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This book explores the standards for political institutions and conflicting appeals made by major political movements, providing a normative perspective on politics. It emphasizes the importance of cumulative improvements in social institutions and the need for equal distribution of wealth in a democratic government. The book also discusses universal principles and the obligations individuals have towards their fellow humans. Overall, it offers insights on how to devise and organize institutions for a good society.
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Cooperative Individualism: The Third Way to the Just Society LESSON 9 The Common Sense of Politics
“There have been almost no positive efforts, on the part of leading twentieth-century writers, to address themselves to the problems of politics in a normative manner. Normative political philosophy has almost ceased to exist and has been supplanted, in the literature and teaching of the subject, by historical studies and descriptive discourse. …”
“This book tries to provide … the standards for judging political institutions, past and present, and for assessing the conflicting appeals made by the major political movements of the day.”
“The facts of history, even when they are without exceptions, do not demonstrate universal laws and should not mislead us into thinking that the past shows us what the future must necessarily be like.”
“[T]he political revolutionist is one who seeks to improve human life or society by institutional changes of one sort or another – through supplanting one set of institutions by another. In contrast, the anarchistic revolutionist … is one who seeks to improve human life or society by non-institutional means or, what is the same, by emancipating mankind from the trammels of the state.”
“I am asserting … that all the progress that has so far been made in the social life of man has been accomplished by cumulative improvements in man’s social institutions, without any improvement – indeed, without any significant change – in the nature of man.”
“Where there is anything like an equal distribution of wealth … the more democratic the government the better it will be; but where there is gross inequality in the distribution of wealth, the more democratic the government the worse it will be; for, while rotten democracy may not in itself be worse than rotten autocracy, its effects upon national character will be worse. …”
“Universal principles constitute the framework – the broad outline or plan – within which sound solutions can be and must be developed. They point us in the right direction. The framework they provide is like a map that helps us to find our way to our destination, even though it does not tell us everything that we need to know in order to get there.”
“What institutions should be devised and how should they be organized and operated in order to produce a good society?”
“The fact that all men have the same natural rights stems from the fact that all men have the same natural needs. Therefore, what is really good for any man is really good for all men. …”
“An individual’s obligations toward his fellow men derive from the natural rights that are theirs as well as his. His direct obligations in justice to other individuals are all negative. They require him, as far as that is possible, to do nothing that inflicts injury on them by depriving them of the things they need in order to make good lives for themselves.”
“… rights to life, security of life and limb, a decent livelihood, freedom from coercion, political liberty, educational opportunities, medical care, sufficient free time for pursuits of leisure, and so on…”
“One of the fundamental principles of politics … is the proposition that society cannot exist without government and without the exercise of coercive force by government. The truth of this proposition is crucial to the issue between the political philosopher and the philosophical anarchist. But the truth of this proposition rests – in part at least – on the fact that aggressive tendencies are present in some, if not all, members of society, varying in degree from individual to individual.”
Justice PRIVILEGE
“Things that were not thought feasible at an earlier time, or were not even thought about at all, become at a later time and under radically altered social conditions, aspects of the experienced reality of social life. Man’s altered vision of what is politically possible in the light of what has been actually achieved gives rise to new increments of political wisdom in the formation of the political ideal, involving possibilities still to be realized.”
“The transition from despotic regimes to the constitutional government of republics is an advance in justice; the democratization of republics marks a further increase in justice; and the socialization of democracies enlarges justice still further.”
TRUTH!!! The Earth is Our Commons And our Shared Birthright
“… clarifying their meaning, deepening our understanding of their truth, relating them to other truths, and solving the problems that we become aware of when we accept them as true.”
“[T]he family and the tribal or village community, while natural as well as conventional, are nearer to the so-called ‘state of nature’ than civil society to whatever extent they, as independent communities, fail to provide all the goods of communal life, including peace, that man needs in order to achieve a good human life.”
“[T]he political philosopher is as concerned as the anarchist is with all the injustices that can afflict men living in states and under governments, but his concern is with their rectification or removal by every remedy short of anarchy. With each injustice that can be removed, there is a degree of justice to be established; and since each facet of injustice can be rectified, a perfectly just state and government is conceivable and attainable, even if that ideal has not yet been completely realized.”
“The truth of the matter is that that government governs best that governs most justly, regardless of the amount of government that is required to achieve the fullest possible realization of the ideal of justice.”
“ … that every man has at least the indispensable minimum of economic goods that he needs for a good life. …They are all haves; none is a have-not, an economically deprived person, prevented by economic deprivation from leading a good life.”
“The fourth form of capitalism … has no existing embodiment. Unlike the mixed economy, it moves toward economic welfare and economic equality for all by going in the opposite direction from communism [by replacing] the concentrated ownership of capital, whether public or private, by a diffused or universally distributed ownership of capital in private hands. ....”
“Its ultimate aim is to make every citizen also a capitalist, one who derives all or at least part of his income from his ownership of income-producing property, replacing or supplementing his earnings from labor.”
“Taxes should reflect and promote sound public policies. The real property tax, which is the main support of local, municipal and county governments, reflects and promotes almost every unsound public policy imaginable. …”
“The tax system almost compels the buyer of land to become a speculator. If he improves his land, his property tax will rise. If he improves it, and gets any revenue from it, his property tax and his income tax will rise. …”
“If, on the other hand, he sits on the land, does nothing with it and finally sells it at a great profit, he will pay little by way of property tax and will be taxed on the profit at the favorable rates applied to capital gains. …”
“The remedy is absurdly simple. It is to take the tax off the improvements and put it on the land. The owner would then be taxed on what the community had done for him in raising the value of his land. He would not be punished for what he had done to build up the community by using his land.”
