What is Communitarianism?

[kandrathe]

I can't say I see Bush's doctrines post-2001 as an extension of the "compassionate conservative" doctrine at all. What seems much more fitting to me is that the airy-fairy centrist-sounding "compassionate" meme was essentially an advertising scheme to return to Reagan-era politics. Once 9/11 "changed everything", the facade became entirely redundant, or even a liability, and the neoconservative hawks moved into the limelight. The public, by that point, had become much less interested in post-partisan huggy-feel-good crap, and much more interested in muscular, testosterone-laden "with us or against us" governance. The erosion of constitutionally guaranteed freedoms under the PATRIOT act were justified entirely on the second philosophy, not the first.

Yes, I agree in principle. I still think the "thousand points of light" agenda was in play with extending government funding to religious and other communitarian causes that previously had operated without government. The extension of Medicare part D, the Federal funding of prescription drugs. Many private colleges I worked with during the Bush years bowed to or contemplated getting into bed with Federal grant monies and the strings attached (meaning mostly secular intrusion).

And, and I'm sure you could guess, I certainly do not agree that locking people up without Habeas Corpus, violating privacy through wiretapping and illegal search and seizure, or kissing the Geneva Conventions goodbye are in any sense "just as chilling" as some milquetoast suggestions that maybe the individual is not the first, last and only concept in liberty.

It is my fault, I am probably comparing apples to oranges there, in that the results of the Patriot Act, or Bush executive power grab (under the auspices of a perpetual war on terror) is not comparable to merely a collectivist philosophy. What I'm trying to say is that authoritarianism by left or right is ugly, which on the one hand is all the things you cited and on the other results in such things as the Khmer Rouge killing fields. All done for the greater good, and both sides are in opposition to individualism.

[Taem]

So, Meat, maybe "socialism" is the wrong word for a modern world.

Communitarianism, being an "ism," better defines most cultures out there, however I feel my understanding of socialism still stands, broad as it may be. Here is a snippet of Socialism from Wiki:

Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating public or state ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and a society characterized by equal opportunities for all individuals, with a fair or egalitarian method of compensation. Modern socialism originated in the late 19th-century working class political movement, and in an intellectual movement that criticized the effects of industrialization and private ownership on society. Karl Marx posited that socialism would be achieved via class struggle and a proletarian revolution, and would represent a transitional stage between capitalism and communism.

Socialists mainly share the belief that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of society that controls capital, creates an unequal society, and does not provide equal opportunities for everyone in society. Therefore socialists advocate the creation of a society in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly based on the amount of work expended, although there is considerable disagreement among socialists over how, and to what extent this could be achieved.

Socialism is not a concrete philosophy of fixed doctrine and program; its branches advocate a degree of social interventionism and economic rationalization, sometimes opposing each other. Another dividing feature of the socialist movement is the split between reformists and the revolutionaries on how a socialist economy should be established. Some socialists advocate complete nationalization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange; others advocate state control of capital within the framework of a market economy. Socialists inspired by the Soviet model of economic development have advocated the creation of centrally planned economies directed by a state that owns all the means of production. Others, including Yugoslavian, Hungarian, Polish and Chinese Communists in the 1970s and 1980s, instituted various forms of market socialism, combining co-operative and state ownership models with the free market exchange and free price system (but not prices for the means of production). Social democrats propose selective nationalization of key national industries in mixed economies and tax-funded welfare programs and the regulation of markets. Libertarian socialism (including social anarchism and libertarian Marxism) rejects state control and ownership of the economy altogether and advocates direct collective ownership of the means of production via co-operative workers' councils and workplace democracy.

