Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies (George Washington University): "Communitarians recognize that a healthy society must have a correct balance between individual autonomy and social cohesion. Much recent thinking has focused on an assumed conflict between the rights of the individual and the responsibilities of the government." Trading U.S. Rights for UN Rules

Peter Drucker's Search for Community: "He brings a communitarian philosophy to his consulting. That was something I really never heard about until Peter emphasized it in our interviews. He said that what he's all about is this search for community, the search for where people and organizations find community for noneconomic satisfaction....

      "He still is a European social communitarian, more like one of the Christian Democratic politicians. He's cynical of big government, but he believes in having an underpinning [for] the workers, so they will be most productive."

       Drucker and his communitarian philosophy -- the basic principles for the Third Way -- became the guiding light for corporations, government and churches around the world. See A Third Way and Reinventing the World

The Communitarian Network: "The Communitarian Network is a coalition of individuals and organizations who have come together to shore up the moral, social, and political environment. We are a nonsectarian, nonpartisan, transnational association."

Communitarian Network - Overview: "The DWU approach presumes that all members of a given society will fully respect and adhere to those basic values and institutions that are considered part of the basic shared framework of the society. At the same time, each group in society should be free to maintain its distinct subculture - those policies, habits, and institutions that do not conflict with the shared core - and a strong measure of loyalty to its country of origin, as long as doing so does not trump loyalty to the society in which it lives. ....The Diversity Within Unity Project was made possible by funding, in part, from The Atlantic Foundation, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York."

Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies (George Washington University): "Communitarians recognize that a healthy society must have a correct balance between individual autonomy and social cohesion. Much recent thinking has focused on an assumed conflict between the rights of the individual and the responsibilities of the government."

On Transmitting Values: "'Communitarianism does not uphold the individual's rights at all costs, nor does it impose moral solutions in an authoritarian way,' Amitai Etzioni, founder of Communitarianism, explains. Instead, it is rooted in the beliefs that 'strong rights presume strong responsibilities' and that 'moral standards should be based on consensus.' In this interview with Educational Leadership, Etzioni explains the Communitarian agenda for schools." Rom 12:2-9

     This is old but more important now than when written. It shows the idealized side of the Communitarian [neo-communist] agenda -- the Third Way -- which has won much support among "conservatives" as well as "liberals" in Washington. Another article shows a more balanced picture:  A Third Way to a Good Society

Civil Society -- Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies: "A communitarian perspective recognizes that the preservation of individual liberty depends on the active maintenance of the institutions of civil society where citizens learn respect for others as well as self-respect; where we acquire a lively sense of our personal and civic responsibilities....

     "Many social goals... require partnership between public and private groups.... There is a great need for study and experimentation with creative use of the structures of civil society, and public-private cooperation, especially where the delivery of health, educational and social services are concerned." (From "The Responsive Communitarian Platform")...

     "Recent years have seen a rediscovery across the political spectrum of the importance of civil society. The increasing interest in the delivery of social services by nonprofit and faith-based organizations, the growing recognition of the special capacities of churches and faith-based groups in addressing such problems as juvenile crime, the increasing exploration of partnership arrangements between government agencies and nongovernmental groups -- all point toward a new and promising communitarian approach to solving our deepest social problems. One of the key developments of the 1990s has been the reactivation of the community as a powerful 'third force' in shaping the destiny of our citizens."

Delivery of Social Services through Faith-Based Organizations: "Both Vice President Gore and Republican presidential candidate Governor George W. Bush have recently called for a greater public role for faith-based organizations in delivering social services. Governor Bush has proposed $8 billion in tax credits and changes in federal regulations to allow greater delivery of child care, drug addiction, and other services by 'faith-based organizations...'  Vice President Gore has called for a 'New Partnership' under which faith-based organizations could receive federal funds to "provide jobs and job training, counseling and mentoring, food and basic medical care"--as long as recipients were not required to engage in religious observances."

Downsizing and the Meaning of Work. "Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation. . . . We are currently living through just such a transformation. It is creating the post-capitalist society."  Peter F. Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society (New York: Harper Collins, 1993), p. 1.

Communitarian Economics: "A professor at University College of Cape Breton, Greg MacLeod is an authority on sustainable community development and a frequent critic of current policies and practice. His purpose in writing this book is clearly to expose North Americans to the Mondragon Cooperative in the hope that more people here will look at cooperatives as serious economic alternatives to our current structures....

