 2, 34, 35, 37, 47, 62, 70, 81, 101–103, 107, 126, 127, 129, 150, 190 Golden Rule 1, 10, 12, 13, 15, 24, 31, 33, 37, 179, 253 Gongsun Long 19 Governance 9, 24, 33, 38, 45, 53, 56, 75, 119, 126, 159, 162, 201, 225, 234, 235, 238, 241, 254

Gray, John 96 Green, T.H. 3, 112 Guide Neighbourhoods 211 Gutmann, Amy 9, 169, 177, 178, 201

H

Hamilton, Alexander 117 Han Fei 20, 31 Happiness 2, 62, 67, 79, 92, 172, 239 Harrington, James 22, 45, 51, 54, 55, 100 Healthy Communities Collaborative 213 Hobbes, Thomas 57, 69 Hobhouse, Leonard 111, 113, 169 Hobson, John 112 Holyoake, George 4, 98, 107 Human augmentation technology 228 Hume, David 69–72, 78, 93, 113, 148 Hutcheson, Francis 63, 66–69, 72, 78, 86, 92

I

Immigrant/immigration 175, 188, 191–193, 205 Inclusive/inclusiveness 6, 7, 50, 54, 93, 98, 101, 107, 119, 125, 132, 135, 145, 158, 178, 179, 181, 187, 189, 190, 197, 198, 205, 217, 225, 229, 230, 238, 242, 243, 246, 247, 253, 254 Individualist/individualism 5, 8, 19, 22, 23, 57, 61–63, 99, 106, 109, 111, 112, 158, 238

Index

Interdependent/interdependence 2, 8, 76, 95, 108, 109, 129, 228

J

James, William 114 Jefferson, Thomas 82, 85–87, 117 John of Salisbury 35 Justice 9, 17, 53, 108, 114, 132, 145, 146, 148, 151, 180, 193, 211

K

Kenny, Sue 9 King, Martin Luther 145, 171 King, William 96 Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (Reconstruction Credit Institute) 234 Kropotkin, Peter 156, 157

L

Levellers 45, 51–54, 56 Liberal communitarianism 158, 169 Liberal/liberalism 4, 5, 7, 9, 102, 110, 111, 113, 118, 155, 158, 159, 162, 167–169, 174, 175, 177, 178, 183, 188, 227 Libertarian 111, 148, 191 Liberty 56, 117, 147, 187, 239 Lipman, Matthew 47, 202 Locke, John 57

265

Macmurray, John 23, 128, 131, 132 Madison, James 87 Magna Carta 35, 53 Market 5–8, 22, 23, 105, 107, 109, 112, 129, 130, 135–139, 142–146, 148, 158–161, 166–168, 182, 188, 236 Marquand, David 168 Marsilius of Padua 35 Mazzini, Giuseppe 22, 101, 102, 109, 118, 162 Mencius 18, 19, 21, 31, 33, 131 Miller, David 5, 23, 155, 160–165, 168, 178, 211 Mill, J.S. 22, 102–104, 113, 114 Mondragon Corporation 6, 141, 167 Moral clashes/conflicts 10, 33, 54, 63, 139, 140, 143, 145, 159, 165, 168, 171, 173, 176, 177, 192, 207–209, 225, 246, 250 Moral dialogues 7, 173–176 Moral sense 64, 67, 68, 86 More, Thomas 40–45, 79, 97, 108, 135, 136 Morris, William 97, 157, 168 Mounier, Emmanuel 23, 128–131 Mozi/Mohist 7, 15–21, 31, 33 Multicultural/multiculturalist 162, 167 Mutual responsibility 9–12, 23, 41, 42, 51, 52, 58, 62, 68, 85, 108, 116, 126, 161, 179, 180, 188

M

N

Machiavelli, Niccolo 38–40 MacIntyre, Alasdair 4, 5, 23, 146, 148–150, 178

National government 87, 102, 117, 163, 200, 246 Nationalism 102, 118, 162

266

Index

Nation(s) 2, 55, 102, 109, 112, 117, 119, 130, 157, 162, 181, 194, 245 Neighbourhood Management 200, 213 Neoliberalism 9 New Liberals/New Liberalism 22, 109, 111–113, 115, 169 New Right 136, 138–140, 144, 158, 166, 195 Nisbet, Robert 156, 157 Nongjia 19

O

Open Cooperativist Development Agency 234 Ostrom, Elinor 9, 155, 159, 164, 165 Overton, Richard 52–54 Owenite 4, 93, 129, 141, 156, 178 Owen, Robert 3, 22, 81, 91–96, 99, 111

Planning for Real 198 Plato 17, 31 Plutocratic/plutocracy 23, 110, 145, 148, 188–190, 217, 230, 243, 246 Polanyi, Karl 137 Pope Julius II 37, 38 Power inequalities/gap 1, 13, 22, 23, 41, 52, 76, 79, 81, 138, 161, 190, 199, 227–229, 236 Pragmatists/pragmatism 22, 114, 115, 117, 118, 168 Progress 49, 72–74, 79, 82, 83, 115, 126, 172, 226 Public safety 173 Pyrrho 19

