Communitarianism is a relatively recent development in political theory, largely of American origin. It was formulated mainly from a right-wing perspective by those dissatisfied with liberal democracy. In Europe, and particularly the United Kingdom, it has been more attractive to those on the centre left who wish to replace social democracy and its discredited economic theories. There are many varieties of communitarian thought, some complex and calling for highly experimental social re-ordering; some challenging economic theory at its roots by denying that economic actors necessarily act rationally and by insisting that a desire to act in accordance with social norms is as powerful and common as a desire to maximize utility (see rational choice theory). What they all have in common is a rejection of the core principle of liberalism, which can be taken to mean that each individual is the sole legitimate decision maker in what counts as good for himself. Liberal capitalism and liberal democracy wish to maximize the actor’s ability to pursue his own goals and endow him with rights for this purpose. Communitarians, in contrast, see the community through tradition and history, socializing people into its moral values, and see actors as most content when they live out the values of this community and assist in its development.
Communitarians, in their own language, wish to stress the duties of the citizen as much as the rights.
There is, of course, nothing new at all about communitarianism. It is Conservatism of the hue associated with Burke, common in European social thought after the French Revolution. However well-intentioned some of its proponents may be, there is no way of disguising the fact that communitarian theory, by denying the primacy of the individual’s rights, involves or implies imposing some metaphysical entity, now called the community but indistinguishable from the state above the individual.
The attractions of communitarianism increase with the belief that modern liberal democracies are becoming impossible to govern as the pursuit of individual preferences makes the social order weak and produces increasingly difficult problems of collective action. Thus in Europe the attraction is seen by those whose aim was formerly a socialist utopia (however vague and far into the future), but who are now forced to rely on capitalist market economics. The attraction to communitarianism in the USA is largely because there has never been an orthodox European-style brand of conservatism; US conservatives have simply been liberal capitalists with less concern for the victims of the system than other liberals. It is no accident that Roman Catholicism is influential in communitarianism, both in that many of its ideas come from Catholic social philosophy and many of its leading thinkers are Catholic intellectuals.
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