Back to the Future: Toward a Political Economy of Love and Abundance

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Administration & Society

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Margaret Stout Abundance

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Administration & Society42(1) 3 –37

© 2010 SAGE PublicationsDOI: 10.1177/0095399710363681


Back to the Future: Toward a Political Economy of Love and Abundance

Margaret Stout1

Abstract

This article presents a reconceptualization of public administration within a profoundly different political economy. The depiction is based on an alternative set of assumptions to those most typically held about human nature and the corollary approach to political and economic life. Ideas are drawn from two sets of scholars, each writing respectively at the turn of the last two centuries. As both historical periods are marked by claims of progressivism, the reconceptualization is framed around an alternative understanding of “progress” and exploration of a political economy that would support this different meaning. Specifically, in a relational rather than material understanding of progress, public administration would be transformed into a process of self-governance within political and economic institutions based on assumptions of generative rather than degenerative principles that replace fear with love, scarcity with abundance, self-interest with mutual interest, and dialectical competition and hierarchy with collaboration. Although this might sound utopian at face value, no such notions of perfection are assumed. Rather, the methods of progress—collaboration and cocreation—are simply assumed to be possible and the proper basis for social institutions seeking to foster them. This reconceptualization offers a transformational role for public administration in advocating a new meaning of progress, cocreating political democracy, democratizing the economy, and changing the role of government, in addition to a facilitative role in the resulting political economy.

1 West Virginia University, Morgantown

Corresponding Author:Margaret Stout, West Virginia University, P.O. Box 6322, 207 Knapp Hall, Morgantown, WV 26506-6322 Email: [email protected]



4 Administration & Society 42(1)

Keywords

political economy, administrative role, collaboration, legitimacy, progressivism, relational ontology

Introduction

Scholars of public administration attending to the social context of the field most commonly focus on the political rather than the economic milieu. Dis-cussion is typically limited to the role of government, politics, and adminis-tration in a democratic society. However, some also pay attention to economic concerns, particularly insofar as they constrain democracy and social justice or equity. In claiming an active role for public administration in the pursuit of such ends, scholars draw on political philosophy and social theory supporting different forms of democracy, both representative and direct in character. Some contemporary scholars bring forward the thinking of the Progressives from the turn of the last century, including John Dewey, Mary Parker Follett, and Jane Addams, among others (Boje, 2001; Box, 2002; Box, Marshall, Reed, & Reed, 2001; Evans, 1998, 2000; Humphreys & Einstein, 2003; McSwite, 1997; Miller & King, 1998; Snider, 1998, 2000; Stivers, 1994, 2000a, 2006; Ventriss, 1985). Given that these Progressives were writing at the time of public administration’s emergence as a field of study and self-aware practice (from about 1880 into the 1920s), they could reasonably be named the American founders of one tradition of public administration (Stout, 2006). Contemporary proponents of this tradition share the overarch-ing goal of progressive reformers seeking greater social advancement. It is their particular understanding of progress that is of interest here, as it shapes an alternative vision of political economy and a transformed role for public administration within it.

Contemporary progressive theories coalesce around a vision of public administration as a collaborative, facilitative, or transformational social role in support of citizen emancipation and self-governance—key elements of direct forms of democracy and anticipated corollary improvements to social and economic justice. Perspectives tend to be grounded in what has been called a “new ethical-political constellation” (R. J. Bernstein, 1991). Specifi-cally, this assemblage of ideas draws from pragmatism, critical theory, and postmodernism. However, the postmodern ideas are “affirmative” as opposed to “skeptical” because they assume that social change and collective action are possible, even within postmodern conditions (Rosenau, 1992). This position embraces the notion that intersubjective understandings and shared



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commitments can be created on an ongoing basis, and that social construc-tion enables responsive institutional change. Exemplifying this stance, R. J. Bernstein (1991) accepts a practical commitment to communicative reason as being a reasonable approach to finding ethical agreement in postmodern conditions. This approach has also been characterized as “collaborative prag-matism,” which was at the heart of the Confederation and Anti-federalist thought, was present in populism and progressivism at the beginning of the 20th century, and is now present in some postmodernism (Bogason, 2001; McSwite, 1997; White, 1990).

There are a number of labels attached to this general approach to public administration: transformative (King & Zanetti, 2005, p. xi), emergent (Stout, Bryer, & Caver, 2006), postmodern (Fox & Miller, 1995), posttraditional (Farmer, 2005a), discursive (Dryzek, 1990), deliberative (Forester, 1999), participative (deLeon, 1997), New Public Service (J. V. Denhardt & Den-hardt, 2003; R. B. Denhardt, 2000), collaborative (Stout, 2006), and even anti-administration (Farmer, 2005b, p. xiv) or “citizen governance” (Box, 1998). However, it is actually nothing new. As revealed by a feminist re-reading of the field’s literature and history, this approach to public adminis-tration was actually promoted by the Progressive era’s “Settlement Women”; the predominantly female members and feminine cultural characteristics of the settlement and charitable movement at the turn of the last century (Sti-vers, 2000a). In brief, the Settlement Women offered a phenomenological and pragmatic alternative to thinking about public life, democracy, and the place of administration within it, as opposed to the more positivist approach promoted by the “Bureau Men” of the municipal research movement. This alternative perspective viewed the city as a home, not as a business to be operated by government experts. Settlement Women sought new programs to improve living conditions and promoted a purpose of caring that would humanize processes and make government more accessible and connected to the people served. The persona of public administrators would be one of autonomous neighbor—a person with discretionary judgment guided by car-ing and participative relationships with fellow citizens. The public interest would be measured pragmatically and collaboratively by quality of life rather than efficiency or economic growth.

This vision of governance is exemplified in Mary Parker Follett’s 1918 book The New State (1998). Published prior to her better known management theories, many of Follett’s sociological and psychological principles are introduced and explicated specifically as a prescription for radical govern-mental and societal reform. From this and similar Progressive-era writings, this paper summarizes political and administrative concepts while drawing




out ideas about the complementary economic aspects of the espoused politi-cal economy. It further connects these thoughts to contemporary public administration scholars, drawing both from literature and personal corre-spondence with those writing from similar perspectives on parallel topics. As both historical periods are marked by claims of progressivism, this reconcep-tualization is based on an alternative understanding of “progress” and explo-ration of a political economy that would support this different meaning. In sum, the ideas frame a reconceptualization of public administration within a profoundly different political economy. Indeed, both the political and eco-nomic orders would need to change for public administrators to successfully play a collaborative, facilitative, or transformational social role in support of citizen emancipation and self-governance (Stout, 2009).

Reconnecting Politics and EconomicsBefore explicating the envisioned political economy, some effort must be made to identify public administration scholars who address both aspects of society and to explain how the two social elements are related. It is generally accepted that theories of public administration are intimately related to politi-cal theory (Waldo, 1984). “If the result desired is an inclusive, democratic polity, then these [administrative] organizations ought to be grounded in the-ories, assumptions, and understandings of reality that advance knowledge of, and give direction toward, attaining such a polity” (Kelly, 1998, p. 201). Related to this is the observation that theories of political legitimacy are based on particular visions of human nature (Caldwell, 1988). Therefore, public administration theory must find its context within a specified political philosophy and associated ontological commitments. Similarly, it is widely accepted that economic theory and its assumptions about human nature are prevalent underpinnings of administrative theory. Putting it together, some scholars assert that specific administrative structures are embedded within particular political socioeconomic systems (Kirlin, 1996; Ostrom, 1997). Therefore, we cannot leave political economy out of consideration when developing administrative theory.