Truth is, there is not a single culture that does not have socialistic elements within its economic policy. Those on these boards who said Democracy and Socialism can go hand-in-hand are correct, and if you look at all the examples in America alone of socialistic tendencies in the other thread, it's obviously true. So, Socialism is much too broad of a term to define what I was attempting to point the finger at in my original thread. In retrospect, would I define what I was trying to say as Nationalism, Communism, Communitarianism, or just plain old fashioned paranoia? I can't really say. The conjecture has been fun, however I said my peace about the subject in my first two posts of the other thread. I don't hold any conspiracy theory thoughts, nor horde complex paranoia's for weeks on end - this subject has run its course for me unless something new comes up relating to the issues I see, or an issue I mentioned becomes a "problem." Until then, my mind is at ease.

I do find these offshoot topics to be very intriguing though, especially how religion fits into the scheme.

[kandrathe]

I do find these offshoot topics to be very intriguing though, especially how religion fits into the scheme.

Well, yes, religion, ecology, education, elderly, police and fire protection and really all aspects of "civil society" can be bundled within this communitarian blanket. What makes it socialistic is the State control of what otherwise would be private enterprise. If you were to have the State assume control of all civil society, we would call that outright communism.

In our city we have a tree preservation law which requires the replanting of similar trees for every 1" diameter of a tree felled. So if you cut down a 30" diameter oak tree, you are required to plant some number of replacement oak trees in proportion to what you cut down. This would from a libertarian sense, be a pretty serious violation of property rights. Perhaps a person wishes to have nothing but lawn with zero trees. A community value therefore is that our city is mostly forested, and our communities law is enforced to keep it that way.

Another, more serious consideration might be given to water rights, or the use of an aquifer. Many thousands of people use the same underground water reserves, so say one persons contamination would affect the entire community. So, we have regulation on shared natural resources. So, at the local level, not many people have many issues with some level of communitarianism. And, "it takes a village" makes some sense.

But, what people like Dr. Etzioni do is then generalize this concept to the national or global level. So, say here in Minnesota we have an excess of water, but maybe Mexico has a drought, so the communal "right" thing to do would be for us to pack up some of our water and ship it to them. This is where some people would decide what is "right" and what I think would emerge would be the "tyranny of the common good".

An example of this type of tyranny would be the recent Supreme Court decision (Kelo v. New London) which ruled that the use of Eminent Domain by a city for improving the tax base was a legitimate taking by that city. This is a particularly troublesome decision which opens the way for any City or State to seize any property for the sole purpose of trying to generate higher tax revenues. The individuals rights (property rights) were secondary to the need for that community to generate more revenue.

Consider the implications of this quote, "When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving [sic] a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly... that they would work for the common good, as well as for the individual welfare... However, now there's a lot of irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there's too much freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it." -- Bill Clinton, April 19, 1995

These Neo-Communitarians (whomever they may really be; Bill and Hillary Clinton? Bush? Blair? Gore? Obama?) distrust and dislike voluntary communities. The Robert Bellah (the one to which Bill Clinton gave the Medal) that I mentioned above has written extensively that the only true community is one created and controlled by a democratically elected political power, which also happens to mean that of the largest political unit possible whether that be State, National, or Global. To him, small units, whether voluntary associations or smaller units of government, do not represent enough of "we the People" to properly represent the "General Will" (Rousseau) of the community. This is a chilling shift in the view of the benevolence of democracy and of large government. What it shows is that these Neo-Communitarians are not basically advocates of ad-hoc real communities, but they are statists and collectivists who confuse their own benevolent intentions, if they were in power, with what such a government would be like operating under the incentives for corruption that are created in the sort of unrestrained and absolutist, indeed totalitarian, government that they desire. Just as with Neo-Con's, no one came out and said, "I'm a Neo-Con". But, after a decade of Neo-Con tampering with the world one must ask, "If you knew in 1990 what you know now, would you have done anything differently?"

[Occhidiangela]

All Clinton did was say that the movement towards stronger gun controls was not so much a movement "leftward" as much as a movement "forward, a communitarian movement".

Which makes it a sentiment directed at increasing the sheep quotient.

I have no doubt Clinton has more sympathy for (and support from) the Communitarian Network than the NRA, but what they have quoted him as saying sounds more like fuzzy Clinton weaselspeak than an endorsement of a political agenda.

