COMMON Wealth No. 1 of Volume 6

 

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This document is primarily addressed to politicians and those with an interest in political philosophy and its interaction with social policy. Its purpose is to offer reflections from the perspective of Catholic Social Teaching, on the issue of the appropriate role of the state in improving the wellbeing of citizens, particularly those who are most disadvantaged.

Since the election of the Howard Government, this fundamental issue of political philosophy has been thrown into sharper focus. Increasingly, the justification for public sector funding cuts and privatisation of government services is no longer being couched in simple economic terms about the need for fiscal responsibility and efficiency. Australians are being told about the moral danger of perpetuating a welfarist entitlement mentality which saps personal initiative and responsibility, and deprives non-government organisations of their role in enhancing well-being through charitable aid, mutual support and voluntary assistance.

Defenders of the role of the state in the provision of social welfare used to be able to occupy the high moral ground in debates about social welfare. They have argued, and many continue to argue, that cuts to public spending, privatisation, and tighter eligibility requirements for access to public services are lacking in compassion and undermine social cohesion. More recently, the moral superiority of this 'welfare state' approach has been seriously challenged, with a greater role for both the market and the non-government sector being seen as the best way to enhance social welfare.

The debate about the appropriate roles of the state and the market is often couched in terms of the tension between the principles of liberty and equality, but what is often overlooked in this framework is the role of culture and morality in determining the actual outcomes of public policy and market mechanisms.

This document aims to inject issues of culture and morality into debates about the role of the state and the market in delivering welfare. In particular, Pope John Paul II's 1991 encyclical Centisimus Annus, provides the underlying argument, and quotes from that document appear in the left hand margin. Centesimus Annus commemorates the one hundredth anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum ('On the Condition of the Working Classes') and argues that while the debate about the role of the state and the market in providing welfare is vitally important, structural solutions to the problem of poverty and disadvantage will have little impact unless the moral-cultural system on which society is based is reinvigorated. In particular, the payment of taxation should be seen as a social and moral obligation, as well as a legal one, and this issue is addressed in a special centre-page lift-out.

Message from Bishop Patrick Power, Chairman of the Bishops' Committee for Social Welfare What makes a good society? These days the very concept 'good' is being questioned. We seem to be living in a time when to say "this is good" or "that is bad" is to risk being labelled as 'judgemental' or as 'imposing one's morality on everybody else.' We praise diversity and promote freedom of choice, but we refrain from offering guidelines about what choices individuals and communities ought to make. This it is presumed would be lacking in 'tolerance'. The implication is, of such presumptions relies on the belief that making moral judgements about people's actions or about our social structures and systems is itself 'bad'. Integral to the mission of churches in society is the role of assessing social structures and systems in the light of Christian teachings and principles, in order that these structures and systems benefit all participants, especially those members of our communities who are marginalised or devalued. The value of churches to contemporary society is in their standing firm on moral values and moral judgments, no matter how unfashionable such concepts may be in the secular world. The implications of these observations for public policy are that while economic freedom is an important goal which can enhance and protect our society, freedom that is unconstrained by any sense of moral obligation and civic duty to one's fellow citizens will only result in increased inequality and poverty. Therefore, governments have a role to intervene strongly in markets to ensure that such exploitation does not result. Those who advocate for freer markets must also be advocates for greater restraint and more public-spiritedness on behalf of those most likely to benefit from such freedom. The relevance of this document is it argues that economic freedom must be used responsibly if it is to benefit the whole community.

Apart from the family, other intermediate communities exercise primary functions and give life to specific networks of solidarity. These develop as real communities of persons and strengthen the social fabric, preventing society from becoming an anonymous and impersonal mass, as unfortunately often happens today. It is inter-relationships on many levels that a person lives, and that society becomes more 'personalised'. The individ-ual today is often suffocated between two poles re-presented by by the State and the market place. At times it seems as though he exists only as a producer and consumer of goods, or as an object of State administ-ration. People lose sight of the fact that life in society has neither the market nor the State as its final purpose, since life itself has a unique value which the State and the market must serve. CA, n. 49.

The Market Versus the State: A False Dichotomy?