By way of a rough sketch, most theories of public administration in the U.S. context are associated with liberalism in either its classical or modern form. Liberalism assumes either a Hobbesian (1968) or Lockean (2000) utili-tarian human nature that causes self-interested, atomistic individuals to com-pete in an effort to maximize their own benefits while minimizing their own costs, with little or no regard for the implications to others. The complemen-tary economic theory is based on an assumption of scarcity that necessitates,



Stout 7

perpetuates, and increases this competitive spirit. Through these forces, social progress and the wealth of nations are made (Smith, 2000). Therefore, politics and economics are based on the same set of assumptions about human nature and the role of social institutions in constraining it.

As described by Adam Smith, “‘political economy’ conceives of order in human associated life as a result of the free interplay of its members’ inter-ests” (Ramos, 1981, p. 31). When these autonomous transactions fail to pro-duce the common good, the State must step in to moderate, guide, or control outcomes, mitigating greed and quelling conflict. In this way, government represents what is right and good and oversees both political and economic activity. This utilitarian logic based on scarcity and the associated fear of market failures weave themselves throughout most theories of public admin-istration, old and new: “Fear, not faith, suspicion not trust, were the founda-tion of our early government” (Follett, 1998, p. 165); our particular theory of the State is “founded both on fear of others and fears of the government” (Catlaw, 2007b).

Unfortunately, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, the fears and mistrust embedded in our founding institutions have exacerbated the very self-interest meant to be controlled (R. B. Denhardt, 1981; Harmon & Mayer, 1986; Reich, 1988; Will, 1983). “Basing society on a contract rather than on rela-tionship makes it function like a crowd” (McSwite, 2007). It has been sug-gested that these political and economic institutions cannot produce anything other than the extremes of centralized hierarchical authority or decentralized competitive chaos (Thayer, 1981). In a context of atomistic individualism, competition demands hierarchy as a solution to its excesses and inequities, whereas hierarchy demands competition as a solution to its inefficiencies and undemocratic nature. Furthermore, assumptions about self-interest have inserted themselves into other spheres of society in what has been called a “colonization of the life-world” (Habermas, 1989, p. 54). Through the “econ-omization of the world” (Waldo, 1988, p. 931), all forms of social relation-ship, including political and civil, have been reduced to transactions with a market-like character. As a result, even governance has been de-politicized (Stivers, 2008). Thus, “thinking political life beyond fear is a huge chal-lenge—perhaps the challenge for us” (Catlaw, 2007b).

To address this problem, many theorists suggest that if the polity can be reclaimed from the economy through a firm separation of the social spheres, hindrances to political democracy and social justice can be overcome (Haber-mas, 1975; Ramos, 1981). In other words, if we can oust the colonizing eco-nomic attitudes from civil and political society, citizens can reclaim control over a market economy run amok. Somewhat ironically, this idea can be




found in liberal and conservative thinking alike. However, even if economics could be expunged from politics, such a structural arrangement remains at risk of perpetuating existing injustices: “When the world is understood in two separate compartments, one politics and another economics, gross (eco-nomic) inequality can be accommodated with supposed (political) equality and the achievements of American democracy celebrated. This is what we call partial democracy” (Adams, Bowerman, Dolbeare, & Stivers, 1990, p. 221. The political economy cannot be divided into public and private action, because the private institutions of the market are, in fact, political—“they are organs which regularly share in authoritatively allocating values for society” (Bachrach, 1967, p. 96). Indeed, because the social center of gravity in modern society shifted from religious and cultural institutions to institu-tions of political economy (Dewey, 1934), Dewey “envisioned a future democracy in which the political and economic spheres would be joined” (Box et al., 2001, p. 610).

Following this line of thought, Progressives suggest that efforts to reestab-lish firm barriers between spheres of social action, types of human relation-ship, and the ontological commitments on which they are based are futile. Rather, “it is the system which must be changed” (Follett, 1998, p. 167). With an alternative political philosophy, we must develop its complementary eco-nomic philosophy for a complete theory of political economy. Its explication must include foundational assumptions about the meaning of individualism, democracy, and markets both in terms of ideology and its manifestations (McSwite, 2007). From my reading, it would be based on generative princi-ples that replace fear with love and the trust it engenders, the assumption of scarcity with an expectation of abundance, self-interest with mutual-interest, and dialectical competition/hierarchy with collaboration. This is not an easy proposition. As Box (1999) notes, the more pervasive the market model becomes, the less possible it is to even conceive of alternatives. Yet this is precisely what we must attempt.

Imagining a New Political Economy

Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you canNo need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of ManImagine all the people sharing all the worldYou may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one

(Lennon, 1971)



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Such an “audacious” (Obama, 2006) hopeful call for transformation in our political economy was part of the Progressive era and is now under discus-sion in contemporary progressive politics (Coalition, 2008; MoveOn, 2008; Nall, 2008) as well as some corners of public administration theory (Adams et al., 1990; Box, 2007, 2008; Catlaw, 2006b; McSwite, 2006; Ramos, 1981; Thayer, 1981). The logic is, to achieve social justice, we must have sufficient economic justice. To achieve economic justice we need an alternative to the capitalist market system protected by a liberal government. The argument is eloquently expressed in what has been dubbed “The Evergreen Manifesto”:

We eschew (a) the liberal substitution of the concept of preference or desire for needs (b) the liberal notion of atomistic individualism, (c) the positivist notion of objective knowledge, and (d) the liberal defini-tion of liberty that entitles individuals to amass property with no limit other than not interfering with the exercise of the same right by other individuals. (Adams et al., 1990, p. 228)

Translating into positive language, the political economy envisioned is based on equitably meeting human needs, association through the social bond, intersubjective understanding, and mutuality. To achieve such transfor-mation, to paraphrase the Beatles (Lennon & McCartney, 1968), we would need to consider revolutionary changes to the Constitution, our social institu-tions, and our very minds (Stout, 2009).

Such a political economy was described at the turn of the last century, quite apart from socialist or communist theory. Indeed, the arguments for a different economic system were presented as third alternatives to capitalism and communism. In a substantive sense, the conversation being had a century ago is repeating itself as contemporary scholars refer back to the public intel-lectuals of the Progressive era to propose a political economy for the future. Through a review of these two sets of literature and personal correspondence with contemporary scholars writing from similar perspectives on parallel topics,1 several themes emerge that frame a new role for public administra-tion within an alternative political economy. Each theme expresses a trans-formational effort in which public administrators might engage: advocating a more fruitful meaning of progress, cocreating political democracy, democra-tizing the economy, and transforming the role of government. Together, this will lead to a facilitative role for public administration in a new political economy.




