Recently in a conversation with a friend of mine who skews more conservative than I do, the topic of capital punishment came up. He mentioned the case of a convicted killer of a police officer – specifically the 2024 Isaac Espinoza case. He then went on to say how he would have wanted to see the defendant face death.
Then he surprised me by saying he was voting for Harris, not in spite of but partly because she had not sought the death penalty in that case, saying “she stuck to her principles, and in the end my society should be better than me.” One way to take this is that civil society should represent the best of who we are as a people, and should be a foil against our individualistic impulses.
If the institutions of government define the rules and structure for how we operate and behave as a group, and private enterprise defines how we pursue our own interests separately, the role of civil society is to bridge those things and balance them so that both can flourish – we can all do well, and each do well.
Things are changing however. In a time when our governments are beginning to set the rules in such a way that the individual needs of select members of the body politic continue to have their needs met, while the vast majority is at best left to fend for itself and at worst cast as an impediment to the flourishing of those who have claimed the mantle of merit, there is no middle to connect.
This puts a new burden on the institutions of civil society – the churches, the fraternal organizations, the non-profits, social clubs, community associations, and youth organizations. Without the stability of a government that is truly interested in governing (rather than winning), civil society may have to become that structure as well.
When the US Forestry Service and Parks Service become the targets of government rather than its responsibility, will it be private industry that steps up to maintain the land for the enjoyment of the people, and the safety of the surrounding areas? Not likely – other than perhaps through donations to Civil Service Organizations (CSOs) at local, regional, and national levels. It will be these CSOs that actually do the work. Think not only WWF and Greenpeace that operate globally, but Audubon and Sierra club and all the way down to groups that focus on one specific area like the Surfrider foundation and the Rose foundation (right here in Oakland). If government abdicates, who if not civil society will step up?
Considering the wellbeing of humans – USAID is not the only casualty (though it is an egregious one). Think of all the healthcare programs that are being shuttered today under the new leadership of HHS. Think of the unhoused and hungry among us who are not part of the selected group of “the meritorious,” who are considered self-evidently undeserving of having their needs, or even basic dignity, seen to? NGOs and CSOs may be all that’s left. When providing aid becomes a rhetorical punching bag for those who have the most and need the least, who will step up?
If the government continues to become ever more individualistic and callous, civil society will need to become more and more active in keeping the body politic healthy. So where does that leave individuals and private enterprise? In our neoliberal society, those things are expected to pursue self interest – incentivizing progress, right?
This idea breaks down in the absence of a government authority checking the actions of the players against the rules of the game for the good of the league. The pursuit of wellbeing cannot begin and end with the wellbeing of individuals, just as the health of the body cannot begin and end with any one organ or appendage. Capital and resources cannot be judged to be the property of those “most deserving” by virtue of their particular role and circumstance, any more than any organ of the body should be said to have the most claim over the blood supply. If the brain is gone, the whole thing dies, for sure – but if all the blood pools in the brain, and the rest of the body dies, the brain soon follows (actually a blood clot or hematoma in the brain is a pretty efficient anti-brain solution all by itself).
There are strong forces operating now in the government who think they have a solution to this problem – it’s called a permanent underclass. Basically, produce enough low-cost people to support the ruling wealthy who see themselves as the “brains” in the body politic. The name for this is “Oligarchy” and it’s getting a lot of attention lately from those who see it for what it is. But what brain can flourish in a miserable body? A starving body? A dying body?
In the face of this new cast of government, civil institutions are the only thing that can perform the function of maintaining homeostasis – keeping the blood of capital and resource moving around the whole thing to keep it functioning, growing, and thriving. Directing that flow to where it is most needed, when it is most needed – not pooling and clotting in one place.
Civil society cannot be held apart from the collection of individuals. It is not a separate entity from which to maximize one’s own benefit and minimize their contribution. It is the manifestation of what is best in us as a people. The pro-social impulse that is so hard for us each to summon on our own, that can only be sustained by the mechanism of the whole. Civil society shows up when we all, and each, step up.