I'll buy that.

Classic "third way" nonsense, trying to sound post-partisan by invoking terms that nobody really understands, in order to distance oneself from the label of the "left".

I see by your sarcasm that you are a fan of the standing false dichotomy. Good to know.

Was that merely a Freudian slip, or were you being sloppy?

In a less snide tone, what's your take on Distributism?

Similar son of a different mother?

Occhi

[Jester]

I see by your sarcasm that you are a fan of the standing false dichotomy. Good to know.

Was that merely a Freudian slip, or were you being sloppy?

I'm sure I'm going to regret responding to yet another belligerent, words-in-my-mouth taunt, but here goes.

"Right" and "left" are not well defined, nor do they form a useful spectrum. However, they have at least come to vaguely imply a pair of culturally driven political alliances. The terms are not useless, however nebulous they might be.

The "third way" doesn't even make it to that feeble standard. There is no coherent idea behind it at all. It is a cynical branding exercise, and its adherents tend to be about as slippery and vague as good Mr. Clinton was.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

I'm sure I'm going to regret responding to yet another belligerent, words-in-my-mouth taunt, but here goes.

"Right" and "left" are not well defined, nor do they form a useful spectrum. However, they have at least come to vaguely imply a pair of culturally driven political alliances. The terms are not useless, however nebulous they might be.

The "third way" doesn't even make it to that feeble standard. There is no coherent idea behind it at all. It is a cynical branding exercise, and its adherents tend to be about as slippery and vague as good Mr. Clinton was.

-Jester

Yeah, left moves right and right moves left and pretty soon you just have a pile of ambidextrous idiots that no one is happy with.

[Occhidiangela]

I'm sure I'm going to regret responding to yet another belligerent, words-in-my-mouth taunt, but here goes.

"Right" and "left" are not well defined, nor do they form a useful spectrum. However, they have at least come to vaguely imply a pair of culturally driven political alliances. The terms are not useless, however nebulous they might be.

The "third way" doesn't even make it to that feeble standard. There is no coherent idea behind it at all. It is a cynical branding exercise, and its adherents tend to be about as slippery and vague as good Mr. Clinton was.

-Jester

Since you offered nothing new there in that post, I see nothing of substance to reply to. But I'll do it anyway.

I am fully aware of the dynamics of the simplistic "right and left paragidm," the weakness of such a shallow way of viewing the world, regardless of its popularity, and the character of polemicists who try and perpetuate it.

Please dont be one. Too bad you didn't grow up in the seventies.

To pretend that there is no third way is damned foolishness. Third ways, or proposals of alternate assumptions, crop up with varying frequency. Where do you think the Third World comes from, in a conceptual sense?

To allege out that a third way can't exist, as you suggest, conveniently overlooks the multiparty systems in many parliamentary governments, in Europe if not elsewhere. While the big hand to little map approach offers a reductionism of those variations on themes into your convenient pigeon holes of "left" and "right" (which we agree is a less than ideal model, it seems) details matter to the advocates of those parties and positions.

Beyond that. I'd like an answer to my question to you:

What is your take on Distributism?

Occhi

[Jester]

Occhi,

I'm not talking about the impossiblity of any way but rightism and leftism, and to the extent that this is "damn foolishness", you're certainly not arguing against any position I hold. I'm taking about THE third way, the managerialist, wishy-washy creed of Clinton, Blair, and their ilk. They just take the existing political right and the political left, extract bits from both, make weak tea out of it, and sell it to the people with a hearty dose of artificial sweetener.

Distributism I'd never heard of before you mentioned it, so I have little to go on. Reading through the wikipedia article, it sounds vaguely similar to the kinds of guild socialism Bertrand Russell advocated. The idea of any particular family structure being "fundamental" is not one I like, and it probably speaks to the catholic origins of the doctrine, which also does not endear it to me. I have lots of sympathy for cooperative ventures, but I think the inherent instability of that way of operating a business makes it more of a tool for specific cases than a general model for the organization of an economy.

