The Spirit of Community: Rights, Responsibilities and the Communitarian Agenda

Arguing that Americans must assume responsibilities commensurate with their rights, Etzioni, a founder of the Responsive Community movement, accessibly describes the movement's tenets of societal reconstruction. Communitarians, he avers, are neither majoritarians nor puritans, but believe that societal morality must be shored up through policies that strengthen child care, discourage divorce, promote moral education in schools and require high school graduates to perform national service. He calls for local communities to foster volunteerism and for a balance between self-help and social justice. Criticizing libertarians, Etzioni suggests moderate restraints on privacy like sobriety checkpoints and greater testing for HIV. To combat hate speech, he encourages not censorship but more speech. Perhaps least controversial is his Naderesque advocacy of public financing of elections, a ban on PACs and free broadcast time for candidates. Etzioni slights the question of income redistribution and the influence of pop culture, but his manifesto is a worthy starting point for debate. (Apr.)