New Statesman & Society,
3 March 1995
Paul Anderson and Kevin Davey talk to the guru of the communitarian movement,
Amitai Etzioni
Amitai Etzioni
has no doubt that communitarianism is as
relevant to Britain as it is to the United
States. "Your trends are American,"
he says. "In the UK you now have
rising crime, the dismemberment of
the family, drug abuse and corruption in
politics. Look at us and learn. We have a crisis of values. The institutions
essential to a civil society are being destroyed. Is this where you want to go ?"
Even though the book in which
Etzioni outlines the basic philosophy of the communitarian
movement, The Spirit of Community, is not yet published here, his arguments have already attracted the attention of the political class and the media – and they will get more the week after next, when he addresses a conference in London organised by the think-tank Demos and sponsored by the Times. But can an approach based on the idea that people have too many rights and not enough responsibilities really take root in a
country that doesn't even have a bill of rights?
Etzioni is insistent that it can, dismissing
along the way the charge that he is an authoritarian. "All societies face
the same basic questions," he
says. "They either veer in the
direction of too much individualism or towards too much collectivism. You always have to return them to a point of balance. In the US, we must move back from individualism towards the point of
balance. Western European societies
are closer to the point of balance. They
have a more solid communitarian foundation.
You need to worry about these things
less than we do, but you still need
to worry."
There are some liberties that
British citizens lack, Etzioni admits.
All the same, he approves of the restrictions on the right to silence in the Criminal Justice Act. "People here plead the fifth amendment. You have the same problem but you've done something about it by diminishing the right not to self-incriminate. That's an attempt to correct an imbalance. Another example is your introduction of surveillance cameras into public places.
That's another attempt to redress the
balance between public safety, the common
good and private interests. You're
actually having the same debate but
using different terminology. You use different
tools, but the issues are the same,
and they're unavoidable. No society
can avoid the question of where to draw the line."
Not that this is simply a
matter of legislative changes. Etzioni demands nothing less than a transformation of the way people behave. Put simply, we must all embrace our responsibilities without coercion.
The only incentive is that it is right to
do so." If there is no civil order we risk a police state. We must aim for a moral dialogue and agreement on what is right. We cannot leave everything to the state. We must take
responsibility in our families and communities."
On both sides of the Atlantic,
such ideas are attractive to politicians who doubt their ability to generate full employment or sustain the welfare state. Etzioni has given them a crusade that can take place despite austerity. But it would be wrong to paint Etzioni as an enthusiast for self-help who would like the welfare state to wither away. If the resources were available, he
says, he would have no hesitation about
strengthening public services. "
I share the ideal that life should be made
as easy as possible. But in reality we have to choose what we want
to use the resources for. My priority would
be children, children, children. We
have to recognise scarcity. By doing
things for one another, we protect
the welfare state. We threaten the
welfare state when we overload
it."
The welfare of children is
the bedrock for a good society, and the
reinforcement of the family essential, he says. "I simply ask this: Are children in our society receiving the parental and societal attention they are due? How do things compare to 20 years ago? Everyone is working hard and long hours. That results in a deficit for our children. Children are not being as well attended to. They deserve more than they are getting. They have been devalued and neglected."
Feminists argue that the communitarians take a far too sanguine view of the traditional family and have acted as cheer-leaders
for those on the right who would like to see
women returning to the home. Etzioni
says that they are misunderstanding
his position. "I agree with the
feminists that we need to do more to enable
parents to be parents," he says. "There
must be more maternity and paternity
leave. Fathers and mothers both need
to increase their investment in children. And it's true that in some cases relationships between parents are very bad, and divorce is preferable to marriage. But on average it takes three parents to
bring up a child. Parents, uncles and aunts, grandparents, sometimes the whole
village, are necessary. It's a very labour
intensive job.
"Some single parents do well by their children, others don't. But all things being
equal, I'd rather give a child three parents
than one. Two is the absolute minimum to bring up a child under normal conditions. Take any measurement you
want – criminality, drug abuse, performance
at school, asocial behaviour – and you'll see that it's obvious."
Etzioni is equally dismissive
of critics who say that his notion of community is merely nostalgic. "It's no good saying that we can go back to the days of one community," he says. "We are members of many
communities. Communities nestle within one
another in many layers, with many
levels of loyalty. We must see each of our communities as part of
ever larger and more encompassing communities, so that a community of communities can be developed at the level of the nation, the continent, or even the world."