Advocating a More Fruitful Meaning of Progress as Collaboration

The meaning of progress is the cornerstone on which our political economy rests—what is the shared goal we pursue and what is our method? Writing in 1879 at the very birth of the Progressive era, public intellectual Henry George2 noted that in the prevailing political economy, progress is measured primarily in terms of material advancement and accumulation (George, 1929). As brilliantly depicted in the film In Good Company (Depth of Field Productions & Weitz, 2004), success in the global economy is in many ways becoming the end-all and be-all of human existence. Rather than a mere blur-ring of boundaries between sectors or nations, market behavior has infiltrated virtually all aspects of social life, turning human relationship into a series of self-interested transactions and exchanges linked to material gain. But the achievement of material growth is “used to mask alienation and repression” caused by competition and hierarchy (Thayer, 1981, p. 114). Human beings rebel against these limitations, seeking a more robust and authentic form of personal experience and relationship. Synergy is not about the linkage of money-making enterprises among purely economic beings—it is the cata-lytic experience of the “circular response” (Follett, 1995h) of mutual influ-ence in the shared experience of “ever-continuing creating where men [sic] are the co-creators” (Follett, 1998, p. 103). In other words, fulfillment of material needs or desires is not the sole objective of our creative acts. There-fore, social progress is more inclusive than mere material advancement. Human needs include community, engagement, and interdependence that cannot be reduced to transaction (Thayer, 1981). Indeed, self-actualization is an important element of human happiness (Maslow, 1943). Furthermore, happiness cannot just mean its private manifestation, but its public expres-sion in political participation as well (Stivers, 2008). Thus, it is important that “each and every individual is treated in her [sic] fullest human dimensions (psycho, socio, bio, spiritual, and other)” (Farmer, 2005b, p. xiv) in order to pursue betterment for all.

In addition to these humanistic values, physical sustainability of life on the planet is widely accepted as at risk owing to the current political econo-my’s approach to progress as consumptive growth (Meadows, Meadows, & Randers, 1992; Meadows, Randers, & Meadows, 2004). Indeed, Thayer (1981, 1984) and Ramos (1981) both warned of this outcome of unbridled competition and self-interest. In the transdisciplinary field of ecological eco-nomics, it is increasingly understood that the relationship between ecosys-tems and economic systems is central to many of the problems of humanity (Costanza, 1991). Thus, from a physical sustainability perspective, progress



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means doing well with what we have, without doing harm now or in the future (Daly & Cobb, 1994). This requires a perspective of mutuality that considers not only all those currently affected but also those in generations to come. Although many link this concern to harsh reminders of scarcity, the expectation of abundance shifts action into a problem-solving mode. Rather than fostering greed to get all one can before it runs out, an expectation that we can do well with what we have fosters collaboration to find the most sus-tainable and effective means of using and renewing resources.

Combining both humanistic and physical concerns, Ramos (1981) asserted that economic law and moral law must become one for efficient and holistic social progress. Similarly, the Progressives claimed that the moral law of progress is “association in equality” because it frees human creativity toward fruitful ends rather than dissipating it in power struggles (George, 1929, p. 508). The assumption is that humankind is capable of being collaborative, so this is what should be fostered by our institutions:

The laws of the universe do not deny the natural aspirations of the human heart; that the progress of society might be, and, if it is to con-tinue, must be, toward equality, not toward inequality; and that the economic harmonies prove the truth perceived by the Stoic Emperor [Marcus Aurelius]—“We are made for co-operation—like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth.” (George, 1929, p. 330)

From a process perspective, collaboration creates more abundant out-comes because it enables synthesis, which is much more effective and long-lasting than the compromise and concessions of transactional competition and bargaining or the domination of hierarchical authority. Agreements based on the latter will never last long because the original difference emerges in some other form at a later time. “Synthesis is the principal of life, the method of social progress” (Follett, 1998, p. 97). Follett (1998) asserts that through collaborative process, differences are integrated in a manner that is unique to each context in ever-broadening social circles. It is not homogeneity that is achieved but rather harmonization and integration through interpenetration or ongoing coadaptation. “The test of our progress is neither our likenesses nor our unlikenesses, but what we are going to do with our unlikenesses. Shall I fight whatever is different from me or find the higher synthesis?” (p. 96). The greater the integration achieved through this unifying3 process, the greater the social progress. Alternatively, forced unification through compe-tition or hierarchy hinders progress. Therefore, politics must provide “the




space and the process for working out understanding across lines of differ-ence” (McSwite, 2002, p. 113).

This shift in the definition of progress as measured by specified end val-ues to progress as measured by the creative process of collaboration itself is a radical transformation. The Progressives were quite eloquent and passion-ate in their descriptions of this condition:

We surely to-day have come to see in the social bond and the Creative Will, a compelling power, a depth and force, as great as that of any religion we have ever known. We are ready for a new revelation of God. It is not coming through any single man, but through the men and men [sic] who are banding together with one purpose, in one conse-crated service, for a great fulfillment. (Follett, 1998, pp. 359-260)

Although language like “God” and “one purpose” tends to put many social scientists and postmodern scholars over the edge, I suggest the meaning try-ing to be expressed in the language available at the time is a deep commit-ment to the democratic process enabled by an alternative understanding of the social bond, with such collaborative self-governance being the signifier of social progress. This commitment does not connote a substantive end value beyond that of process itself, but it does infer a specific ontological position that reflects a deeply held value of self and others in mutualistic relationship. Indeed, George (1929) suggests that collaboration replaces end values such as equality, justice, or freedom—“for the terms here signify the same thing, the recognition of the moral law” (p. 508).

As an example of this replacement of end values with a process-orienta-tion, Addams believes that industrialization represented a progressive transi-tion from individualism to association, thus requiring a new ethic and method for collaborative decision processes for continued advancement. Dewey (1934) describes progress as the pursuit and achievement of shared ideals created through “the cooperative and communicative operations of human beings living together” (p. 86). This is not far afield from Catlaw’s (2007b) notion that the act of transcending representation through direct engagement may be “a kind of progress, conventionally understood.”

Furthermore, in keeping with the pragmatist spirit, all conditions are con-sidered temporary in nature, and progress can be nothing more than “an infi-nite advance towards the infinitely receding goal of infinite perfection” (Follett, 1998, p. 51). Therefore, progress is defined as a creative process, not its ends. “Our ideals must evolve from day to day, and it is on those who can fearlessly embrace the doctrine of ‘becoming’ that the life of the future waits”



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(Follett, 1998, p. 99). Progress can be measured as a continuous widening of the area of association and cooperation, with the rate of progress depending on the degree to which we actualize cocreative democracy. Such a collabora-tive political economy would be “radiant with hope” (George, 1929, p. 559). But only when the will toward its expression is unimpeded by competition and coercion can a civilization be said to truly advance (George, 1929).

Cocreating Political Democracy Through Love and TrustTo realize the collaborative process of progress, politics must be made more democratic—collaboration requires direct engagement. Follett insists that democracy has not yet been attempted because “we have not yet learned how to live together” (1998, p. 3). Stivers (2008) echoes that sentiment, claiming that we have yet to give the “light” of humanity a fair try. Dahl’s (1998) primer On Democracy explains why as he explores the core tensions in dif-fering conceptions of self-governance: political equality versus guardian-ship, democracy by assembly versus representation, and democratic versus republican institutions. In the classical sense, self-governance demands equality and direct participation in democratic institutions rather than guard-ianship and representation in an authoritative republican structure. The rep-resentative form we have chosen is based on an assumption that individuals are self-interested atomistic beings that must be forged into one through the guardianship of representatives and the authority of the State. Thus, the start-ing place for cocreating political democracy must be our understanding of human beings and social relationship.

In the existing political economy, social practices are “operative within the confines of the market-centered society” which produces a particular “behavioral syndrome and its cognitive patterns” (Ramos, 1981, p. 60). In short, liberalism, representative democracy, and institutions based on social contract theory and atomistic individualism repress social relationship by limiting its expression to transaction among objectified parties, as described by Martin Buber’s (1986) I–It relationship. In an attempt to theorize beyond self-interest, some scholars assume a wholly different notion of human nature, or more appropriately human “potentialities,” drawing from Hei-degger’s ontology of subjective becoming and the social character of human existence described by Rousseau (2000) in On the Social Contract (1762) (Stivers, 2008). However, contemporary thinking reaches beyond the notion of contract altogether. Contracts among abstractions like the State and the People are removed from human experience (Catlaw, 2007a; Stivers, 2008). Such contracts commodify social relationship by turning it into transaction




rather than an authentic sharing of experience (McSwite, 1997, 2006). There-fore, Arendt (1977) suggests social agreements should be expressed through a covenant or a mutual promise made consciously and actively by actual people.

