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Search - Beyond Government (Macmillan development studies series)

Beyond Government - Macmillan development studies series
Author: Donald Curtis

This book takes a cross-cultural perspective on non-governmental forms of organization for common benefit. It focuses on the kinds of organizations that people form when they find that, to carry out a task, it is better to get together with other people than to go it alone. The opening chapters draw upon some current thinking about "common" or "... more »public" goods as compared to private. But wheras neo-classical economists tend to draw the conclusion that private should prevail in the interests of efficiency and of the market this book takes the line that some kinds of activity, such as protection from flood or conservation of forest resources nearly always require concerted action because they do not lend themselves to individual solutions. Also many people in the "developed" as well the the "developing" countries, find that many other social and economic objectives require joint activity. A wealth of case material, drawn from anthropological and historical literature as well as the authors own field studies in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, and Nepal illustrate the organizational dynamics of three basic types of organization. These are: associations which base themselves on the power of exclusion; associations with fringe benefits through which members compensate themselves for the fact that some of the benefits of their activity leak out to non-contributors; and what are here called "self enforced collectivities", where, to ensure the participation of all who will benefit from the activity, people take for themselves the power to enforce compliance. These are seen as problem solving devices, dependant upon the discovery and application of sharing arrangements through which both the costs and the benefits can be divided appropriately amongst the participants. The author draws together a collection of descriptive material concerning organizations in farm labour, irrigation, marketing, credit, as well as other social or economic functions and provides an original interpretive framework through which to understand the responses of people from very different cultures throughout the world to these problems. At the same time the study makes a contribution to the current debate about economic devleopment and the associated political philosophies. Privatization is not the only response to the failures of government. Community level provision - of things like schools or clinics - is not only a possibility but an often found reaction to the shortcomings of State provision. The problem of deciding how to share costs and benefits within joint endeavour does not disappear in modern organizations. The same interpretative framework is applied both to illustrate the problematic experience with collectivization in communist countries and to provide a new interpretation of the conflict of interest or contradictions that are apparent within capitalist firms. The book moves towards the close with a discussion of what public policies would be necessary to enable organizations for common benefit to play a larger developmental role than has been the case in the past. Empowerment - now a favoured phrase in some development agency circles - requires a specific interpretation. Local organizers need the power to exclude non-contributors or, where the common good requires it, to enforce majority decisions. If this were permitted, local organization would become a real alternative or supplement to the state. The final chapter reviews some current development in political philosophies of the Right and the Left, seeking support for a thoroughly decentralized participative, style of development.

ISBN-13: 9780333444726
ISBN-10: 0333444728
Publication Date: 10/11/1991
Pages: 224
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Macmillan Education
Book Type: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

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