Throughout this document the terms 'social democrat' and 'social democratic' are used to denote a political philosophy that favours a substantial role for the state in enhancing the welfare of individuals. On the other hand, the terms 'neo-liberal' and 'neo-liberalism' are used to denote a conflicting philosophy, namely one that is innately suspicious of state intervention in the lives of citizens, particularly in the economy. This terminology will be objected to by many as being imprecise and vague, but it is intended to do nothing more than point to and distinguish between two resilient political traditions and approaches to conceptualising the relative role of the state and the market in enhancing individual and collective wellbeing. The authentic Catholic approach is often characterised by the term, 'the middle way'. However, Catholic Social Teaching does not pretend to be a rival ideology or to promote a particular social system. Rather it is a basis for assessing ideologies and systems, grounded in a particularly Christian anthropology (view of human nature) and on reflection upon human history, rather than an a priori ideological bias.

The social democratic view is characterised by a concern that the free market, unregulated by the state, will generate such inequalities of wealth and income such that undermine the human dignity of the most economically disadvantaged. Furthermore, it fears that giving free play to the market will destabilise democracy itself, which depends for its survival on the consent of the citizenry to the political system. Social democrats are optimistic about what the collective action of citizens, through the agency of the state, can achieve and in a sense do not trust free human beings to act with virtue and restraint and with a concern for the common good.

On the other hand, neo-liberals are also optimistic, since they believe that individual liberty will, almost of itself, generate the virtues of personal self-discipline and restraint which are required for a liberal society to also be a just society. They are distrustful of collectivist mechanisms that limit individual freedom because of the fear that such mechanisms can be captured and misused by special interests. In the realm of economics, neo-liberals advocate deregulation and privatisation so as to give the widest possible scope for human initiative, enterprise and creativity in meeting the material needs of the community.

Both social democrats and neo-liberals understand the importance of civic virtue and public spiritedness to the success of democracy and capitalism. The issue that is focussing the attention of an increasing number of contemporary social thinkers is identifying the source or origin of this civic virtue and public spiritedness, and finding ways to strengthen it. In searching for the answer to this question, more and more attention is focussing on the concept of ‘civil society’. Yet the meaning of this term seems to have been contested recently.

'Civil Society' or A 'Civil' Society?

At the heart of this contest over definition is whether the words 'civil society' are to be considered as a single two-word noun 'civil-society', or as an adjective 'civil' and a noun, 'society'. The latter interpretation was used by Eva Cox in her 1995 Boyer Lectures, entitled 'A Truly Civil Society'. Cox advocates strengthening the public sector as a means of making society more civil. By ‘civil’ she does not simply mean polite, but more trusting, more cooperative. She sees the role of the state as a provider of goods and services as being an important expression of shared citizenship, an example of our commitment to one another. It is interesting to note that in Catholic theology, the sacraments are symbols that not only signify a reality, but actually bring it into existence. The same could be said of Cox’s view of the welfare state: it both expresses social solidarity and brings it about in the hearts and minds of the citizens.

The Tasman Institute's Michael Warby has described Cox’s interpretation of the term 'civil society' and the policy prescriptions that flow from it as the decade's most outrageous hijacking of a concept (1996, p.44). Warby uses the more conventional meaning of the term 'civil society' as a two-word noun referring to that great variety of voluntary non- government organisations and associations, such as sporting clubs, churches, charities, self-help and mutual aid groups, unions, professional associations, service clubs, hobby circles, etc that exist as 'intermediary' structures between the individual and their family on the one hand and the state on the other.

Neo-liberals like Warby would include businesses in this list as well, since they see civil society primarily as a sphere in juxtaposition to the monolithic state. However other conservatives would be suspicious of their inclusion, since they would regard firms as belonging to a separate sphere again, that of the market sphere.

The problem with using the labels 'state', 'market' and 'civil society', as if they could be attached to particular organisations, is that many organisations belong to more than one of these groupings. For example, there are family businesses, government businesses, state-funded non-government welfare agencies, charities that raise money through selling goods, and businesses that receive government subsidies. As individuals we belong to a multiplicity of communities and our interactions stretch across artificial sectoral boundaries.

