The Communitarian Charter

A political philosophy that emphasizes the community and its claims on the individual, balancing liberty with duty and rights with responsibility.

1. The Encumbered Self

Persons are not unencumbered choosers but participants in communities, traditions, and obligations they did not choose. Political theory must take these attachments seriously rather than treating them as private preferences.

2. Rights Imply Responsibilities

Every right asserted against the community implies a corresponding duty to the community. A society organized purely around rights against, with no rights with, dissolves into atomism.

3. Strong Civil Society

The institutions between the individual and the state — family, religious community, neighborhood, voluntary association — are the loci of moral education and social trust. Policy should strengthen them, not displace them.

4. Place and Belonging

Citizens are formed in particular places, by particular cultures and histories. Mobility and global integration are valuable but must not be pursued at the cost of the local attachments that produce committed citizens.

5. The Common Good

Politics cannot be reduced to fair procedures among preference-bearers. There are goods — public safety, cultural continuity, civic friendship — that are genuinely shared and warrant public deliberation and pursuit.

6. Moderate Pluralism

Disagreement about the good life is permanent and legitimate. The community owes minority views protection and a hearing, but is entitled to its own settled commitments on questions of public morality.

7. Limits of Markets

Markets are excellent at coordinating production and exchange but corrupt some goods — bodies, votes, intimate care — when they are introduced. The community decides what is and is not for sale.