To escape the degenerative implications of social contracts, the preferred referent is the social bond. The Progressives conceived the social bond as a natural life force shared by all of creation (or at least humanity) that is expressed through mutualistic relationship, thought, and deed (Dewey, 1934; Follett, 1998). “Call it religion, patriotism, sympathy, the enthusiasm for humanity, or the love of God—give it what name you will; there is yet a force which over-comes and drives out selfishness” (George, 1929, p. 463). Thayer (1981) describes it as the ancient understanding that we are all God. Yet both Dewey (1934) and Follett disassociate the social bond from religion or transcendental sources, instead viewing it as a psychological phenomenon that enables a pub-lic or “group-spirit . . . the Spirit of democracy” (Follett, 1998, p. 43).

Although some depict the social bond as “love” (Catlaw, 2006b), “you do not need any affective tie in order to have collaboration” (McSwite, 2007). But there must be a sort of resonance (Catlaw, 2007b) or a recognition of similar capacities or reasons to relate, understand, and act together (Austin, 2010). In this way the social bond is an inborn “sense of the common” (Sti-vers, 2008) or other human characteristic (McSwite, 2006). As Heidegger described it, we are born into a social context and because of our fundamental understandings of one another as fellow human beings, forms of social inter-action become possible (Hummel, 1987). Evans (1998) sees this as an inher-ent connectedness comparable to that described by advanced science. The shared theme among these descriptions is that there is a quality (e.g., energy, consciousness, or sense) that is at once uniquely expressed yet held in common.

Although some may react to the type of language used, I submit that the empathy described by Addams, Dewey, Follett, and George is the very same social bond contemporary scholars are struggling to define. McSwite (2007) calls for a new consciousness that enables “sociality.” Farmer (2005b) sug-gests an administrative consciousness that approaches practice as an art of love. These ideas are very similar to Follett’s (1998) “consciousness of one-ness.” The bottom line is that imagining our way beyond the modes of asso-ciation to which we are socialized and inventing language to express it clearly is a difficult proposition. We must seek a hermeneutic understanding of intended meanings in this project. In my reading of both sets of literature, what is being described is a sense of mutuality—love like the Greek agape4—generated by an innate social bond.



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Even if there is no natural social bond, there is ample scientific evidence from evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, and sociology to prove the potential for a cooperative human condition (McSwite, 2007). Humans are naturally communal, pursuing both a personal and a general will as mutually regarding citizens, rather than as separate individuals (Follett, 1995e). Dewey (1957) states, “Men [sic] have always been associated together in living, and association in conjoint behavior has affected their relations to one another as individuals” (p. 97). There is no pre-social state of independence that must be given up in exchange for social order and its material benefits. Instead, there is only a social state of mutual interdependence. “The fallacy of self-and-others fades away and there is only self-in-and-through-others” (Follett, 1998, p. 8). We are at all times socially situated selves (Dudley, 1996) and thus mutually responsive. Buber (1986) describes this state of being as the I–Thou relationship: “It exists only through being bounded by others. . . . When Thou is spoken, the speaker has no thing; he has indeed nothing. But he takes his stand in relation” (p. 20). “The primary word I-Thou establishes the world of relation” (p. 21). “In the beginning is relation—a category of being, readiness, grasping form, mould for the soul; it is the a priori of rela-tion, the inborn Thou” (pp. 38-39). “Love is responsibility of an I for a Thou” (p. 29).

This innate mutual recognition fosters empathy and a shared desire for well-being. Without this social bond, rules would have to be imposed by an external entity to guide the process of living together. This is precisely the problem of institutions based on the fear-based assumptions of the I–It rela-tionship—they force us to interact in a specified manner or allow others to interact on our behalf through representation. Only through an assumption of the I–Thou condition can genuine self-governance even be attempted. It enables us to willingly commit to an evolving collaborative process. In short, although the social bond does not necessitate agreement or goodness among human beings, mutual awareness and recognition of commonality make empathy, trust, and collaboration possible if not probable. Replacing the I–It relationship with the more robust I–Thou relationship changes the discourse from transaction to shared experience. So how do we make this change?

Our situated condition means there is no objectified individual or society; there is only an ongoing reciprocal interplay among individuals and groups that creates them both (Follett, 1995e). Through this relating, the individual and society are “forever a-making” one another (Follett, 1995e, p. 256). Con-temporarily, this is known as social construction theory: social practices pro-duce social systems that in turn reproduce social practices through both constraints and enabling (Giddens, 1984). This suggests that the institutions




of society have the capacity to affect the expression of the social bond. In other words, even if there is something that binds us together, it can be either repressed (generating fear) or facilitated (generating trust). If humankind is inherently capable of being other-regarding, socially responsible, trustwor-thy, and cooperative, institutions should be designed to foster these charac-teristics, as opposed to preventing their opposites. This is where the project of cocreating political democracy comes in.

Institutions designed to enforce a social contract are substantively differ-ent than institutions that nurture the social bond. Those based on social con-tract rely on representation, guardianship, and the authority of the State. Those based on the social bond rely on direct participation, collaboration, and the authority of the process and situation itself. The latter has been described as “the will to will the common will” (Follett, 1998, p. 49) or “something generic like self-governing or self-conducting of conduct” (Cat-law, 2007a, p. 15). Follett argues that the essence of democracy is the desire and capacity of individuals to cocreate the common will through a genuine integration of perspectives that can only be obtained through iterative inter-action among actual people. This “group mode of association” (Follett, 1995f) is ordered by the “law of the situation” (Follett, 1995d) rather than a superimposed authority. To achieve this type of process, several conditions are required: (a) a lack of subordination or domination, (b) a readiness to consider change, and (c) an eagerness to express as well as hear. Contempo-rary scholars agree. To avoid the problems of domination, all must enter into collaboration with “the same posture of doubt or mystery” (McSwite, 2007). This stance prevents asymmetries of power from entering into discourse through representation as described by Catlaw (2007a). These conditions foster an integration of wills through “interpenetration” (Follett, 1998) or “intersubjective agreement” (Fox & Miller, 1995; Habermas, 1998)—what we more commonly describe as consensus.

Follett notes that this approach does not demand that people start from similarity or agreement. In fact, virtually all collective action entails struggle to resolve differences (Follett, 1995b). Rather than repressing conflict, we should bring it out into the open for discussion and resolution (Follett, 1995c). “Differences develop within the social process and are united through the social process” (Follett, 1995e, p. 257). Through dialogue, preferences are not argued as in debate, they are formed: “The course of action decided upon is what we all together want, and I see that it is better than what I had wanted alone. It is what I now want” (Follett, 1998, p. 25). “Creative conflict” is indeed a process of confrontation and mutual adaptation (Follett, 1995c; White, 1971). This mutual or circular influence produces power with, rather



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than power over (Follett, 1995g, p. 107) and is the only legitimate source of “genuine authority” in a democracy (Follett, 1995a, p. 154).

