In our crowded, noisy world―too many people, too much crime, too many wars, not enough time―it seems almost impossible to locate and preserve the common ground where a civil society might flourish. Whatever happened to the civic virtue and community life that nourished true democracy?
In this provocative, hard-hitting book, political scientist Benjamin Barber tackles these questions head-on and, in answering them, retrieves the ideals of "civil society" from the nostalgists who want to re-create old-fashioned (and discriminatory) small communities and from the free-marketeers who associate it with unfettered commercial activity. Commentators have been making a fashion of civil society, but they tend to mean many different things by the phrase: this bracingly clear book shows how diverse the various notions are and how best to think about them.
Barber proposes practical strategies for making civil society real, for civilizing public discourse and promoting civic debate, and for affirming values beyond those of work and leisure, commerce and bureaucracy.
Although Democrats and Republicans alike have adopted anti-"big government" rhetoric, Benjamin Barber writes, "being against government does not necessarily produce a program on behalf of civil society." In fact, in a strong democracy, the two are inseparable: "Government is civil society's common arm, just as civil society is government's animating body." Barber champions the strong democratic tradition over libertarian models, which eliminate government influence in favor of unfettered markets (which, he argues, teach people to say "I want" rather than "we need") and communitarian models, which enforce conformity.
A Place for Us is a slim volume, but it contains a number of useful suggestions for maintaining a civil society that also preserves democratic ideals. Among those suggestions--the development of digital broadcast frequencies for civic use, the creation of more civic space on the Internet and World Wide Web, increased funding of the arts and humanities, and encouragement of increased civic responsibility on the part of corporations--which includes everything from nonexploitative labor practices to commitments to acknowledge uncommercialized public spaces. Barber has produced a book that can be read in about two hours, but should inform the thoughts of civic leaders for years. --Ron Hogan