Incidentally, it also sounds like the opposite of the "third way" that I was talking about.

-Jester

[Occhidiangela]

Occhi,

I'm not talking about the impossiblity of any way but rightism and leftism, and to the extent that this is "damn foolishness", you're certainly not arguing against any position I hold. I'm taking about THE third way, the managerialist, wishy-washy creed of Clinton, Blair, and their ilk.

Since I wasn't referring to that, back there, not sure why you brought it up. Not a Clinton fan, ya see.

They just take the existing political right and the political left, extract bits from both, make weak tea out of it, and sell it to the people with a hearty dose of artificial sweetener.

Is finding common ground so bad, where it can be found? Must it all be polemics?

Distributism I'd never heard of before you mentioned it, so I have little to go on. Reading through the wikipedia article, it sounds vaguely similar to the kinds of guild socialism Bertrand Russell advocated. The idea of any particular family structure being "fundamental" is not one I like, and it probably speaks to the catholic origins of the doctrine, which also does not endear it to me. I have lots of sympathy for cooperative ventures, but I think the inherent instability of that way of operating a business makes it more of a tool for specific cases than a general model for the organization of an economy.

Incidentally, it also sounds like the opposite of the "third way" that I was talking about.

-Jester

I had not offered it as an alternative, what I raised it for was in relation to the topic of this thread, the concept of the community (communitarianism or whatever) as an allegedly legitimate social construct.

Not sure why you don't ascribe to family, tribe, clan, it's the fundamental social unit for most of recorded history. It is what the concept of nation aggregates up from. Having something in common is a requirement for social cohesion. Nations doesn't scale up perfectly, of course, but rather seem to me to be the limits of scale on the social/political level at all. That may smack of Wilsonianism, may not, but it seems to me what the evidence of history and contemporary experience shows. How any group self defines as a nation is, of course, variable.

No cookie cutters.

As to Distributism, I too find the imbedded Catholic/Papist foundation troublling. Also, the the Mondragon experiment's local/clannish foundation considered, I am pretty sure it would, even in successful practice, reach the scalability limit and not be able to go any further.

What I wanted to relate it to is the issue of common cultural assumptions.

Distributism relies on them, IMO heavily, and even too heavily for it to be applicable in other than limited cases.

The OP concept, in contrast, wishes create some such assumptions "ex nihilo," and then proclaim their virtue in absence of any evidence of success in either a temporal, or scaled, frames of reference.

Occhi

[Jester]

Is finding common ground so bad, where it can be found? Must it all be polemics?

I have no problem with finding common ground. I have a problem with the idea that relentless centrism will yield the solutions to the world's problems. The best answers to problems are no more likely to be found in the overlap between the two major parties than one's lost keys are likely to be under the lamppost.

Not sure why you don't ascribe to family, tribe, clan, it's the fundamental social unit for most of recorded history. It is what the concept of nation aggregates up from. Nations doesn't scale up all that well, of course, but it does somewhat.

Most of recorded history has been a miserable, oppressive bloodbath, and insofar as we have pulled away from that at all, it has been in the teeth of the idea that the family, tribe, clan, and especially the nation-state-as-extended-tribe is the fundamental social unit. The safest, most prosperous and most tolerant areas of the world are the places where these things are least influential, and the meanest, most violent, and most repressive are those where they hold the most sway.

As to Distributism, I too find the imbedded Catholic/Papist foundation troublling, and also, given the Mondragon experiment's local/clannish foundation, am pretty sure it would, even in successful practice, reach the scalability limit and not be able to go any further.

I agree. The Basques have a marvellous and unique culture, and wow can they cook, but it is theirs, and not everyone's. What works for them would have to be heavily adapted, at the very least, if it were to be extended or transplanted.

The OP concept, it seems to me, wishes create some "ex nihilo" as proclaim their virtue in absence of any evidence of success in either temporal, or scalable, frames of reference.

I don't understand this sentence.

-Jester