Write, Write, Write

I’m writing (actually, taking a break of a few minutes from writing) the introduction to the Russian edition of David Green’s excellent short book (available as a PDF download) Reinventing Civil Society: The Rediscovery of Welfare Without Politics (London: Civitas, 1993). It will be published by Novoe Izdatelstvo and Cato.ru. It’s appearing on Cato.ru chapter by chapter; here’s what’s available so far: ?????????? ? ??????????? ????????. ???????? ?? ?????????? ??????????? ??? ????????????

Nearly two decades ago I asked David, a distinguished British historian and political scientist who had documented in his path-breaking books the amazing history of mutual aid associations in Britain and Australia, to write a monograph on the possibilities of a post-totalitarian birth of civil society in those countries that were emerging from decades of Fascist, Nazi, and Communist devastation. I circulated it as a study throughout Eastern Europe and it was published as a book in the UK, but it’s waited until now (and the initiative of my Russian colleagues) for a Russian edition to be prepared.

I strongly recommend to those who are interested in alternatives to the welfare state David Beito’s outstanding study From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000). There are so many other books in this genre waiting to be written — for Mexico, Finland, China, Italy, Morocco, and many other countries where people have tried to solve their own problems through voluntary action. But unlike the efforts of states, those efforts were almost never chronicled. People were more focused on solving their problems than on documenting their greatness. How unlike politicians.