Nevertheless, such sectoral labels are indispensable because they refer to institutional arrangements that embody and support the three key systems which interact to shape our society: the political system, the economic system, and the moral-cultural system. Keeping these systems in balance is the key to a humane and prosperous society. For example, if the market system, which harnesses and makes use of individual self-interest, is unable to be adequately regulated by the state or by cultural and moral influence, then it is likely to pose a serious threat to democracy and justice. Interestingly, George Soros, who has made billions of dollars from currency speculation on deregulated financial markets has recently expressed the view that the unregulated free market represents a threat to democracy (Soros 1997), and has spent large amounts of his own money funding pro-democratic projects and foundations in former communist nations of Eastern Europe.

It is our moral-cultural system that is in danger of being weakened, and its weakness threatens to generate greater market inequalities that in turn require greater state intervention to ameliorate. For a more prosperous and humane society, we must strengthen and increase our practice of civic virtue and social obligation, participative democracy, and 'social capital'. 'Social capital' is extremely valuable in an economic sense since it minimises the transaction costs associated with low-trust relationships and environments (Fukuyama 1995). Both the social democrats and the neo- liberals understand this, but where they differ is on how to enhance social capital and our sense of civic duty.

'Social Rights' to be a Citizen-Consumer

The social democratic instinct is to argue that in order for social capital to increase, the state's visibility and range of activity, particularly as a provider of universal social services, must increase. This is because the state, as a collective institution, has important symbolic and practical value as an expression of cooperative action by citizens, as opposed to the distrust, self-interest and lack of cooperation inherent in competitive markets, which reduce citizens to consumers.

While this viewpoint is partly true, it underestimates the positive aspects of self-interest and exaggerates the ability of the state to express and enhance our existence as citizens rather than consumers.

With regard to self-interest, this is not the same as selfishness. When we eat, we are acting out of self-interest, but we are not necessarily acting selfishly. In seeking to put bread on the table, we engage in work, often in a collaborative manner. We exercise our creativity and initiative, and if we are particularly successful in generating wealth in this way, that wealth can be redistributed to others through the tax system in the interests of the common good. The real problem is excessive self-interest, which expresses itself in greed, a lack of concern for those who are suffering, and a propensity to see co-workers as simply a means to an end rather than as ends in themselves. The goal of the state is to establish social, legal and economic institutions capable of directing our natural and healthy self-interest towards the benefit of all. With regard to the State as an institution that enhances citizenship as opposed to consumerism, there is cause for some skepticism here. Since Marshall’s work on citizenship in the early 1950s, the standard defence of the welfare state has been as the institution necessary to ensure the rights of social citizenship (Marshall 1950). Social rights imply an entitlement to certain essential goods and services such as housing, education, health, transport, communications services, water, and energy, and a variety of other community services such as child care, emergency accommodation and various forms of counselling, as well as income support in times of need. These entitlements are based simply upon one's membership of the community, not on one's ability to pay. Nor, for that matter, on one's inability to pay. In other words, social rights are universal rights. For these services to be available to all, the state is necessary since the market and voluntary effort will not be sufficient.

However, there is a glaring problem with this traditional defence of the welfare state, and that is that social rights in this model of citizenship seem little more than an entitlement to be a consumer of publicly provided goods and services. The culture of individualism and consumerism has affected our attitude to state provision. It may be objected that these rights to consume and to receive are not unattached to responsibilities to contribute, since citizens must pay taxes to finance the welfare state. But this objection is weakened by the fact that taxes are often seen as little more than the price one has to pay for the service. An individual person pays taxes and receives services in return. Even Cox seems to express this consumerist approach when she wonders whether the state is not 'double-dipping' - that is, charging us twice when it imposes user-pays tariffs on public services as well as asking us to pay taxes (Cox 1995, p.74-75). There is nothing inherently civic or social in the tax-for-service transaction, despite the fact that it is mediated by the state. An entitlement to a good based on payment, whether that payment is made over the counter or through the tax system, is essentially the entitlement of a consumer.

Therefore it is necessary to distinguish between two types of social citizenship. First there is formal social citizenship which is passive in nature insofar as it involves merely the observance of social duties (to vote and pay tax) and the recognition of social entitlements (to public schools and hospitals). Secondly, there is informal social citizenship, which is active in nature and more akin to that voluntary social participation and contribution that is necessary to enhance social capital. The issue then becomes, to what extent does the state's involvement in welfare provision encourage participation in this less formal arena?

The welfare state may be counter-productive if it contributes to the decline of the habits and practices of self-help and personal initiative on behalf of those it supports. Furthermore, it may, in some circumstances, 'crowd out' or make redundant many of the intermediary voluntary organisations of civil society.

