Lesson 13: A Politics of the Common Good
(Sandel, Chapter 10)
Sandel ends his book championing a new politics of the common good, and suggests four possible themes that would support it.
Citizenship, sacrifice, and service. He writes “If a just society requires a strong sense of community, it must find a way to cultivate in citizens a concern for the whole, a dedication to the common good.” He believes our public schools and military once contributed to this by bringing young people from different backgrounds together. Because that is not happening any more, he recommends proposals, such as helping students with college tuition in exchange for so-many hours of public service.
The moral limits of the market. He laments expanding “markets and market reasoning into spheres of life traditionally governed by non-market norms,” such as using mercenaries in the military and prison systems, selling humans and parts for profit, paying people for doing what used to be a moral obligation. He believes we have to start talking about the dangers of making profit the motive for all social activities.
Inequality, solidarity, and civic virtue. He and many others believe a just society can not survive with the extreme separation of the rich and poor we find today. It does not take much to see that the rich and poor increasingly lead separate lives; or to perceive the separation leads to a tyranny where wealth controls all. One proposal for rectifying this is to make a concerted effort to rebuild the commons we have lost. This would involve public places, such as parks, schools, community centers, and public schools. It would, also, involve public events, such as concerts, plays, debates, and group meetings.
We obviously are moving in the opposite direction when we open public lands to private industrialization. Also, left unsaid is the necessity to redefine what we mean by private property.
Ivan Illich felt the restoration of the commons involves rediscovering the virtue of friendship. Rather than depending on the government and experts to do everything for us, we would be encouraged to do our own community planning.
A politics of moral engagement. Sandel feels we have to acknowledge the role of ethics and religion in politics and law. He is confident we can do this and still have discussions about our common good on the basis of mutual respect. He ends the book with “A politics of moral engagement is not only a more inspiring ideal than a politics of avoidance. It is also a more promising basis for a just society.”
My face-to-face classes were generally pessimistic about these proposals. They pointed to the uncivil ways we have been arguing about abortion and sex. I am more optimistic, based on my experience with small groups in which diverse people are free to express themselves and encouraged to listen others with different opinions. My only rule for such groups is “no put downs.” It works amazingly well.
Gene Outka suggests such groups could be based on all acknowledging the Golden Rule, accepting truth telling as a standard, and agreeing to disagree.
What do you think about Sandel’s proposals?
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I suppose this is more of a question for everyone than a response. And it’s one that I don’t think I’m expressing very well. But I hope you can feel that I’m curious and open to what you might have to say.
As some background I’m from the Midwest in the USA in a swing state (Iowa). I’m a swing voter myself, and I’ve known quite a few people along the spectrum from right-wing to left-wing (and off into Libertarian territory etc.) who were Christians.
However the left-wing Christians I have discussed politics since I was a teen in the 90s never really described their positions in terms of faith. Rather they had the common view that Sandel discussed in the chapter where they felt they were either obliged to, or at least allowed to, set their faith aside when it comes to political discourse or the ballot box. There was always a sort of feeling that many of the leftist policies were bad news for Christianity, but that was overridden by a particular issue that was important to them, or the general idea of not “shoving your faith down someone’s throat” in our multicultural society.
The views that seem to be held by some in this group seem to be very much to the left (or perhaps towards Sandel’s Communitarianism), but there seems to be an invocation of faith involved in choosing those positions as opposed to setting it aside.
What I’m curious about is how faith centric leftism works, and how you see the church operating in the sort of political environment you would like to see.
Is there an idea that we can get out ahead of popular culture? Does it involve some significant alterations to how public institutions work now in order to make it viable? I.e. At the moment in the US there are generally restrictions on religious expression, especially Christian, in public places and institutions. At the moment home schooling is on the rise in the US not so much because people feel that the instruction is inadequate but because they do not like the culture and values that our public schools either actively teach or tolerate. I can feel some of that pressure myself as the generally fun Mayfair at my daughters elementary school played music extolling the fun of getting drunk and having a threesome and so on. So expanding and improving public institutions and spaces as Sandel describes seems counter to Christianity, while privatizing them seems like it would be beneficial.