Reclaiming America

|Peter Boettke|

I have recently written about the wonderful work of Richard Corneulle on the "independent sector" and Cornuelle's efforts to 'starve the state of responsibility'.  But as Jerry O'Driscoll reports over at Think Markets, Dave Beito's work on mutual aid societies is fundamental to this reclamation project.  The work our research group did on the response to Katrina should also be mentioned, but Beito's work is fundamental.

Comments

[Rafe Champion]

The trade unions could have evolved as mutual aid societies (indeed some did) but most took the militant and destructive road of the "strike threat system" which has undermined freedom, the rule of law, employment and economic growth.

Sadly many private charities in Australia are nowadays crying poor and seeking government funding which of course comes with strings attached and sucks them into the web of big government.

[Doug Norton]

It's good to see Cornuelle's name mentioned, I'm a big fan. Do you think that 1) If people saw an increase in aid provided through the independent sector, that 2) They would view government sponsorship of that activity unnecessary?

This view sees government as a commitment device and that people will use government in the absence of strong alternative institutions. Is there something to this commitment device argument?

[Rafe Champion]

Maybe it was Cornuelle who wrote a thought-provoking piece, possibly in Reason many years ago, saying that libertarians spent too much time theorising and pontificating about The State, Freedom, Reason and Justice, and did not pay enough attention to the countless organs and agencies of civil society.

Michael Novack similarly noted the ethics of independence, self-help and community service that thrived in US pioneering communities, the archetypical activities being the barnraising and building the church and the community school (the little red schoolhouse!). By a nice coincidence a google on little red schoolhouse turns up a contemporary school of that name which is progressive/innovative and also privately funded!

[Peter Boettke]

Doug,

Great question. There are many reasons why empirical evidence might not be enough to persuade those who are accustomed to the state having that responsibility. Dick Corneulle addresses this issue in both De-Managing and in Healing.

But the bottom line is that we must reclaim that responsibility for the independent sector. What will be most successful is yet to be determined, but certainly just doing it (e.g., homeschooling, social entrepreneurship, etc., etc.) is more important than studying it. Cornuelle was an idealist and a compassionate activist. I prefer his form of libertarianism in action to any of the politicized notions of libertarian activism any day of the week.

Pete

[K Sralla]

Pete,

I have now read Reclaiming America. First of all, what Richard Cornuelle outlines in his book is very intuitive and nostalgic to a fellow Presbyterian.

This may sound off the wall (and maybe I'm betraying the secret handshake), but what Dick outlines appears to me a very traditional "Calvinist" way of viewing society. Maybe we could call Dick's particular rendition "Mises meets the Puritan divines".

His views certainly expand beyond the church to include the entire range of the independent sector, and he does not exclude anyone from participation, but this book is largely an outline of the mainly unspoken yet prevalant tradition of "community" which resided within mainstreet Protestantism from very early in U.S. history. I suppose one must "indwell" this tradition in order to see the solid connection in Cornuelle's book, but this view (Dick's) is the utopian view of community that many folks grew up believing in, yet not really knowing why.

Tocqueville draws this out in Democracy in America in his exposition of the "good" aspects of New England Puritanism. Without dwelling on the bad aspects of Puritanism, the independent institutions which emerged very early in the history of the U.S. were largely a carryover from what had already been developing in England and Scotland, and which the early American's had the sense not to toss out.

As I read this book, I could not help but picture those mainstreet business folks and community activists in small towns of yesteryear, populating these independent institutions. In many small towns, these institutions are still alive in many ways.

As a sidenote, the copy of the book that I recieved in the mail had a jacket obviously from the late 1960's, and nice comments from the likes of George Romney, Richard Nixon, and Saul Alinskey. Did Dick ever talk to you about this rather comical book jacket? Strange bedfellows indeed, but maybe this was the point.

Final point: My fear is that some will instinctively view Dick's vision as "social conservatism" and react against it. They indeed intuitively picture Puritan society and the schoolbook portrait of it as being "all bad" and utterly repressive. I suspect many libertarians feel this way.