Thus the welfare state, if it does in fact foster an entitlement 'mentality' among the citizenry as its neo-liberal critics assume, can devalue civic virtues such as personal responsibility, voluntary philanthropy and initiative on the part of both individuals and groups to solve their own problems.

The Idea of the Virtuous Market

There is also a cogent argument that, under certain circumstances, the competitive free market itself can be just as much a nursery for civic virtue as the voluntary non-market sector is.

This argument has two strands. The first strand, which is employed to fend off the allegation that markets encourage selfishness, is that markets 'enable self-interested behaviour but they do not cause it.' (Saunders 1993, p.76, emphasis added). This argument is plausible insofar as free markets do allow people to act virtuously as well by enabling choice (Hayek 1967). For example, the practice of consumers boycotting producers they regard as unethical is evidence of the fact that markets can and do provide space for people to act virtuously voluntarily, whereas if one is forced to purchase one's electricity from the state-owned monopoly supplier, where is the virtue in that? And what opportunity does one have to send a message, by changing supplier, that you do not like the way the energy is produced (for example, in an environmentally unfriendly way)?

The second strand of the argument that markets foster virtue is both more controversial and more interesting. The competitive market, according to this argument, is in fact not ethically neutral, but in fact promotes social capital, social cohesion and moral virtue.

This approach is epitomised by the neo-liberal British sociologist Peter Saunders who argues against both social conservatives and social democrats, that the problem of social cohesion cannot be resolved by a political reaction involving the resuscitation of a strong and coercive 'collective conscience':

The diversity within cultures and the inappropriateness of imposing a 'one-size-fits-all' morality leads Saunders to the conclusion that this spirit of cooperation cannot be superimposed upon the social order through the agency of the state: The conservative dream of recovering old moral traditions is shown to be anachronistic, while the socialist dream of imposing new ones is found to be utopian. Collective morality cannot be resuscitated, nor can it be invented (1993, p.72).

Saunders argues that the free and competitive market itself is the institution that can deliver social cohesion. If anything, the welfare state, rather than the market, is destructive of civic virtue because it undermines people's desire to act virtuously voluntarily by taking away both opportunities to exercise personal responsibility and the need for it:

This sounds very much like a justification for abandoning the weak to their own meagre resources in what Cox calls 'competitive tooth and claw markets'. However there is an interesting consensus between Cox and Saunders about how social cohesion and a sense of belonging is formed and transmitted. Cox argues that

Compare the above with the following extract from Saunders as he argues that the market is an institution that can foster social capital and cohesion:

The similarity in the language is striking, particularly in the metaphor of informal social connection via threads, webs and filaments, yet the ultimate aim of the arguments could not be more opposed: one in support of the state and denigrating capitalism, the other in support of capitalism and denigrating the state. The neo-liberal argument is that far from being a cause of social atomism and a breakdown of collective social life, the market can actually provide room for the development of a mosaic of social worlds and thereby generate a more civilised society: Economic ethics, which markets demand and generate, is apt to promote the self-responsibility and spontaneous order of free citizens (Geirsch 1996).

It is incontrovertible that the market does encourage forms of collaboration and association that develop a certain kind of trust. Business firms, for example, bring people together in a common enterprise, with each person contributing their particular skills as part of a collaborative effort to produce goods and services efficiently to meet the material needs of others, and earn a living at the same time.

The contention that competitive free markets enhance social trust is at odds with Francis Fukuyama's thesis which is not that the market creates trust and other civic virtues, but that where these virtues already exist, they facilitate the market and deliver a competitive advantage for national economies. The rapid introduction of free markets into the former socialist command economy of Russia, a society which had no democratic traditions and where the institutions of civil society were absent, has given rise to a very powerful self-help organisation known as the Mafia and resulted in many citizens calling for a return to the more stable, though less dynamic, socialist system. Economic resurgence in former Eastern bloc countries is unlikely to come about until strong democratic institutions, habits and virtues have been developed.

Despite the negative experience of 'sudden' capitalism in Russia, the argument that the market, of itself, can generate civic virtue cannot be dismissed. Other nations, such as the Czech Republic, have had a smoother transition to the free market because the State took care to establish the rule of law and respect for property rights before embracing market principles. There, the strengthening of civil society and the free market is proceeding simultaneously, with each sphere of activity drawing on the strengths of the other, and both nurtured by the state.

