Creating Good Communities and Good Societies

Abstract

Utopias often serve as a screen on which to project our values. Erik Olin Wright, for instance, highlights the value of a world in which there is radical equality, although he says know of no institutional design that could implement this value without major negative effects (personal communication, 8 August 1999). My attempt to outline a utopia differs in that it envisions a good society, but not one that is exempt from the basic sociological laws of gravity. It concerns itself with the fact that we are compelled by values and needs that cannot be made fully compatible with one another, and hence force us to make tough choices. Philosophers and ideologues often try to derive their utopias from one moral principle or overarching value libertarians, for instance, from liberty, and social conservatives from social order. As I see it, a sociological treatment of utopia should include recognition that both of these values cannot be ignored and that while up to a point they can be reconciled, to some extent they are contradictory. So are community and individuality, and community and modernity. Two fair warnings: Before I outline the design of a good society, I should note that this is not a review essay of the enormous existing literature on the subject. Instead, this article explores select relevant issues. By necessity, the discussion is both empirical and normative. Finally, I introduce several matters that I consider of sociological importance, rather than analyze in detail any particular one of them.