      "In Mondragon's case, everything is subservient to the General Congress, a supreme authority of 350 delegates representing all of the members, both workers and customers." Sounds like Gorbachev's new "compassionate" but soviet-style communism.

Civic Nutrition, Citizen Empowerment and Civil Communities: "Americans' love/hate relationship with government persists. With a paranoid right, a forlorn left, and the rest seeking a middle ground, consensus is difficult to build and trustworthy government is an oxymoron to many.....

     "There are three concepts that I will lace into my response: civic nutrition, which is the name I give to the necessary elements that nurture healthy, safe communities; citizen empowerment, which involves individual participation in the governance process; and civil communities, which is required if the American style of democracy is to be successful and the spirit of the Constitution is to be preserved." [Notice the phrase: "the spirit of the Constitution" -- an ambigous, open-ended label that preserves expedient ideals but leaves out the clear, unchanging guidelines.]

      "I want to highlight these points because they form the basis for a deliberative citizenry and a way of thinking about government that can mark the transition from our postmodern "in between" era to the global village.

      "...we move forward incrementally, making small adjustments. Then, one day, we turn around, look behind, and see that we have made so many minor adjustments that our end state is dramatically different.... The Clinton health reform plan was rejected by Congress largely because it sounded too different from the system Americans had come to know. Yet, minor changes starting in the 1970's have now progressed to such a point that most physicians are employed by health care organizations....

      "The lifeblood of American communities rests not so much in science and high tech discoveries but in the civic nutrition that is provided by citizens acting in concert with government to build and maintain healthy, safe communities.....A decade of attention to reinventing government now brings us full circle to... Drucker's focus on the 'mission" of the organization.'"

Human Rights, Poverty and Development: "A communitarian ethic, however, does not render irrelevant human rights meant to protect individuals - singly or in groups - against state-induced abuses (starvation, torture). Unfortunately, communal justice systems, based on membership in small-scale pastoral societies, fit poorly with the modern, large state."

Downsizing and the Meaning of Work: "Another sociologist, Amitai Etzioni, proposes what he calls "the new Golden Rule," outlining the parameters for a balance between autonomy and regulation. His Communitarian movement seeks an alternative to both liberal and conservative ideologies, offering an approach "deeply concerned with the balance between individual rights and social responsibilities, individuality and community, and autonomy and social order....

      "We have to work at becoming human. Our fate is not determined in advance by God; it is a product of human action and creative advance. Modern technology is the most dramatic proof of our ability to transform ourselves and our world...." Deut 8:10-20

      "Religions are but one way in which spirituality is manifested in human life. It is as open to corruption and distortion as other forms of personal existence.... Contemporary global existence requires a vision of spirituality that embraces not only Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and dozens of other religions, but it must also include atheists, agnostics, and humanists. Spiritual existence is manifest in human existence wherever it is achieved, but it is so easily distorted just because of human freedom....

      "Drucker and Reich are correct in pointing out that the 'knowledge worker' or 'symbolic analyst' is taking the lead in the contemporary workplace.... Reason that is detached from the broader spiritual context of personal existence is mind out of control. It places the most powerful tools in the hands of people who seek not the common good but the narrow goals and twisted visions of those who simply follow the "will to power." ....The business community, government, and the "third sector" of voluntary association are three major forms that now exist and serve the forms of life through which our work can be done."

The Coming Social Renaissance: Restoring America's Civic and Moral Creed: "The most important development at the beginning of the twenty-first century was the rediscovery of the nongovernmental sector of civil society, or as some call it, the voluntary or social sector.... After decades of neglect, Americans are rediscovering that the social sector - consisting of families, neighborhoods, voluntary associations, and an endless variety of civic enterprises....

      "Still more important than the practical functions of civil society is the role this sector plays in cultivating citizenship and generating values. Public in nature, though not governmental, the social sector provides public "space" where people learn through practice such essential democratic habits as trust, collaboration, and compromise.

      "Few things are more important to America's social order than the dynamic role voluntary associations and private charities have played in creating a stronger society. This social sector... represents a peculiarly American channel for social action moral transformation....

      "New terms, like "compassionate conservative," "communitarian," and the "civil society movement" have entered the public vernacular.... Drucker calls for "principled, theory-based management" of this emerging social sector. Successful leadership in this sector, he says, could yield major results on the enormous problems facing the world."