Roberto,<br><br>the first item is of particular interest:<br><br><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><b><font size="3">Reviews</font></b></font>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2"><b><a name="Dean">
</a><font size="3">Hartley Dean, <i>Understanding
Human
Need</i></font>, Policy Press, 2010, xvii + 217
pp, pbk,
1 84742 189 0, £21.99, hbk, 1 84742 190 6, £65</b></font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2">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.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2">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. </font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2">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.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2">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?</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2">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.<br>
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: </font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2"><br>
<i>A taxonomy of needs-based approaches</i>
(p.120)</font></p>
<p> </p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2"><img src="http://www.citizensincome.org/graphics/Diagram,%20Dean.jpg" height="314" width="443"></font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2">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.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2">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.
<br>
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. </font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2">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.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2"><a name="Jordan"></a><font size="3"><b>Bill
Jordan, <i>Why the Third Way Failed</i></b></font>,
<b>Policy
Press, 2010, iv + 228 pp, pbk 978 1 84742 656 7,
£22.99,
hbk, 978 1 84742 657 4, £65</b></font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2">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).</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2">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. </font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2">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).</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2">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. </font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif" size="2">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.
</font></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a> - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
<br>Connect: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.ning.com" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.ning.com</a>; Discuss: <a href="http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation" target="_blank">http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation</a><br>
<br>Updates: <a href="http://del.icio.us/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://del.icio.us/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://twitter.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens</a><br>
<br><br><br><br><br><br>