What is Communitarianism?

[kandrathe]

Perhaps, but it's hardly new politics on any global standard. The distinction between individualist and collectivist politics is as old as the hills. To give just one analysis, Samuel Beer's classic book "British Politics in the Collectivist Age" describes exactly this issue, but at a century's remove. It is at least as old as the Roman Republic, and probably much older.

Probably true. I studied computer science, not political science, so some of this is still a surprise to me.

That might have made some quantity of sense from, say, 1988 to 2001, but the last 7 years of Bush's term have surely taught us that, whatever else may be true, the two parties do not have the same vision for the US in some very, very important respects. Not least, this is true because Bush demonstrated (once "compassionate conservatism" had been buried in a shallow grave on Sept. 12, 2001) that he and his administration were about as Communitarian as the Chinese Communist Party are Anarchist.

I would disagree only that the Bush administration focus on "Common Good" or his perversion of Communitarianism extended into pre-emptive war and domestic spying. Attacks on liberty from the right are just as chilling as psuedo-collectivism from the left.

I don't think it's particularly surprising or relevant that the self-proclaimed leader of this movement both sees his own ideas in the see-what-you-want-to-see president, and also wants to publicly connect himself and his movement with the most popular political figure since Reagan. Whether Obama gives two figs for this fruit or not, I have no idea. I can't tell anything from Etzioni, except that he is very fond of his own ideas.

Lol. Etzioni is definitely a political talking head, and I too am unclear who his friends might be and how close he might be to pulling on the strings of power. His ideas, while provocative, might make him political kryptonite.