Faculty Scholarship 2015 Voluntary Action in New Commons Roger A. Lohmann West Virginia University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications Digital Commons Citation Lohmann, Roger A., "Voluntary Action in New Commons" (2015). Faculty Scholarship. 760. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/760 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by The Research Repository @ WVU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of The Research Repository @ WVU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Democracy in the Life World Beyond Market, State and Household Roger A. Lohmann COPYRIGHT ROGER A. LOHMANN 2015 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. (Click on the icons below for further details.) Skywriters Press Electronic Edition PDF 1.2.1 Note: This edition is available free to any readers interested in reading it. It is released as “donation ware”: Acquiring a copy morally obligates the recipient to make a donation (such as the cost of a new or used book) to a favored charity. VOLUNTARY ACTION AND NEW COMMONS Table of Contents FOREWORD 7 1. INTRODUCTION 8 REVIEWS AND UPDATES 12 SOME PERSONAL HISTORY 14 THE LINDBLOM COUNTY MODEL 15 THEORY, WORD PLAY AND DISCOURSE 20 A CAVEAT 21 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 22 2. VOLUNTARY ACTION LIFEWORLDS 23 LIVING TOGETHER IN COMMUNITY 34 WHAT IS VOLUNTARY ACTION? 39 CIVIL SOCIETY 43 MODERNIZATION, SOLIDARITY AND CULTURE 44 WHAT ARE NEW COMMONS? 46 3. DEMOCRACY IN SOCIETY 50 VERSES ARISTOCRATIC SOCIETY & CULTURE 58 VARIETIES OF DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY AND CULTURE 59 DIVERSITY, PLURALISM AND FEDERATION IN VOLUNTARY ACTION 61 CONCLUSION 63 4. A THIRD SECTOR IMAGINARY 64 THE NONPROFIT MODEL 65 POLICY AND HISTORY 70 A PLURALITY OF SIMILAR INSTITUTIONS 73 THE THIRD SECTOR IMAGINARY 74 IMAGINING THE WUNDERKAMMER 76 THE THIRD SECTOR PARADIGM 78 THE EUROPEAN CRITIQUE 79 THE WIDER THIRD SECTOR 85 CONCLUSION: ‘AND’ NOT ‘OR’ 85 5. NEW COMMONS 88 NEW COMMONS: A BRICOLAGÉ 88 UNIVERSAL NORMS OF FREE ASSOCIATION 93 WHAT’S NEW ABOUT COMMONS? 96 OLD COMMONS 97 NEW COMMONS VS. OLD 98 COMMONS IN MYTHOLOGY, HISTORY AND CULTURE 100 ENCLOSURE AND SUBSTITUTION 102 THE COMMONS IN YOUR BACKYARD 104 THE COMMONS RENAISSANCE 109 NEW COMMONS FIRST APPEAR 111 THIRD SECTOR AS A THIRD WAY 116 NEW COMMONS ARE ASSOCIATIONS 118 CONCLUSION 118 6. COMMON RESOURCE POOLS 120 WHAT ARE COMMON POOL RESOURCES? 120 ROLES AS RESOURCES 126 THE BASIC SITUATION 126 REASON AND COMMUNICATIVE ACTION 127 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND SOLIDARITY 129 THE PROPOSITION OF ABUNDANCE 132 SOCIAL AND MORAL CAPITAL 132 SOLIDARITY AND THIRD SECTOR THEORY 135 CONCLUSION 142 7. COMMON GOODS 143 TYPES OF COMMON GOODS 144 PRODUCTION OF COMMON GOODS… 152 … IS ALSO COPRODUCTION OF COMMON GOODS 153 FOUR TYPES OF ORGANIZED COMMONS 154 BENEFACTORIES: PERFORMATORY, MOEURATORIUM & CELEBRATORIUM 157 THE NOMOS OF COMMON GOODS 162 CONCLUSION 168 8. ASSOCIATION 170 ASSOCIATION 170 VOLUNTARY ACTION AS COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR 171 ASSOCIATION AND ORGANIZATIONS 174 MODULARITY, NOT CONVERGENCE 176 SOCIAL MOVEMENT 179 DEMOCRACY AND ‘THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE POLITICAL’ 181 CONCLUSION 182 9. ASSEMBLY 183 ‘COSMOPOLITAN CANOPY’ 186 SOCIAL SPACE 187 PUBLIC SPACE 189 THREE MODELS OF PUBLIC SPACE 191 CANOPIES 193 CONCLUSION 198 10. KNOWLEDGE COMMONS 199 KNOWLEDGE COMMONS AND MOEURS 200 CALCULUS AS A KNOWLEDGE COMMONS 202 SOCIAL PROBLEMS AS KNOWLEDGE COMMONS 203 ASSOCIATIONS PRODUCE COMMON GOODS 210 NEWS AS A COMMON RESOURCE POOL 216 PEER PRODUCTION 218 ENCLOSURE AND THE INTERNET 222 CONCLUSION: ENCLOSURE OF KNOWLEDGE COMMONS 225 11. PHILANTHROPY 226 CHARITY AS A FORM OF PHILANTHROPY 227 SELF INTEREST, LOVE AND PHILANTHROPY 228 NATURE, CULTURE AND HUMAN SERVICE 232 PHILANTHROPY AND SELF INTEREST, PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD 233 ENLIGHTENMENT AND PHILANTHROPY 237 LOVE AND COMMON GOODS PRODUCTION 238 PHILANTHROPY: ENLIGHTENMENT AND SUBLIMITY 239 CONCLUSION 244 12. SOCIAL ECONOMY AS GIFT ECONOMY 245 GIFT THEORY 246 PHILANTHROPY AS GIFT EXCHANGE 249 PHILANTHROPOD: THE TRIAD OF GIFT EXCHANGE 250 SOCIAL ECONOMY DEFINED 256 THREE SOCIAL ECONOMIES 257 THE ACCIDENTAL SOCIAL ECONOMY 257 CONCLUSION 259 13. COMMUNITY 261 MULTIPLE MEANINGS 265 CORE CONCEPTS 266 CONCLUSION 272 14. PLURALISM 274 JUMP STARTING PLURALISM 275 PLURALISM REDEFINED 276 HETERODOX PLURALISM 277 OTTO VON GIERKE AND THE EARLIER PLURALIST MOVEMENT 278 BARBER’S 283 ANOTHER NEW FEDERALISM? A NEW SECTOR NARRATIVE 284 15. CIVIC HUMANISM 287 ORIGINS OF CIVIC HUMANISM 287 OTHER TYPES OF ORGANIZED COMMONS 294 UNCERTAINTY AND PERFORMATORY DRAMA 295 16. CONCLUSION 296 RIVALS TO VOLUNTARY ACTION IN CIVIL SOCIETY 296 REAL AND IMAGINED TREASON 298 THE IRON CAGE 300 PUTNAM’S COUCH POTATOES 301 THE DUBIOUS INTERMEDIACY OF CAFÉ SOCIETY 302 ‘SOCIALISM WITHOUT SOCIALISTS’ 306 APPENDIX A 310 REFERENCES 312 VERSION NOTES 357 VERSION NUMBERING 357 VERSION 1.1.0 357 MSWORD NOTES 357 PDF NOTES 357 VERSION 1.2.1 NOTES 358 Foreword When I wrote the Foreword to Roger Lohmann’s The Commons in 1992, I noted that the book’s analysis was acute, its scope broad, its writing crisp, and its vision that of the poet. I observed that the argument of the book transcended disciplines and sectors. I said that the book was in many respects the first definitive large-scale theory of the voluntary and nonprofit sector. I advised readers to approach the book as they would a voyage to a new land. And I added that the work held the potential of defining our field at the point of its full scholarly emergence. More than twenty years have passed since those words, followed by that remarkable book, were published by the most significant nonprofit sector press of that era. And with the appearance of Voluntary Action and the New Commons, I need to modify none of what I said about the first edition, nor to indicate that this fully revised, extended, and updated new edition falls short of any of my original descriptors. This new book builds on its predecessor, but extends it in a number of important directions. The connections it provides to the Ostroms’ celebrated work with the commons concept are welcome, as is the extension of the theory and its powerful conceptual vocabulary in a number of powerful new directions. I concluded the 1992 Foreword by noting that the author had done his work, and it was now time for the rest of us to read, learn, and apply his wisdom and understanding to our own work. Perhaps it is not surprising that many who have claimed to understand society’s third sector have yet to give this work the careful reading it deserves—after all they are busy with their own efforts to understand this multi-faceted and elusive field. But Roger Lohmann continues his work, and this remarkable volume is his latest contribution to a field he has served with such grace and commitment over the years. I remember a few years back, when his colleagues in ARNOVA gave him the warmest response I recall them providing any colleague, when he was recognized for his stewardship of that organization’s pioneering list-serve network. Now Skywriters Press appears to present this classic work to both scholars in the field and intelligent readers on a global scale. Welcome to this entrant to the new commons of publication and dialogue, and congratulations to Roger Lohmann for his remarkable energy, determination, and creativity in advancing this work. VOLUNTARY ACTION AND THE NEW COMMONS now takes its place as one of the most basic books to read about society’s third, voluntary, nonprofit, and civil sector, and the actions and organizations that undergird its many efforts and contributions. Jon Van Til Seelyville, Indiana and Budapest, Hungary September 2014 7 1. Introduction It has been nearly a quarter of a century since publication of The Commons: New Perspectives on Nonprofit Organization, Voluntary Action and Philanthropy. In that time, a number of insightful and interesting critical commentaries on this volume have been published, and I have published numerous journal articles, book chapters and presented a number of unpublished conference papers sharpening, honing, and focusing aspects of the original perspective. I have not tried, until this project, to lay out in one place a complete revised statement of my entire commons approach to the third sector. Since its original appearance in 1992 The Commons has been out of print and hard to get a hold of. The initial publisher took the book out of print after less than a year and later returned the publication rights to me. There was a lesson in this for me, but not the one supposedly taught by market demand. I’ve always been rather fond of Frost’s less traveled road; it has for me made all the difference time and again. To this was added the promise to myself to avoid commercial publishers, and subsequently all of my other books have been (and will be) published by non-commercial presses. I think of it as my own personal movement into the third sector. The Commons (Lohmann, 1992A) is one of the few genuine theory efforts in the field of third sector studies and friends, colleagues, sympathetic critics, and others have been urging me to produce a new edition of the original book for years. However, competing demands and projects always got in the way, even as additional nuances, implications and facets of the commons perspective continued to accumulate. I have tried here to reflect the germ of the original idea and many of the additional accretions in what follows. This is in no sense a second edition, however. In retirement the time is right for me to set down in one place a new statement of the entire perspective that I now call the new commons theory of voluntary action.