Furthermore, Michael Novak claims that capitalist institutions encourage citizens to be law-abiding, cooperative and courteous even to strangers (such as customers)...(1993:227) The weakness with this argument, however, is that even if it is true, the motivation to behave virtuously is self-interest. As pointed out before, to the extent that capitalism harnesses self-interest to useful ends, it is a good system. But what happens if and when other less virtuous behaviours can deliver greater benefits to the individual or firm operating in the market-place, such as exploiting ones' employees, or making use of transfer-pricing to ensure no tax is paid on company income? More to the point, in a worldview where self-interest is the only driver of action, what motivation is there to act virtuously in the public interest if there is no private benefit to be gained? It may be replied that it is more beneficial to an individual or firm in the longer term to act in the public interest now (for example, by reducing its output of waste or its consumption of fossil fuels). But what if the short-term benefit is more attractive than long-term benefit?

A similar problem arises with the argument that markets create opportunities for the formation of voluntary associations based on common interest. More often than not it is common commercial self-interest that brings people together, usually to oppose the collective strength of other organisations. These kinds of associations are classic examples of the liberal idea of a social contract. That is, these associations, whether they are unions or professional associations or business councils, come to be formed by individuals who perceive that their own personal interests can be furthered by entering into a collective agreement with others. Thus these kinds of voluntary associations are often merely powerful sectional interests, who devote a lot of time and energy in lobbying government to make things easier for themselves. This is not to deny that these associations promote a form of solidarity among their own members, but they do not necessarily promote solidarity with those groups and individuals who are not part of the association. In fact often the source of their internal solidarity is the existence of a common adversary, over whom they seek to gain an advantage in the market place.

There is no doubt that the market can enhance social solidarity and civic virtue under some circumstances. The most significant circumstance is where the market operates according to the rule of law, is regulated by the state in the interests of the common good, and shares the wealth it generates equitably through the tax system. This last point is essential, for excessive economic inequality is a threat to democracy. As the late Christopher Lasch has argued,

In other words, the market serves democracy well where the state is active.

Yet we hear repeated calls for the state to be less active. It is all a question of balance, but if one is committed a priori to a pro-market or pro-state view, it is difficult to discern when the balance is struck and to know the proper limits of both the state and the market. Therefore we witness, on the one hand, social democrats habitually calling for more government spending and regulation without asking whether the level of funding or regulation is sufficient or excessive. On the other hand, neo-liberals habitually call for less government spending and regulation without asking whether the level of spending and regulation is inadequate. For them the withering of the state and the expansion of the competitive market sphere is applauded because it serves a triple function: it generates economic efficiency and creates more space for the civic virtues to grow in both the voluntary non-market sector and in the market sector.

Crowding Out the Non-Market, Non- Government Voluntary Sector

It is not hard to see how neo-liberals might think that even more social benefits can be derived by marrying voluntary organisations with market principles. To them it may appear as a marriage made in heaven. This may explain some of the enthusiasm of governments for competitive tendering and contracting of community welfare services to the voluntary sector.

However, there is a problem with increased contracting out to voluntary organisations, about which both the community sector and some conservative analysts are aware. The problem is that contracting out to voluntary organisations is not, as hoped, creating more space for non-government organisations. On the contrary, the tight output specifications and accountability regimes that are part of many community service contracts in fact mean that these agencies are becoming 'little fingers of the state'. Instead of the state having less control over people's lives, it is having more, and is using its regulatory and financial power to increase its influence.

Conservative commentator David Green has noted that the 'inadvertent result' in recent years of the shift of many services to the voluntary sector has been the subversion of associational autonomy which is supposed to be the main feature and strength of such organisations.

Patrick Morgan, in a paper presented to the Institute of Public Affairs, has also lamented the changed nature of the ‘intermediate’ level of society:

These concerns about the state encroaching into the realm of civil society are matched by concerns expressed by the late Christopher Lasch, about the market's nefarious ubiquity:

Thus community-based social welfare agencies, which are key organisations of civil society, creators of social capital and sites of civic virtue, face a double threat from the mega-institutions of the state and the market, the danger of becoming little more than retail outlets for government designed services.

