Communitarianism

Communitarianism refers to various social and political theories that broadly share an emphasis on, first, the social nature of human existence, and, second, the advantages of a society based on strong, shared moral values. Many communitarians also emphasize the role of religion, work, and family in sustaining such a society. Communitarian ideas arose to prominence in the 1980s, in part as responses to neoliberal governments, which were seen as promoting individualism and, [Page 125]according to some of their critics, thus condoning materialism and selfishness.

There are two main varieties of communitarianism—philosophical and sociological. Philosophical communitarians oppose abstract ideas that are prominent in contemporary liberalism (notably, the thin concept of self and the priority of the right over the good). They argue that we are embedded in communities, traditions, and ways of life, which give us our values, identities, and loyalties. They also argue that we can justify moral principles, at least initially, only from within communities and traditions. However, it is the sociological communitarians that have had an impact on contemporary governance, mainly by inspiring some policies of welfare reform. Sociological communitarians insist on the importance of strong, shared values as a prerequisite of a well-functioning society. The leading exponent of such communitarianism is Amitai Etzioni, who spent a year in the White House as a senior adviser on domestic affairs, and who later founded the Communitarian Network.

Sociological communitarians deploy a temporal narrative to explicate their main ideas. Etzioni argues that the 1950s were, at least in the United States, a time of stable values and so a viable community. A widely shared set of values, based to some degree on the dominance of Christianity, gave people a strong sense of duty to family, community, and society. Although the society based on these values involved coercive breaks on autonomy, especially for groups such as women and ethnic minorities, it had an admirable moral vitality. For Etzioni, moral vitality is the foundation of social order and so of primary importance, even though it involves a loss of autonomy. He argues that we need a balance between community and autonomy, between individual rights and social responsibilities. Whereas the 1950s exhibited an admirable community, the 1960s and 1970s brought an excess of autonomy, which was apparent in the growing sense of entitlement, the neglect of responsibilities, the decline in respect for authority, and consequent social problems, including a welfare dependency widely associated with the underclass. Communitarians often identify the source of this excess of autonomy in the countercultural movements of the 1960s. They believe these movements undermined values such as hard work and thrift, while also encouraging new socioeconomic patterns, such as the entry of women into the labor market, which limited the time people could give to family and voluntary action in the community. The consequent excess of autonomy appeared in both welfare liberalism and neoliberalism.

Communitarians typically argue for a reassertion of strong values to stop the moral drift that they believe has occurred since the early 1960s. They associate strong values with religion, work, and family. In this view, work and family teach people responsibility and self-reliance, while also involving them in society. Work and family bolster self-esteem, purpose, and the sense of contributing to a community. And work and family encourage people to relate their individual choices to their collective responsibilities. Hence, many communitarians advocate welfare-to-work programs and measures to support families. William Galston has argued, for example, that the state should promote marriage actively, while making divorce more difficult for couples with children. Many communitarians suggest that just such an emphasis on work and family is the best way to attack poverty. They think that stable intact families offer the best solution to poverty for children. They also think that paid employment offers the best solution to the adult poverty of the underclass. More generally still, communitarians advocate policies to promote family and work as ways of ensuring a general shift from a culture of autonomy toward one of community. They want to reestablish a link between rights and responsibilities; they want to tie the rights we enjoy to our fulfillment of corresponding duties. In their view, much of the value of work and family derives from the fact that they are where we learn best to be responsible: The state is, in contrast, the paradigmatic institution from which we demand rights.

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