Progressives in both eras tend to believe that these processes will achieve better and more equitable outcomes: “Full democratic rule . . . achieves out-comes that are consistent with choices the people collectively make about the public conditions of their lives” (Adams et al., 1990, p. 229). It has been said that scholars making this type of assumption are overly optimistic and naïve about human nature. However, the same can be said for proponents of the mainstream alternative—they are overly pessimistic and naïve about human nature. “Denying that the dialectic (and synthesis) of good and evil exists within us all serves no one” (King, 2007). There is no unchanging human “nature” that is either “good (collectively-oriented) or bad (self-interested)” (Catlaw, 2007b). Therefore, as with Follett’s (1998) “group principle” and “creative process,” the contemporary focus is trained on developing pro-cesses that will foster the good while not assuming, and thus inadvertently perpetuating, the bad. As Cheryl King puts it, “I believe process is the point” (King & Zanetti, 2005, p. xiv).

In sum, political democracy demands an active form of collaborative gov-ernance through which the social bond is constantly being fostered, and through which shared ideas about collective action are cocreated through a process of harmonizing important differences and conflicts. This is not done by representatives, but instead through direct citizen participation, which is “an activity to be exercised every moment of the time” (Follett, 1998, p. 335). However, because many of our deepest divisions are grounded in or closely related to class, attention must turn to economic democracy.

Democratizing the Economy Through Shared Interest and Anticipated AbundanceThe Progressive assumption is that the unequal distribution of wealth and privilege are hindrances to the desired democratic social state (George, 1929). Dahl (1998) asserts there is an inherent tension between capitalist market economies and democracy. Similarly, Addams (1964) suggests that industry reveals the tensions between the democratic ideal and capitalism: “It is in reality a clash between . . . socialized form and individualistic ends” (p. 139). Capitalism hinders the deepening of democracy beyond polyarchy (rule by the few), causing a thinning of democracy even as it spreads to more countries through the globalizing economy (Dahl, 1998). Therefore, the eco-nomic order being critiqued is the late capitalist market wherein owners of the means of production beyond labor in large measure control the economic




outcomes for all. Scholars seek “an antidote to consumption-based (con-sumer) citizenship and the ever-increasing power of corporations and the inequities of our current economy” (King & Zanetti, 2005, p. 12).

Henry George (1929) was deeply concerned about the problem of poverty as a barrier to the fulfillment of democracy’s promise. Similar to contempo-rary concerns, he points to the growing distrust of government (in 1879) as evidence that political equality paired with the unequal distribution of wealth in a capitalist system can lead only to “either the despotism of organized tyranny or the worse despotism of anarchy” (p. 530)—an argument repeated by Thayer (1981) a century later as the excesses of hierarchy and competi-tion. George felt that it was both unconscionable and mystifying that poverty could perpetuate and even worsen amid the overall growth of wealth in soci-ety. Many would agree that the postmodern condition of capitalism has led us even further down this regressive road. “The helter-skelter strivings of an endless number of social atoms can never give us a fair and ordered world” (Follett, 1998, p. 154). We have become little more than “citizens of corpo-rate-nations” (King & Zanetti, 2005, p. 21). Fear, scarcity, self-interest, com-petition, and the greed and corruption they engender threaten markets, governments, and civil society alike. George (1929) insists that the only source of such behavior is the fear of poverty: remove the threat of poverty and society will be free to advance.

According to George (1929), poverty persists because of the manner in which the means of production—land, labor, and capital—are owned. Land includes “all natural materials, forces, and opportunities” (p. 38). Labor includes all human exertion. Capital is “wealth devoted to procuring more wealth” (George, 1929, p. 37). It increases the power of labor by providing infrastructure of a physical or technical nature—tools, improved materials, organization to production, and information. To increase profits for the own-ers of land and capital, market exchange is increasingly competitive, demand-ing ever higher prices and volumes from consumers while providing ever lower wages to labor. These are the excesses of competition described by Thayer (1981) and the conditions that others believe will eventually inspire a middle-class revolution in the United States (Dolbeare & Hubbell, 1996). These are also the mechanisms through which capitalists and land owners wield asymmetries of power. Thus, as noted by Thayer, capitalism is but another symptom of the more “generic” problem of hierarchy and its system of subordination (Catlaw, 2008).

In the wake of failing communism and socialism, many resign themselves to a lack of any viable alternatives to this capitalist model and its attendant “semi-democratic” republican government (Dryzek, 1996). Today, its omnipresent



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force is exacerbated by the postmodern fragmentation of social values (Box, 1999). Furthermore, challenges to its utilitarian assumptions are dismissed as “audacious” and “hopeless” simply because they represent “reforms which would interfere with the interests of any powerful class” (George, 1929, p. 99). Yet despite this hegemonic persistence, progressives in both eras call for a democratization of the economy.

Some continue to believe that market competition can be contained by government within a context of cooperation (McSwite, 2007) or by reducing its power and influence within the overall social fabric (Ramos, 1981). Fur-thermore, economic theory could change to focus more on distribution than on production, consider both remunerated and nonremunerated activities, and concern itself with the ethical aspects of production and consumption so that quality of life becomes the central concern, rather than mere growth or accumulation (Ramos, 1981). These types of adjustments would represent feasible first steps toward a democratized economy, along with reformed cor-porate executive compensation, a more progressive tax code to ensure the safety of middle and lower economic classes, and socialized education, health care, and retirement income (McSwite, 2007). More extremely, gov-ernment might seek to control consumption in order to “maximize well-being” (Thayer, 1981, p. 133) or control competition by allowing the establishment of large multinational corporate cartels that would function similarly to public oligopolies (Thayer, 1984). This approach would establish “the collaborative distribution of resources, avoid duplicative waste of natu-ral resources, and encourage stability and security for workers in the political economy” (Catlaw, 2008, p. 371).

One clear benefit of such approaches is that they do not directly challenge owners of the means of production. Furthermore, they suggest a traditional role for government in controlling things like distribution of benefits, pro-duction externalities, and workplace conditions. A problem with all of these recommendations is that they provide only incremental adjustments to a political economy that conceptualizes the political and the economic as sepa-rate social enclaves. Because of their shared ontology, this abstraction no longer describes experience, if it ever did. More than government regulation of private allocation is needed because an undemocratized capitalist econ-omy is under constant threat of insufficient regulation. Fear of both competi-tion for scarce resources and overregulation by government are actually the sources of greed and corruption (George, 1929), which in turn manifest scar-city through excessive competition (Thayer, 1981) and poverty through unequal distributions of wealth and privilege (George, 1929). Thus, attempted government control of markets is a negative, self-perpetuating spiral.




Something must be altered at a more fundamental level to put into motion collaboration toward anticipated abundance or at least sustainable and equi-table distributions. Ramos (1981) hints toward this in his “para-economic paradigm” idea of “mutuality-oriented systems” that would operate under substantive rather than instrumental values (p. 162). Extrapolating from his sketch, rather than merely containing the market, it is possible to democra-tize the market so that all social spheres operate under the same principles of substantive action rather than transactive, instrumental behavior. Such “self-interest rightly understood” (de Tocqueville, 2000) can be described as “the domination by the public weal of their other desires” (Dewey, 1957, p. 76). In this formulation, the market no longer operates under rules of competition and self-interest that are moderated by an authoritative, hierarchical State. Instead, both market and State would operate under new rules of collabora-tion through which substantive values are determined and allocated. In nei-ther social process are people disaggregated into the madness of the crowd mentality (Follett, 1998; McSwite, 2007; Stivers, 2008).