In Defence of the Nurturing State

The issue, then, is whether we can develop a new relationship between the state, the market and civil society which strengthens democracy and promotes active citizenship, defined as an individual’s contribution to their own well-being and to the political, economic, cultural and social life of the community.

Both the social democratic and neo-liberal interpretations of the proper role of the state have elements of truth but are incomplete and thus flawed in their ultimate prescriptions. The social democratic view sees little or no virtue in the market and is reluctant to acknowledge that the problem of welfare dependency has as much to do with the way government programs are delivered as it does with the inability of the market system to provide economic opportunities to those who need them. It tends to see state intervention as the answer to social problems. Rather than promoting the social right to consumption of government funded services and programs, defenders of the state should promote the social habit of contribution, which requires the expansion of opportunities to participate. The state has a role in expanding such opportunities and in supporting the ones that already exist.

The neo-liberal view is reluctant to acknowledge that individual liberty by itself is unlikely to give birth to the necessary self-restraint and public spiritedness required to make capitalism humane. This is especially so in a post-modern era in which self-fulfilment is everything, in which liberty is interpreted to mean freedom to do whatever is not prescribed by law, and in which morality is seen as a matter of individual preference and taste rather than as conformity to a set of objective principles and traditional virtues. Neo-liberalism therefore has a tendency to interpret intervention by the state in the economy or in supporting civil society as not only unnecessary but positively harmful to the notion of individual responsibility and social obligation.

In between these two extremes is a vision that combines a key role for the state as the enabler, not the usurper or dominator, of the family, neighbourhood and civil society. In turn, the family, the neighbourhood and civil society can nurture the kind of civic virtue and public spiritedness necessary to shape both the state and market in the interests the common good. Fukuyama argues that once social capital is destroyed, it is extremely difficult to build up again. The market cannot do it alone, nor can the state, for ultimately these institutions are too large and anonymous to be able to generate social trust amongst real people. Individual persons need to do it, and it is done best in smaller voluntary associations and groupings. But such organisations do not grow on trees. They need to be fostered and encouraged.

In a free society, they are able to spring up, but socially harmful ones as well as socially valuable ones can spring up, like weeds among the wheat. A free society gives rise to street gangs as well as community day care centres. But it is the latter, not the former, that deserve the active support and encouragement of the state, without being taken over by it or becoming dependent on it. Community organisations that enhance social capital and public spiritedness need to be supported and encouraged in a myriad of non-intrusive ways by the state in order to fulfil their potential.

Osborne and Gaebler’s bestseller on public sector reform in the United States, Reinventing Government, advocates a variety of market-based reforms to the state and non-government organisations that are more likely to damage the role of the non-government sector than enhance it, however in one respect the authors do point the way to a more productive relationship between the state and civil society in their Chapter entitled 'Community Owned Government: Empowering rather than Serving' (1992, pp.49-75). They give examples of how the lives of disadvantaged individuals and communities were improved through the strengthening of community-based voluntarism. Yet this resurgence of civil society did not come about by the removal of the state’s involvement in the community and greater play for the free market, as the neo-liberals might prescribe, but rather as a result of a change in the way the state involved itself and structured its welfare programs.

What works is an approach that emphasises genuine empowerment, not simply devolution of responsibility without devolution of resources and devolution of real decision-making power as well. Osborne and Gaebler showed that once civic pride was reestablished in disadvantaged communities as a result of state-supported community-based initiatives, then and only then was economic resurgence possible. Economic initiative requires an environment of social trust in which to thrive, and where that trust has broken down, it cannot be restored by the state, but neither can it be restored without the assistance of a nurturing state, a 'nanny state' if you like, which provides the resources and the support programs to enable community groups to start taking their first steps towards rebuilding social capital.

Just as children learning to swim need support in the early stages in order to become more independent in the long term, so community-based organisations need support to begin to develop more effective local networks of participation amongst communities of people. This is especially the case for those smaller organisations that exist to service the needs of the economically disadvantaged. These organisations cannot necessarily depend of financial support from their low-income constituents and do not have the same public profile and visibilty of larger charitable organisations that can attract donations from a broader cross-section of the community.

