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Communitarianism is a political philosophy that emphasizes the role of the community in defining and shaping individuals. In this, it contrasts sharply with classical liberalism, which construes communities as originating from the voluntary acts of pre-community individuals. In terms of political practice, the two philosophies are not necessarily hostile, and they often advocate similar policy positions. However, the question of priority (individual or community) often has the largest impact in the most pressing ethical questions: health care, abortion, multiculturalism, hate speech, and so on.
The term communitarian is used with two different meanings. In the first sense, communitarian philosophers are those who consider classical liberalism to be ontologically and epistemologically incoherent, and who oppose it on those grounds. In the second sense, communitarianism refers to a form of majoritarianism, corresponding to the belief that the values held by the community are the correct values one should hold. The latter sense of the word is more used by those -- typically liberals, whether of the left or right -- who claim that this is the stance of their opponents, than by people who actually hold such a stance themselves. On the American political spectrum, communitarians of the first sort tend to be far to the left on social and economic issues. They reject liberalism, which they see as being too conservative, as well as Marxism, which they believe makes some of the same individualistic assumptions as liberalism. In the second sense, communitarianism has been generally marked by leftism on economic issues and conservatism on social issues. In this, it is directly opposite to libertarianism and has strong resemblances to late 19th-century populism. Though the term communitarianism is of 20th-century origin, many communitarians trace their philosophy to earlier thinkers, with some claiming roots as far back as Aristotle.
Communitarianism as a philosophy began in the late 20th century, opposing aspects of liberalism and capitalism while advocating phenomena such as civil society. Not necessarily hostile to liberalism in the contemporary American sense of the word, communitarianism rather has a different emphasis, shifting the focus of interest toward communities and societies and away from the individual. Issues of specific interest are the responsibilities that complement rights and the active creation of norms in everyday life. Communitarians believe that the value of community is not sufficiently recognized in liberal theories of justice. Much contemporary communitarian thought has been in response to John Rawls' A Theory of Justice.
Communitarian philosophers are primarily concerned with ontological and epistemological issues, which must be separated from policy issues. The communitarian response to A Theory of Justice reflects a dissatisfaction with the image Rawls presents of humans as atomistic individuals. Although Rawls allows some space for benevolence, for example, he views it merely as one of many values that exist within a single person's head.
Communitarians claim values and beliefs to exist in public space, in which debate takes place. They ague that to become an individual is to take a stance on the issues that circulate in the public space. For example, within the American debate on gun control, there are a number of stances to be taken, but all of these stances are parasitic upon the existence of a gun-control debate in the first place; this is the sense in which the community (at least the linguistic community -- see Whorf-Sapir hypothesis) predates individualism. This does not of course mean that we should each always give into the majority, it is merely a point about how language and self-definition operate. In contrast to the liberal constellation of philosophers (Descartes, Locke, Kant, Hume, Rawls and the analytic trend generally), communitarians tend to draw on a set of philosophers that undermines these traditions, for example, Kant (as a hinge figure), Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty: a mix of analytic and continental philosphers, with the analytics tending toward natural language philosophy.
The following authors have communitarian tendencies in the first sense listed, but have all taken pains to distance themselves from the second, majoritarian interpretation:
Communitarianism has no obvious position on the traditional Left-Right political spectrum, but the majoritarian interpretation can be more readily positioned on a double-axis political spectrum, such as that proposed by David Nolan. On the Nolan chart (a modified version of which is presented here), one axis represents social issues such as abortion, religion, and gay rights. The other represents economic issues, including social programs, intervention in the economy, and government spending. The communitarians -- who favor an active government role both in economy and society -- stand at the opposite corner from the libertarians, who are opposed to both. Liberals in the American sense or social democrats in the European sense generally share the communitarian position on economic issues, but not on social issues. Conservatives generally share the communitarian position on social issues, but not on economic issues.
Under the first sense of communitarianism, it is not clear that communitarians fit into even a double-axis representation. Most political spectra list liberalism near one end and conservativism near the other. On policy issues, communitarians would occupy the same space as left-wing liberals, but they could not properly be called liberals in the philosophical sense.
In the United States, there is currently no specifically communitarian party, although the short-lived 19th-century Populist Party was arguably close to this ideology. In the United States, communitarians tend to fall either into the Democratic or Republican parties, depending on which issues they care most about, or even in third parties such as the Greens.
In the first sense listed, communitarians and liberals have no persistent differences on matters of democracy, although communitarians are less likely to view democracy as an institution set up to achieve individual desires through collective means. Where the two differ on policy issues, communitarians tend to be further to the left than classical liberals (although this is less true of liberals in the contemporary U.S. sense of the word). For example, whereas liberalism traditionally sees issues such as crime and homelessness as individual problems, communitarians view them as social issues and back welfare programs and prison reform. Also, communitarians are more likely to point toward the problem of an increased role of racial origin (rather than talent) in securing jobs, and therefore tend to back affirmative action programs. Also, whereas liberals from Kant to even Rawls show a tendency to rank "primitive" and more advanced societies, communitarians see this as a form of cultural imperialism and urge a better understanding of other life practices. This is not the same as cultural relativism; it is the belief that any universal moral principles must have the support of all peoples.
In the majoritarian sense, the communitarian vs. libertarian dichotomy can be viewed as a balance of the rights of the majority of people in a democracy to make collective decisions versus the rights of individuals who may find themselves in the minority. At the communitarian extreme, one could have a majoritarian totalitarian state, where a 51% majority could impose anything on the minority. (See also, in this respect, Totalitarian Democracy.) At the libertarian extreme, a government could create no laws to govern anyone who disagreed.
Majoritarian communitarians tend to side with the rights of the people, through a democratic government, to act collectively for the perceived good of society, whereas libertarians tend to support the rights of individuals. A classic example is gun control: communitarianism generally supports it on the grounds that it would reduce gun-related violence. They believe that the people as a whole have the rights to pass such laws. Libertarians, however would be concerned for the rights of individual gun owners, and would oppose such measures.
Central to many communitarians' philosophy is the concept of positive rights; that is, rights or guarantees to certain things. These may include free education, affordable housing, a safe and clean environment, universal health care, a social safety net, or even the right to a job. To this end they generally support social safety programs, free public education, public works programs, and laws limiting such things as pollution and gun violence.
A common objection is that by providing such rights, they are violating the negative rights of the citizens; that is, rights to have something not done to you. For example, taking money in the form of taxes to pay for such programs as described above deprives individuals of property. Proponents of positive rights respond that without society, individuals would not have any rights, so it is natural that they should give something back to society. They further argue that without positive rights, negative rights are made irrelevant. For example, what does the right to a free press mean in a society with a 15% literacy rate? In addition, with regard to taxation, communitarians "experience this less as a case of being used for others' ends and more as a way of contributing to the purposes of a community I regard as my own" (Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, 143).
What is or is not a "natural right" is a source of contention in modern politics; for example, whether or not universal health care can be considered a birthright, or how far the government can go to protect the environment.
To be written
To be included
David Nolan, when he first proposed the two-axis chart, labeled used the label "populists" rather than "communitarians". Since then, some, particularly in libertarian circles, have labeled them as "authoritarians". This, however, can be a misleading characterization of majoritarian communitarians, who generally advocate democracy and decentralization of power to the community, rather than a strong, oppressive central government. Also, at least in America, the historical connotations of the term populist run heavily to 19th-century politics, which often bear little resemblance to modern communitarianism. The term communitarian itself was coined during the 20th century, although it is not commonly used outside the United States.
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