The question is how to manifest such a market system. Economic mutual-ism has been connected to workplace democracy, and more specifically to worker cooperatives conceived, owned, and operated by workers themselves (Greenberg, 1986; Rothschild & Whitt, 1986; Zwerdling, 1980). Thus, this is a reasonable place to begin. Workplace democracy replaces representative hierarchy with direct participation: “The lessons of democracy most needed now in corporations and government agencies are lost if the word democracy is defined to mean representative democracy” (Pinchot & Pinchot, 1993, p. 72). Workers must have significant input into decisions about what is pro-duced, how it is produced, and how the proceeds from production are distrib-uted to democratize an organization (Benello, 1992; Melman, 2001). Such input is unlikely without ownership (P. Bernstein, 1982).

George (1929) asserts that a more equal distribution of profits would cause business “to assume the co-operative form, since the more equal diffu-sion of wealth would unite capitalist and laborer in the same person” (p. 468). Although still uncommon in the United States, worker cooperatives provide “a unique forum in which to explore and experiment with the ideals of jus-tice, sustainability, and democracy” (Krimerman & Lindenfeld, 1992, p. 215). As far back as the Knights of Labor in the 1800s, workers have advo-cated for the replacement of the capitalist wage system by worker coopera-tives (Krimerman & Lindenfeld, 1992). Since then, there have been recurring waves of emergent cooperatives mirroring periods of general social change (Rothschild, 2000). Perhaps the most noted exemplar is the Mondragon Worker Cooperatives in the Basque region of Spain. Founded in 1956, there



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are now more than 150 cooperatives with more than 33,000 employee-own-ers (Cheney, 2001). The system was established to offer a third alternative to capitalism and State socialism or communism (Cheney, 2001; Greenberg, 1986; Rothschild & Whitt, 1986).

The Mondragon system is based on 10 principles: open admission; demo-cratic organization; sovereignty of labor; the instrumental and subordinate character of capital; participatory management; wage solidarity; intercoop-eration; social transformation; universality through external solidarity; and cooperative and professional education (Ormaechea, 2001). Such associa-tional behavior seeks the survival and thriving of all through cooperation rather than purely competitive exchange (McSwite, 1997). The system incor-porates both direct and delegate forms of democracy for the highest level of participation practicable at all levels from the individual co-op to a coordinat-ing body called the Cooperative Congress. This structure mirrors Follett’s (1998) vision of a deeply nested federalism starting at the neighborhood level.

The importance of acknowledging cooperative market exchange as a third alternative is critical in a social context that typically depicts all things not capitalist as either socialist or communist. In actuality, few contemporary radicals [and none of the thinkers described herein] hold to the notion of State ownership as the best solution for the unification of labor and capital (Rothschild & Whitt, 1986). In fact, George, Follett, and Ramos all state this specifically, even while noting sentiments that the “ideal of socialism is grand and noble” (George, 1929, p. 321). But State socialism or communism are merely stronger forms of hierarchical power that do not democratize the economy (Follett, 1998; Thayer, 1981). The alternative being explored is not an elimination of market exchange but rather a transformation of the rules that order that exchange and the associated rights of property ownership. “Markets can be or are a device for achieving process (collaboration). What is required for them to do this, though, is that they be set up under the same rules that create process (collaboration)” (McSwite, 2007).

A market composed of owner-operators and worker cooperatives addresses the labor and capital means of production. However, there remains the “land problem” (Dewey, 1927b). Because lords of the land are equally lords of the men who rely on that land to reside or produce a living, George (1929) puzzles over the fact that individual land ownership was not rejected along with aris-tocracy and monarchy in the founding of the United States. This is a good question, in that Thomas Jefferson brought up the question of the use and ownership of common resources (Sementelli, 2007). To prevent land owner-ship from siphoning off earnings and wealth from laborer-capitalists without




benefit, George (1929) employs Herbert Spencer’s notion of moving land and its associated resources into community ownership as a collective resource. The notion of common ownership of land has been presented as “usufruct” or the temporary right of one to use another’s property (Sementelli, 2007). This is linked to an understanding of natural law: “If we are all here by the equal permission of the Creator, we are all here with an equal title to the enjoyment of his bounty—with an equal right to the use of all that nature so impartially offers” (George, 1929, p. 338). To act in accordance with such higher law, social progress would be assured, “for in welcoming Justice, men welcome the handmaid of Love. Peace and Plenty follow in her train, bringing their good gifts, not to some, but to all” (George, 1929, p. 367).

Following this notion of natural law, the owners (or more accurately, stewards) of land would be all adults within a given community (potentially local to global, depending on the natural resource), with temporary rights being given to those who wish to use the resources for living or production purposes according to rules determined by the owners. All proceeds from such use would be distributed among the entire community. George (1929) points to community land cooperatives as empirical evidence of feasibility—a tool that continues in today’s nonprofit community land trusts in which the land is owned by the trust, whereas use rights, or even buildings and improve-ments, are owned by the tenants (Greenstein & Sungu-Eryilmaz, 2007). However, the concept applies similarly to mineral rights owned by the Alaska Permanent Fund (Barnes, 2006) or the notion of owning and trading rights to carbon emissions (Gore, 2006). Clearly, commons trusts are a feasible alter-native to individual, corporate, or State ownership.

All combined, a democratized economy might be imagined as a condition in which ownership and responsibility for natural resource stewardship is held in common. Fees for the right to use the land for living or production would go into collective funds managed democratically. All other elements of pro-duction and the wealth created through consumption would be managed by owner-operators or worker-owned cooperatives functioning under democratic principles. Trade would be managed with the same democratic principles as the co-ops themselves, assuming shared interest in the equitable exchange of abundance. This market formulation suggests a continuing yet very different role for government, which will be discussed in the next section.

Transforming the Role of Government in a New Political EconomyTaken together, progress is reconceptualized as the increasing ability to col-laborate toward shared goals guided by a sense of mutualism. The resulting



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political economy would be radically different from liberal, representative democracy in tandem with a capitalist marketplace. Democracy would be based on a new understanding of the socially situated individual, the social bond, and inclusive, participative, process-based institutions that affirm and foster mutual trust. Characteristics of the market economy would include common ownership of natural resources, the merging of labor and capital through cooperative organization, and collaborative market exchange rela-tionships operating under democratic principles. This represents a fundamen-tal change to the systems of organizing currently used in both political and economic activities—a “structured nonhierarchy” as Thayer (1981) called it. These changes are hoped to result in greater sustainability across social, eco-nomic, and environmental dimensions.

Progressives assert that once the fallacy of old doctrines are proven, the political economy will transform:

It all comes down to our fear of men. If we could believe in men, if we could see that circle which unites human passion and divine achieve-ment as a halo round the head of each human being, then social and political reorganization would no longer be a hope but a fact. The old individualism feared men; the corner-stone of the new individualism is faith in men. . . . We are beginning to realize that the redemptive power is within the social bond, that we have creative evolution only through individual responsibility. (Follett, 1998, p. 341)

Although we certainly can point to the many problems associated with the current fear-based political economy, it is difficult to find positive proof in a context that resists alternatives. Therefore, scholars and practitioners of pub-lic administration who agree with this understanding of social progress, indi-vidualism, and the social bond can search for nascent examples and promote these understandings, thereby building the critical mass necessary to trans-form the political economy and government’s role within it. As noted by Box (2008), this is a tenuous position to hold and can easily result in marginaliza-tion or job loss. However, for those who choose to join this transformational project, this essay is meant to provide the beginnings of a blueprint.