Q

Quaker 44, 45, 52, 56, 131

R P

Paine, Thomas 75–77, 79–82, 92, 100, 108, 168 Panaetius of Rhodes 20 Paracelsus (Theophrastus von Hohenheim) 38 Participatory Budgeting 198, 212 Participatory practices 141, 197 Pateman, Carole 23, 141 Patriotic/patriotism 109, 190 Peirce, C.S. 47 Penn, William 44–46, 51, 57, 75, 79, 94 Personalist 129–131, 133 Personhood 24, 148, 225–229

Race 83, 126, 131, 145, 170 Rational/rationality 5, 20, 125, 146–151, 171, 172, 176, 195, 196, 247, 253 Rawls, John 4, 5, 23, 146–150, 156, 168, 178 Reay, Diane 9 Reciprocal (outlook) 30, 37, 254 Reciprocity 2, 5, 8, 10–12, 14, 16, 21, 22, 31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 57, 58, 62, 129, 146, 151, 157, 166, 169, 177, 227, 250 Reconciliation 208, 209, 250 Referendum 204, 215, 243, 244 Relativist/relativism 150, 168, 173, 247

Index

Religious/religion 2, 36, 37, 40, 44, 50, 52, 63, 65, 71, 73, 78, 79, 83, 94, 99–101, 104, 107, 126, 128, 131–133, 144, 175, 176, 180, 182, 187, 188, 190, 191, 204, 217, 226, 231 Renaissance 36, 37, 189 Responsive Communitarian Platform 6, 172 Restorative Justice (RJ) 132, 208, 209, 213 Rights 2, 6, 11, 56, 67, 68, 83–85, 87, 102, 103, 136, 155, 158, 166, 173, 190, 193, 211, 215, 238–240, 246 Rochdale Pioneers 4, 97, 98, 140 Royal Society 46, 50–52, 58 Rujia 15, 16, 18

S

Salutati, Coluccio 36 Sandel, Michael 4, 5, 23, 146, 149, 178 Scepticism 22, 70, 103, 150 Schumacher, E.F. 137 Sciencewise 199 Security 23, 41, 42, 135, 139, 140, 142, 167, 190–192, 194, 237, 240 Selznick, Philip 6, 7, 23, 155, 158, 169–171, 183 Seneca 33 Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley Cooper) 63 Sidney, Algernon 56–58 Slavery 77, 79, 86, 115, 126, 250 Social democracy 167

267

Socialist/socialism 5, 93, 96, 97, 104, 155, 160, 168 Socrates 15–17, 21, 31, 33 Solidarity 4, 5, 8, 9, 20, 22, 99, 104–109, 115, 132–134, 136, 138, 140, 156, 166, 168, 199, 211, 229, 234 Spencer, Herbert 109 Spinoza 69 Spragens, Thomas 6, 7, 169, 171, 172, 178 Stewart, John 164 Stoics 19–21, 31, 33 Subsidiarity 8, 165, 241, 242 Suspect classification 170

T

Take Part 211 Tam, Henry 7, 9, 11, 23, 46, 102, 135, 155, 161, 179, 181–183, 197, 198, 200, 202, 210, 215, 216, 234, 241, 247, 251, 254 Tawney, R.H. 136, 139 Taylor, Charles 4, 5, 23, 146, 150, 178, 206, 245 Thompson, William 96 Thrasymachus 20, 31 Toland, John 72 Tönnies, Ferdinand 98, 99, 106 Totalitarian 65, 127, 133, 135 Traditions 2, 62, 71, 77, 81, 85, 92, 99, 148, 149, 158, 182, 190 Transgender 206, 227

U

Universal (basic) income 145, 237

268

Index

Universal Declaration of Human Rights 142 Upbeat Communities 204 Utopia 41, 42, 97, 129

V

Values 8, 9, 31, 44, 99, 105, 106, 129, 132, 146, 148, 149, 151, 169, 171–175, 177, 180, 182, 188, 190, 225, 253 Virtue 17, 168, 172

Worker involvement/cooperative 2–9, 21, 22, 50, 65, 76, 81–83, 98, 99, 104, 107, 109, 119, 127, 129, 136, 140–142, 156, 158, 161, 164, 168, 175, 178, 180, 181, 187, 189, 197, 202, 203, 206, 211, 214, 216, 231, 234, 235, 246 World Wide Views (WWViews) 200

X

Xunzi 18, 31 Xu Xing 19

W

Walzer, Michael 4, 5, 23, 146, 151, 178, 246 Wilkins, John 49, 50, 52, 58 William of Ockham 35 Winstanley, Gerrard 42–45, 79, 94 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 150 Wollstonecraft, Mary 81–86 Women rights/women equality 83, 86

Y

Yang Zhu 19, 31 Young, Iris Marion 157 Young, Michael 144

Z

Zeno of Citium 20 Zhuangzi 19, 30