Rediscovering the Principle of Moral Duty

However, even state action of this kind to support organisations of civil society is no guarantee that social capital and civic virtue will be enhanced. You can plant a dead stick in fertile soil and water it lovingly all you like, but it will not bloom. Unless there is within individuals some living seed of public spiritedness or orientation towards the wellbeing of others, the experience of social citizenship will remain impoverished and limited to its formal and passive form. Even that will be seen by many as a burden rather than an as expression of our social nature and the solidarity that exists between us as human beings and which is the backbone of nationhood.

An empowering state, that is responsive to community needs will not undermine the exercise of personal responsibility or the existence of voluntary groups. On the contrary, it can create opportunities for their development. Not everyone will take up those opportunities. There will always be those who feel no scruples in taking the services the community offers while making no personal effort to contribute to the common good. There will always be those who will take every opportunity of avoiding tax or exploiting a vulnerable worker or a customer with little bargaining power in the market-place. In other words, institutions such as the market or the welfare state do not make people more or less virtuous or public spirited, but they do provide different kinds of opportunities for the development of social solidarity which is the essence of active social citizenship and necessary for the protection of democracy. To argue against the market or against the state from an a priori ideological position is to fail the test of genuine public spiritedness, that is, an openness to exploring what is best for the whole community.

Today it seems that many of our leaders believe is it politically astute to point to, and seek to punish, any lack of public spiritedness and sense of social obligation perceived to exist within the more disadvantaged sections of the community. Yet this deficiency should, to a large extent, be seen as a reciprocal response to the lack of public spiritedness and sense of social obligation exhibited by those people at the top of the socio-economic spectrum. Increasingly those at the top regard their success as the consequence of their own endeavours and are blind to the advantages given them by social class on the one hand and, on the other, the social and economic infrastructure financed by tax-payers of less means than themselves.

In Australia we already are well advanced down this path blazed by the United States. The problem is essentially moral. So what does make people more or less public spirited? If we submit to the theory that our attitudes are affected to a certain degree by the social context in which we live, then our public culture is important, and those who are in a position to influence the public culture and its language have an important role to play. The language of rights has proved itself to be a powerful tool in arguing for institutions that enhance social solidarity. But it can also be manipulated and used as a tool for arguing that the state should continue to fund more and more benefits to me as an individual (Glendon 1991). By the same token, we can use the language of rights to undermine the concept of right, as in morally right, by arguing that as long as something is not prevented by law, then that a person should feel no scruples about exploiting their legal rights without reference to whether my actions are in the public interest or are virtuous in themselves. Just because an action is permitted by law does not mean it is virtuous or in the public interest. For example, exploiting every available tax loophole may be legal, but is not necessarily virtuous or public spirited.

Arguing for a public culture that is less uncomfortable with the language and concept of moral duty is not the same as advocating that public policy impose any particular moral prescriptions on citizens. Nor is it a call for a return to the more extreme versions of political correctness. The argument is straightforward: without a culture in which personal morality, discipline and restraint in the interests of the common good are valued, no amount of government intervention or, for that matter, freedom from it, will produce a more humane society, a society in which we as individuals are free to do what we want, but in fact do what we ought.

As much as one might wince at the romanticism which seems to characterise the American people's veneration for John F. Kennedy, he provided the world with one of the most quoted and most ignored exhortations to social duty when he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." We need to rediscover the ethic of civic duty, and actively promote that ethic in our public culture, in order to forge a new style of social citizenship which recognises our mutual interdependency.

Ultimately, and perhaps paradoxically, such an ethic and such a culture are impossible unless there is a strong voice consistently and publicly proclaiming the message that all members of society, in fact all human beings, have a common origin and a common destiny that lies beyond humanity itself. Consistently asserting this human dignity, and identifying the duties which respect for our dignity lays upon us as individuals and as a community, is the mission of the Church in the modern world.

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References

Cox, E., 1995, A Truly Civil Society, 1995 Boyer Lectures. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Fukuyama, F., 1995, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperiy. London: Hamish Hamilton.
Giersch, H., 1995, 'Economic Morality as a Competitive Asset', translated by W. Kasper, in P. Hamlin, 1996, Markets, Morals and Community. Centre for Independent Studies,
St Leonards. Glendon, M.A. , 1991, Rights Talk: the Impoverishment of Political Discourse. New York: The Free Press. Hayek, F., 1967, 'The Moral Element in Free Enterprise'. In Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul.
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