This project is, indeed, a radical calling: “No less than a world-wide orga-nizational revolution is needed to overcome the physical deterioration of the planet and the conditions of human life” (Ramos, 1981, p. 164). But perhaps it is time for another revolution—another turn in an ongoing spiral of advancement (Stout, 2009). Perhaps in each century, we are presented with an opportunity to fully embrace the pursuit of democracy and its attendant




economic and social justice, to release our fears of self and others and step into self-governance without trepidation. Perhaps in each revolution, we come closer to actually doing so. It seems that when the capacity for the social bond is repressed beyond what is generally bearable in a given time and place, a social crisis emerges through which social relationships change. Two centuries ago, the Anti-federalists proclaimed a crisis during the found-ing of the United States and the break from autocratic, feudal society (Stor-ing, 1981). Progressives declared a crisis a century ago in the conditions created by the industrial revolution and corrupt politics, offering a vision for a New State. Contemporary scholars see crisis today in the fragmentation of the postmodern social condition and the “dark times” in government (Stivers, 2008) it has created, and again offer hope: “If the older democracies confront and overcome their challenges in the twenty-first century, they just might transform themselves, at long last, into truly advanced democracies” (Dahl, 1998, p. 188).

In the visions of each of these generations, some type of public institution figures prominently in proposed resolutions to crisis, both during the process of transformation and in the resulting political economy. Dewey (1957) sug-gests the public can be considered the integrative concept that underlies all associations, and institutions are “conditions under which persons make their arrangements with one another. They are structures which canalize action” (p. 54). However, these public institutions will vary with context of time and place: “the State must always be rediscovered” (Dewey, 1957, p. 34). Thus, Dewey poses the “big questions” of re-creating public administration: “What, after all, is the public under present conditions? What are the reasons for its eclipse? What hinders it from finding and identifying itself? By what means shall its inchoate and amorphous estate be organized into effective political action relevant to present social needs and opportunities?” (p. 125). How might we answer today?

The first three questions are addressed in the emergent themes discussed in the previous sections. The public as a collective of human beings has been repressed and eclipsed by the institutions of representative democracy and capitalist markets. Underlying assumptions about individualism, self-inter-est, and the need for coercive authority to produce social stability hinder people from becoming self-governing. Furthermore, fear-based tendencies toward greed have prevented the achievement of social and economic justice and created unsustainable conditions for ongoing human life. Thus, the pub-lic exists in an alienated, at-risk condition.

This “amorphous” state can be reorganized into effective political action toward self-governance and sustainability by replacing the foundational



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ontology and thereby the resulting political economy. The public as various groupings of socially situated and bonded individuals can organize through collaborative rules of engagement, and their common resources can be man-aged by democratic associations whereas the fruits of individual labor are traded in a cooperative fashion.

In both the process of organizing and managing, there is a potential role for a function that could still be called “public administration,” government, governance, the State, or more generically, the public function. As the Ever-green Manifesto describes, it need not be a sectorally based role:

In our conception, administrative governance is legitimate to the extent that it (a) decentralizes authority and responsibility to lay citi-zens; (b) interprets the public interest in particular situations through determinative interaction with affected stakeholders, including neglected groups and the public at large; and (c) is practiced by self-conscious administrators who are critically aware of the political-economic context. (Adams et al., 1990, p. 233)

The State is replaced with a “good and no place” (Farmer, 2005b, p. 189) and the public function becomes “unique in its centrality, not in its elevation” (Stivers, 1990a, p. 270). Indeed, “tomorrow’s public administrators will be facilitators, educators, and co-participants, rather than deference-demanding experts or independently responsible decision makers” (Adams et al., 1990, pp. 235-236).

In terms of the organizing process, the public function must first reverse the crowd dynamic atomistic individualism (Arendt, 1958; Follett, 1998). This would return public experience to one of active group process. As noted by McSwite (2007), when people come together with the expectation that all have the capacity to cocreate, “collaboration just happens.” However, until the social bond is more fully expressed, there must be some basis from which freedom to participate politically is ensured (Stivers, 2008). This requires an advocacy role in cocreating political democracy—one of “arranging, repre-senting, and protecting the centrally important process of public dialogue” (McSwite, 1997, p. 166). Indeed, “one could go a long way toward imple-menting the world Follett wanted . . . providing [citizens] venues for relating to each other as fellow citizens” (McSwite, 2007).

There must also be somewhat of a midwifery role (Stivers, 2000b) to nur-ture the now thin social bond: “to express and thereby evoke in others the bond that we all carry and to use this bond as the basis for mutually creating a new world for ourselves” (McSwite, 2006, p. 188). But for the public




function to ensure group process and develop the social bond in a manner that is coherent with its own logic, it cannot be authoritarian in any manner. “A decentered ego allows practitioners . . . to see themselves as facilitators . . . not as experts” (King & Zanetti, 2005, p. 116). As a facilitator, the public function would be “good for nothing” (Catlaw, 2006a) in terms of particular substantive ends, at least those beyond the mutuality inferred by the social bond. These skills of facilitation as well as participation in group process must be learned and have been explicated in Follett’s work and in many orga-nizational development theories since (Catlaw, 2008). Individuals in all walks of life could invest energy into “training which will give them the abil-ity to act with others” (Addams, 1964, p. 138). The greater skill humankind acquires for collaboration, the greater its advancement will be.

Given a process orientation that relies on the social bond and a public function to facilitate it, how might political association organize if not by a specified sector? Thayer (1981) searches for a structure that will combine individual autonomy and interdependence, which he calls “a formal theory of structured nonhierarchical social interaction” (p. A-38). In the end, his model is one of participative practice, consensus decision rules, and nested global coordination whereby the collective will is generated. Similar to Follett’s (1998) deeply nested federalism and Arendt’s (1977) analysis of spontaneous federalism during revolutions, groups are self-organizing and coordinating. It is worthwhile to highlight that Addams (1964) and Follett (1998) both rec-ommend neighborhoods as the starting point of coordination because this is where day-to-day life is lived. “In a more or less mixed neighborhood, people of different nationalities or different classes come together easily and natu-rally on the ground of many common interests. . . . Race and class prejudices are broken down by working together for intimate objects” (Follett, 1998, p. 197). These skills of living together can then be transferred to ever wider and more inclusive associations. A federalism that grows out of local associations allows for autonomy while unifying ever broader groups in a dynamic manner.

In coordinated organizing, there is a participant who is a member of at least two adjoining circles of influence to act as a delegate liaison. Follett (1998) describes these connections as “an infinite number of filaments” that “cross and recross and connect all my various allegiances” (p. 312). Thayer (1981) envisions it similarly: “When the organizational revolution has run its course, and when societies have been transformed as they must be if we are to survive, the world of organizations will be one of innumerable small face-to-face groups characterized by openness, trust, and intensive interpersonal relations” (p. 5). Although this organizing structure continues to use the



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delegate form of representation as a practicality, it operates under a different political ontology whereby representatives hold a nonauthoritative position that can be challenged by any affected party at any time. Authority can only be generated through the participation of those affected. “Genuine control, power, authority are always a growth. . . . No state can endure unless the political bond is being forever forged anew. The organization of men in small local groups gives opportunity for this continuous political activity which ceaselessly creates the state” (Follett, 1998, p. 11). In other words, these new “practices of governing . . . follow from a non-substantial ontological com-mitment” (Catlaw, 2007b)—if nonsubstantial means dynamic as opposed to static.

