{"id":13953,"date":"2014-06-16T12:25:10","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T16:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=13953"},"modified":"2014-06-16T12:25:10","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T16:25:10","slug":"ostrom-plus-habermas-nearly-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=13953","title":{"rendered":"Ostrom plus Habermas is nearly all we need"},"content":{"rendered":"

The late, great Elinor Ostrom<\/a> is much on my mind. I taught her work in Mexico a couple of weeks ago and will be visiting her Bloomington (IN) Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis<\/a> next weekend. I’d like to claim that many thinkers have influenced me, and I wouldn’t want to have to do without any of them. But I believe we can get at least 80% of the way to a satisfactory social theory if we combine the two thinkers we talked about in Mexico: Ostrom and\u00a0J\u00fcrgen<\/span> Habermas. They are importantly different, as this table indicates–yet I think both contribute essential insights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nOstrom<\/td>\nHabermas<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fundamental problem<\/td>\nTragedies of the commons.<\/td>\nPeople manipulating other people by influencing their opinions and goals.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Characteristic symptom of the problem<\/td>\nWe destroy an environmental asset by failing to work together.<\/td>\nGovernment or corporate propaganda distorts our authentic values.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Characteristic starting point<\/td>\nPeople know what they want but can’t get it.<\/td>\nPeople don’t know what they want or want the wrong things.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Essential behavior of a citizen<\/td>\nWorking together to make or preserve something.<\/td>\nTalking and listening about controversial values.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Instead of homo economicus<\/em> (the individual who maximizes material self-interest) we need \u2026<\/td>\nHomo faber<\/em> (the person as a maker)<\/td>\nHomo sapiens<\/em> (the person as a reasoner) or homo politicus<\/em> (the participant in public assemblies).<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Role of the state<\/td>\nIt is a set of nested and overlapping associations, not fundamentally different from other associations (firms, nonprofits, etc.).<\/td>\nCitizens form public opinion, which should guide the state, which makes law. The state should be radically distinct from other sectors.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Modernity is …<\/td>\nA threat to local and traditional ways of cooperating, but we could<\/em> use science to assist people in solving their own problems.<\/td>\nA process of enlightenment that liberates people, but it goes wrong when states and markets “colonize” the private domain.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Main interdisciplinary combination<\/td>\nGame theory plus observations of indigenous problem-solving.<\/td>\nNormative philosophy (mainly achieved through critical readings of past philosophers) plus system-level sociology.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

If you ask me who is right<\/em> about any of the issues in this table, I am inclined to say: both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The late, great Elinor Ostrom is much on my mind. I taught her work in Mexico a couple of weeks ago and will be visiting her Bloomington (IN) Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis next weekend. I’d like to claim that many thinkers have influenced me, and I wouldn’t want to have to do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civic-theory"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13953"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13960,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13953\/revisions\/13960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}