From GPWiki

NEW - 2010 - TAKE A GOOD LOOK AROUND: HELLO - THE ARENA FOR CHANGE - CHANGING THE WAY THE 21ST CENTURY ORGANIZATION THINKS AND WORKS - ALL THINGS CAN BE SOLVED BY 24 CONVERSATIONS - AND THEN VISIT THE 'PIXAR' OF CONSULTING - The 21st CENTURY ORGANIZATION - WICKED PROBLEMS - THE AWESOME POWER OF MEANING - SIGNS - STRUCTURED VISUAL THINKING™' - 4D™ - THE MEANING MAKING MACHINE - 4D™' - WINNING THE BIG BIDS - 'KEVIN HOFFBERG'S 'BLOG' AND JOHN CASWELL'S 'JUST THINK' BLOG - MAIN PAGE - THE TRAINING SECTION - THE TECHNOLOGY VISION- INSIGHTS AND CREATIVITY AT WORK - EXPLAINING HOW TO CREATE A VISION MODEL - LATEST THINKING

Friday 10 of September, 2010

Associative Democracy: New Forms of Economic and Social Governance. By Paul Hirst. Amerherst: University of Massachusetts Press

Associationalism's history is that of a socialist alternative to statist collectivism in the 19th and early 20th century Europe, finding expression in Friendly Societies for social insurance and the Cooperative Movement. Paul Hirst recovers associationalism and decouples it from socialism. The result is an important contribution to democratic theory and to the way we think about organizing the economy and social welfare. Associative democracy would renew society from the bottom up through free association.

Hirst's context is the systemic crisis occasioned by the collapse of state socialism, the less spectacular but equally profound failure of market liberal experiments in the Anglo-American world, and loss of faith in the "pragmatic halfway house" of social democracy. His response is not itself systemic, for associative democracy is not a blueprint for an alternative system (though toward the end of the book Hirst does explain how a fully associative system might work). The idea is to supplement existing institutions rather than replace them.

Hirst asks us to "imagine a system that combined citizen choice with public welfare". With republicans, Hirst believes that true freedom can be found only in association, not in naked individualism. But given the diversity of contemporary society, associative freedom cannot be achieved in even the best of republican states. States have failed in too many dimensions. Thus association must now be partial and voluntary.

Associative democracy would involve regional economic governance (in, for example, industrial districts) and public/private partnerships. Business accountability to workers and communities would counter current trends toward economic transnationalization. The economic successes of Japan and European corporatist countries suggests to Hirst that a cooperative economy is functional (though he opposes the statist and exclusive aspects of corporatism).

Hirst devotes special attention to the organization of welfare (encompassing health, education, and social insurance) and how it might be detached from the welfare state. His criticisms of the welfare state are familiar. His remedy is original. Individuals would choose where to get their welfare from an array of self-organized associations. Each such association would be a partnership of providers and recipients, funded partly from general taxation, partly from a guaranteed minimum income to all individuals. Welfare associations would compete for the custom of clients.

Society cannot live by association alone, and Hirst recognizes the hazards of unregulated association. To prevent (for example) the organization of an Aryan Bigots' Education Association, Hirst proposes a vigorous public sphere that would transcend associations. His second remedy is more familiar: the state, now interpreted as "the association of associations". This body would use liberal constitutionalist principles to determine who should be denied public funds, and what common standards should be dictated (for example, a core educational curriculum to promote individuation; p. 202).

Hirst expects far less of his state than does the other flavor of associative democracy currently on offer, associated with the names Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers. Cohen and Rogers want the state to actively create the right kind of associations; Hirst notes, rightly, that this is not the kind of state that does, or perhaps can, exist. Hirst's own state would merely facilitate association. Yet it turns out that the state still has to do a great deal of nurturing-for example, by establishing finance mechanisms. With the power of the purse comes power, and so the centralized state creeps back in.

Hirst is inattentive to constraints upon associationalist reform emanating from three environments. The first is the natural environment: he has little to say about how associational democracies might confront ecological crises. The second is the international environment-the threat of war does much to explain why we have centralized states in the first place. The third is the economic environment: disinvestment might well punish associationalist experiments.

It would be asking too much to have all these potential difficulties resolved within the pages of a single book. and doubtless associative experiments would shed light on these issues. The basic model has many attractions, and Associative Democracy is an important contribution to contemporary debates in political economy and public policy. It deserves to be read widely.

John S. Dryzek - University of Melbourne