However, there is second possible role for the public function—manag-ing. There remains the practical need for getting things done. Facilitating collective planning and decision-making processes is one thing. Coordinat-ing collective implementation and its evaluation is another. Follett (1998) noted that “administrative responsibility and expert service are as necessary a part of genuine democracy as popular control is a necessary accompani-ment of administrative responsibility” (p. 175). Thus, it is difficult to envi-sion doing away with the public function of administering the commons. However, the role must be transformed from one of power and control, to a function that provides a central locus and forum for governance as collabora-tive process (Stivers, 1990a, 1990b, 2000b). This coordination function can be conceptualized as stewardship—a specialized form of empowered delega-tion (Hall, 1990; Kass, 1990).

Public organizations could take on the key economic role of managing joint resources (Sementelli, 2007). However, in this model, “government would change its character, and would become the administration of a great co-operative society. It would become merely the agency by which the com-mon property was administered for the common benefit” (George, 1929, pp. 455-457). In this way, the public function would be “the facilitator of pro-cesses at all levels of society that attempt to respond to market failures and create some sort of individual, group and community resilience” (McSwite, 2007), or an “authoritative convenor of social systems whose assignment is to guarantee their functional complementarity” (Ramos, 1981, p. 169). In other words, the public function would ensure that no sphere or enclave of social action could pursue activities or ends that were not aligned with the substantive and qualitative good of humankind. This approach is modeled in nascent form by systems of worker cooperatives.

In sum, the public function would facilitate groups in the process of com-ing to shared understanding and agreement about collective action and then




coordinate its joint undertaking. This role would be as applicable to steward-ship of the commons as to coordinating worker cooperatives. In other words, the public function would span political and economic activities. Replacing an authoritative, sectorally based social role with a facilitative, coordinating function that can be performed by anyone most suited does indeed represent the “death of the practitioner” as it has been conceived in the existing politi-cal economy (Catlaw, 2006b). Yet this is the transformation we must embrace to create an “administration in support of a polity” (Stivers, 1990a, p. 247). We must “transform relationships between individuals and groups so that none dominates others” (Thayer, 1981, p. 42) in order to achieve democracy and its promise of progress. This withering away of hierarchy dissolves exist-ing social roles of “politician,” “administrator,” and “citizen,” integrating them in a new form of engaged citizen-steward. There are those who wel-come and even seek this fate. In their own words: “The eclipse of The Prac-titioner clears a space for the appearing before and the encountering of practitioners (of which each of us is one) in the common” (Catlaw, 2006b, p. 203). “Both administrators and citizens (and superiors and subordinates in any organization) will have to become ‘professional citizens,’ for the creative act of building a consensus can be defined as the primary act of citizenship for each individual, wherever he or she is now—in schools, families, corpo-rations, public agencies—or wherever affected by the decisions of one or more of them” (Thayer, 1981, p. 38).

ConclusionThis article has outlined a reconceptualization of public administration within a profoundly different political economy based on an alternative notion of social progress. This vision challenges the hegemony of representative democracy and capitalism, asserting that so long as the world is driven by a vision of humanity as self-interested, of social relationship merely as transac-tion, of democracy as unavoidably representative, of markets as necessarily capitalist, and of self-governance as impossible, the world will remain much as it was at the 50th anniversary reprinting of Progress and Poverty: “There has been little abatement of the social and economic ills that have afflicted the human family everywhere, and that recur, with unfailing regularity, in cycles that seem unexplainable” (George, 1929, pp. vii-viii).

Specifically, in a relational rather than material understanding of progress, public administration would be transformed into a process of self-governance within political and economic institutions based on assumptions of genera-tive rather than degenerative principles, replacing fear with love and the trust



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it engenders, the assumption of scarcity with an expectation of abundance, self-interest with mutual interest, and dialectical competition or hierarchy with collaboration. Although this might sound utopian at face value, no such notions of perfection are assumed. Rather, the methods of progress—collab-oration and cocreation—are simply assumed to be possible and the proper basis for social institutions seeking to foster progress. To achieve robust progress across social, economic, and environmental dimensions, public administration can use its existing role to advocate a more fruitful meaning of progress, cocreate political democracy, democratize the economy, and transform government. In so doing, public administration will transform itself into a public function of facilitation and coordination, no longer neces-sarily linked to government.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge my deep appreciation to Orion and Cynthia McSwite, Fred Thayer, Cheryl Simrell King, Camilla Stivers, and Thomas Catlaw for their generous correspondence regarding the ideas contained herein. I would also like to thank the two anonymous peer reviewers whose guidance helped me clarify and strengthen the essay to the best of my abilities.

Notes1. The following questions were posed to Camilla Stivers, Fred Thayer, Cynthia and Orion

McSwite, Cheryl Simrell King, Kenneth Dolbeare, Guy Adams, and Thomas Catlaw:

a. Follett suggests, “It is the system which must be changed” (The New State). In what

ways do you feel the existing political economic system inhibits the appropriate practice

of public administration?

b. It has been suggested that a full political democracy requires an egalitarian and participa-

tive process for collective thinking and action. Many prescriptions for such a discursive

or deliberative process have been given. It has also been suggested that fear of domina-

tion or a lack of trust among participants inhibits this practice. These problems are fos-

tered by visions of human beings as inherently self-interested and pre-social or atomistic

in nature. In your view, what assumptions about human nature and social relationship

might facilitate deliberative practice?

c. It has been suggested that economic inequality interferes with political equality through

the functions of privilege and wealth. It follows that full political democracy is not

possible without a democratized economy. How do you feel about this claim and what

would you recommend as a feasible approach to democratize the economy?

d. It has been suggested that true social progress is far more than material advancement.

In what ways do you feel Liberalism’s atomistic individualism versus Follett’s socially




situated individualism differ in relation to social and material progress? How might each

foster or inhibit progress?

e. It has been recommended that the role of government in society as well as the role of

public administration within governance become one of facilitating the processes of

self-governance in terms of planning, determining, and implementing collective action.

In the United States, this role is contrary to the Constitutional order as prescribed by law,

despite notable attempts to reinterpret its meanings. What advice do you give to public

administration scholars and practitioners in advocating for administrative action that is

contrary to representative government or the capitalist economy?

2. I hope to turn the spotlight on this philosopher of political economy. Henry George (1929)

could be described as one of the first Progressive public intellectuals, publishing his book

Progress and Poverty, the Remedy: An Inquiry into the Causes of Industrial Depressions

and the Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth in 1880. This is a seminal work on the

problem of social and economic justice in a liberal democratic, capitalist society. Despite

not being a formal scholar, George is a cofounder of Progressive thought and inspired the

establishment of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. In fact, Dewey ranked him among

the likes of Plato as a social philosopher, claiming that “no graduate of a higher educational

institution, has a right to regard himself as an educated man in social thought unless he

has some first-hand acquaintance with the theoretical contribution of this great American

thinker” (1927) and noting that George’s ideas had greatly influenced his own thinking.

3. It is ontologically important to note that Follett differentiates between the unified State as

an object created by contract and coercion versus the unifying State as a dynamic collabora-

tive process.

4. Agape is a form of unconditional love that infers intent to promote well-being, as opposed

to philia, which infers a familial or friendship relationship, or eros, which infers a romantic

relationship.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

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Bios

Margaret Stout is an assistant professor of public administration at West Virginia University. Her research explores the role of public and nonprofit practitioners in achieving democratic social and economic justice with specific interests in adminis-trative theory, public service leadership and ethics, and sustainable community devel-opment. Her published work can be found in Administrative Theory & Praxis, International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior, Journal of Public Affairs Education, Public Administration and Management, Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy, Second Edition, and PA Times. She serves on the executive board of the American Society for Public Administration section on Democracy and Social Justice.



Back to the Future: Toward a Political Economy of Love and Abundance

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