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Hobbes

19 March 2005 - 5:38pm

"Civil society rests on the belief that a society is an economic assemblage, that all problems are economic and can be solved by economics." Shikejian-- We may be working with very different conceptions of civil society here, but I think you are quite mistaken. The term does makes *no* assumptions about what society is, what its problems are, or what possibile solutions there might be. On the contrary, the concept refers to the belief that there are realms of social life in which people gather together, compelled neither by economic necessity nor by the weight of governmental authority, to formulate, discuss and undertake projects of mutual concern. It assumes that "society" holds a minimal, but potentially expandable, zone of free action; the zone may overlap with political and economic life at several points, but it does not coincide with and is not reducible to them. Perhaps you consider this "specious;" if so, I wonder how you conceive of "society." You are also mistaken when you say that the Ford Foundation is "Maker of automobiles and things. Mass marketer of globalization and maker of massive profits at people's expense. Mr. Edwards, then, is really supporting the betterment of his employers" The Ford Foundation is quite distinct from the Ford Motor Company, and has been so for at least fifty years. The Foundation was, it is true, established with money derived from automobile manufactures, but its concerns are quite different. Unless, that is, you assume that forums like openDemocracy (which the Ford Foundation supports) exist only for "the betterment of [their] employers," in which case I wonder why you bother contributing.