I think there is much to like and agree with in Etzioni’s argument

I think there is much to like and agree with in Etzioni’s argument. And while he provides a wealth of specific examples, this is the first real utopias proposal that offers a general societal framework, rather than a specific proposal. This leads one to speculate on how well other proposals would fit within the communitarian agenda. Clearly, activities that promote civic engagement, like deliberation day, are possible (D-day is discussed on p. 115, and Fishkin’s deliberative polling on p. 112). But would a proposal like Philippe van Parijs’ universal basic income meld with communitarian values? I think that basic income (BI) nicely ‘steadies the bicycle’ between autonomy and order: people are at once given more latitude in their choices by the cushion of BI, while providing directly for the worst-off members of society would probably contribute to order and social cohesion. During our discussion, however, we disagreed on whether basic income was too individualistic in its orientation. Would BI be consonant with the articulated core values? [This is a nice issue to explore. One general idea I would suggest here is this: one of the forces at work that undermine community and the moral order linked to community is market competition and commodification. (Indeed, I think this is a pervasive source of the problems Etzioni documents). Basic Income has the potential of being an institution that would contribute to a muting of commodification and the market: labor power would be partially decommodified and people would be less subordinated to market competition for their livelihoods. Also BI is a generic subsidy to the efforts of community-building and care-giving – i.e. it opens up the possibilities for easier choices by people to devote their energies to these purposes without worrying about the profitability of the activity. Thus, BI should be a communitarian proposal even though it is “individualistic” in its targets.]