What is the meaning of civic membership? Most of us have some experience with membership. We are members of families, associations, teams, religious communities, and so on. We became members of some of these groups by birth or tradition, and some by choice. In either case, active membership entails at least three things: having a connection with the story or narrative that gives members an identity, consenting to the member’s key values, and participating in the activities of the members. These characteristics of membership, of course, do not eliminate disagreement and controversy. Just the opposite; they provide a shared platform for dealing with disagreement. So what is the civic story?
What’s the secret? The very existence of corporations depends on the government giving and protecting property rights. The bigger mistake? We have acted as though corporations belonged solely to their owners rather than to the civic systems of provision that gives them sources and resources to make provisions for all of us. It’s time to tell and secret and to correct the mistake.
At a recent session on Socio-Economics in Berkeley, I argued that a civic economy would be superior to our current property-based economy because it would include everyone. A participant asked if I thought that civic membership should be voluntary or forced. Given the two choices, I said forced. On further reflection, I think the question was a set-up. A better question is whether everyone belongs to the civic or not.
Libertarians come in different stripes, and the differences largely depend on their foundation. Some have their origin in the peculiar Anglo-American tradition of grounding liberty in property. Some others see liberty as a civic right guaranteed by the Constitution.
For the United States government to require that everyone carry health care insurance is not socialism, but neither is it libertarianism. What about seeing it as a third form of government that we can call: “civicism.” Civicism believes that all citizens have certain obligations to each other based on such civic norms as solidarity, moral equality, and reciprocity.
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