[P2P-F] essential contribution to abundance economics?

[Michel Bauwens]

Roberto,

the first item is of particular interest:

*Reviews*

* Hartley Dean, Understanding Human Need, Policy Press, 2010, xvii + 217 pp,
pbk, 1 84742 189 0, £21.99, hbk, 1 84742 190 6, £65*

The concept of need is at least as complex as the human experiences to which
we apply it, and this book brings some valuable order to the ways in which
the term is used by policy makers and social scientists.

The first substantive chapter (ch.2) understands 'inherent' need as needs
which belong to every human being simply by virtue of our being human - and
straightaway we are into a variety of ways of understanding need because the
different ways in which we understand our human nature result in different
understandings of inherent need. If we understand ourselves as utilitarian
subjects then our needs will be understood as objective interests; if we
understand ourselves as market actors, then our needs will be understood as
subjective preferences; if we understand ourselves as psychological beings,
then our needs will be understood as inner drives; and if we understand
ourselves as members of a species, then we will understand our needs as
(evolved) constitutive characteristics. Social policy is about the meeting
of need, so how we understand need matters, which means that how we
understand ourselves as human beings matters rather a lot.

Whilst Dean recognises that all need is to some extent interpreted, he gives
chapter 3 to 'interpreted need' as a concept: that is, to understandings of
need drawn from our experience of society and its culture. All understanding
of need is culturally specific, so, for instance, in our consumer society
consumerism generates our understanding of need. Social policy relates to
need as we understand it, and so to normative (i.e., expert-defined), felt,
expressed and comparative needs, with their respective discovery methods:
for instance, participatory methods for discovering expressed needs.

Chapters 4 and 5 discuss poverty in terms of unmet need, inequality as a
risk that some people's needs might not be met, social exclusion as
exclusion from needs satisfaction, capabilities as the extent to which
people are free to meet their needs, and 'recognition' as the extent to
which people's needs are recognised. A tension underlying each discussion is
that between the individuals' autonomy and our interdependency within
society, and the related question: To what extent are my needs purely my
own, and to what extent generated by and understood within our societal
relationships?

In this context Dean explores in chapter 6 what he clearly regards as a
crucial distinction: that between 'thin' and 'thick' needs. Whilst a variety
of expressions are given to this distinction, underlying all of them is the
distinction between need as individual and need as social; and much of the
rest of the book is taken up with exploring this distinction through
discussion of differing theoretical standpoints.
Chapter 7 develops a fourfold taxonomy of need constructed from the two main
distinctions so far discussed: that between inherent and interpreted needs
and that between thin and thick needs. Each resulting quadrant gives rise to
a different social policy approach:


*A taxonomy of needs-based approaches* (p.120)

 Chapter 8 explores the ways in which needs are understood to imply rights.
Dean develops another fourfold taxonomy based on the distinction between
'doctrinal' (or normative) rights and claims-based (asserted) rights and the
distinction between understanding ourselves as autonomous subjects (thin
needs) and as potentially vulnerable and therefore interdependent subjects
(thick needs). Each quadrant generates rights understood in particular ways:
for instance, doctrinal rights and an understanding of the person as
vulnerable generate citizenship rights based on needs understood as
universal. Dean then shows how each of Esping-Andersen's welfare regime
types prefers a particular category of rights: liberal welfare regimes
selective rights, conservative regimes protective rights, social democratic
regimes citizenship rights, and all of them conditional rights: and he
offers a detailed critique of the 'welfare citizenship' to which social
democracy has given birth.

In the final chapter Dean suggests that 'our humanity depends … on social
engagement and self-fulfilment' and that this implies universal and
unconditional approaches to social policy and the meeting of both particular
and common needs. His particular policy proposal is local social rights
councils, but it could equally well have been a Citizen's Income, which does
of course meet both particular and common needs as well as promoting both
social engagement and self-fulfilment.
The book contains summaries and questions for discussion at the end of each
chapter, and a reading list at the end. There is an index, though
unfortunately a flawed one: Bill Jordan is frequently quoted and is in the
index; Fitzpatrick is also frequently quoted but isn't. Basic/Citizen's
Income gets a brief mention on p.136, but you wouldn't know that from
reading the index.

But the index is a minor blemish on an important book: important because it
lays an essential foundation for any future discussion of social policy and
thus for any future discussion of universal benefits.

*Bill Jordan, Why the Third Way Failed*, *Policy Press, 2010, iv + 228 pp,
pbk 978 1 84742 656 7, £22.99, hbk, 978 1 84742 657 4, £65*

Tony Blair's and New Labour's 'Third Way' expected contracts in free
markets, detailed targets in the public sector, and close regulation of our
collective life, to achieve social ends. Jordan's thesis throughout this
carefully argued and quietly passionate book is that means need to cohere
with ends: that is, that social and moral means are needed if moral and
social ends are to be achieved; and that therefore individualistic
market-oriented policies will struggle to deliver a sustainable and moral
society. Under New Labour 'the collective processes at work in every
society' were submerged beneath an emphasis on 'individuals, their choices,
aspirations, and achievements'. What is now needed is a return to a social
order understood as 'a moral order of interdependent members giving each
other mutual recognition' (p.17).

In the first part of his book Jordan outlines institutional arrangements
which would enable 'justice, equality, wellbeing, respect and [a] sense of
membership' (p.18) to flourish: lower benefits withdrawal rates, localism
within a context of broader solidarities, and an openness to scientific
advances. The second part of the book tackles the malaise into which New
Labour stumbled: a reliance on contracts to solve social problems, and
consumer choice. Jordan shows why contracts between a government and the
commercial sector rarely work out as planned, and that consumer choice is
rarely that. Underlying these particular problems was a touching faith in
capitalism's ability to solve social problems, and in a rather dessicated
economic logic. The proper role of economic science is as a tool in the
cause of judgements made on the basis of moral regulation by social
relationships constituted by ritual and symbol, and Jordan shows how New
Labour failed to understand this.

The third part of the book contains Jordan's policy prescription: a
Citizen's Income to rebalance formal and informal work, and radical
devolution of public services. He concludes that both contractual and moral
regulation are required, and calls for 'a heightened awareness of broader
common interests and a recognition of fellow citizens' (p.200).

This book is classic Jordan, drawing in diverse material in the service of
wide-ranging political critique and social justice. It is carefully argued -
for instance, discussing in detail Žižek's doubts about a Citizen's Income;
it is timely, because as well as offering a critique of the Third Way it
asks questions of David Cameron's 'Big Society'; and it is gently inspiring,
because it shows how a combination of not impossible policy changes could
deliver a more just society.

What is particularly uplifting about this book is that it could be read
positively from within any of our three major political parties, which means
that it has the potential to generate a common mind on how future social
policy should be shaped.


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