Collective responsibility

“ He looks before and after, and forgoes the gratification of the present to insure against the accidents of the future, though the extent to which the community as a whole can follow the example of individuals in this respect remains at the moment a test of its self-control and sense of collective responsibility.
Whether this growth of power in the individual and in the state is a good or an evil thing depends on the conscience of those who wield it. ”

“ The recognition of communal responsibility is the great conservator of savage society and customary law, the very root and stem of all savage morality; it is the effective moral sanction without which the superstitious and religious sanctions would be of little effect. By its means, the idea of the community is constantly obtruded on the consciousness of the individual. Through it he is constantly led, or forced, to control his individualistic impulses and to undertake action with regard to the welfare of the group rather than to his own private interest. ”

“ It is like the responsibility of the father of a family in its semi-instinctive origin and in its effects in steadying and strengthening character, for it imposes a responsibility which the nation, like the individual, cannot discharge indifferently without seriously damaging its reputation and prestige in the eyes of the world. ”

“ The four ideas, liberty, equality, progress, and human solidarity or universal responsibility, seem to be the leading ideas of the present era, the ideas which, in conjunction with national sentiments, are more than any other, fashioning the future of the world. ”

“ If each representative were a mere delegate, an average specimen of the group he represents, chosen by lot and merely charged to express their will, this feature would modify the crude collective mental processes in one important respect only; namely, it would counteract to some extent that weakening of individual responsibility which is characteristic of collective mental action. But, in addition to this, internal organisation, in the form of tradition and custom, comes in to modify very greatly the collective process. ”

“ Hence, since the responsibility falls on the whole crowd, and any loss or gain of reputation affects the crowd and hardly at all the individuals who are merged in it, they are not stimulated to exert care and self-restraint and critical deliberation in forming their judgments, in [Pg 44] arriving at decisions, or in executing any task collectively undertaken. The results of these two conditions of collective mental life are well summed up in the popular dictum that a corporation has no conscience. ”

“ More recent still, and perhaps equally important, is the idea of the solidarity of the human race and of the responsibility of each nation towards the rest, especially towards the weaker and more backward peoples. We no longer cheerfully and openly exterminate an inferior people ”

“ They were all based on the law that a sound and successful community, whether that community be a village, town or nation, rests in the final analysis on personal, individual responsibility which in the group makes a responsible government, that personal responsibility comes only from preparation, from execution as a result of preparation and from efficiency which is its synonym. ”

“ The leaders in the societies themselves insisted upon a better sensing of social responsibility, which meant simply the better realization of one principle, co-operation, the signpost to the second stage of growth. ”

“ No view of society can possibly be complete which does not comprise within its scope both collective organisation and individual incentive. The whole tendency of civilisation is, however, towards the multiplication of the collective functions of society. ”

“ Moreover, we go to our group to learn the process. We sometimes hear the advantages of collective planning spoken of as if an act of Congress or Parliament could substitute collective for individual planning! But it is only by doing the deed that we shall learn this doctrine. We learn how to create the common will in our groups, and we learn here not only the process but its value. ”

“ While not only admitting but proclaiming that the processes of individual and social improvement are mutually dependent, it is equally true that the initiative cannot be left to collective action. The individual must begin and carry as far as he can the work of his own emancipation ”

“ As soon as he forms part of a social organization which benefits by his particular activity, the organization compensates for the personal disadvantages by its collective activity, and a social community not only finds room for such special developments, but it even encourages and promotes them. ”

“ It is the same way with efforts at social righteousness. You find it difficult to engage in one transaction without being involved in others that you are not ready for. You are interested in a social reform that involves collective action. ”

“ If a great majority of the individuals composing a community are characterized by weakness of purpose, error of judgment, blind adhesion to custom, and ill-regulated desires, it is idle to expect such a people to possess in a collective capacity the intellectual and moral virtues required for a wise and beneficial management of their own affairs. Your first duty then is clear. Raise yourselves individually. ”

“ In the two latter countries the rights of the individual are made supreme over all other considerations, the welfare of the whole is only to be advanced by measures which do not override individual wills and rights; or, at least, the only power which is admitted to have the right in any degree to override individual wills is the will of the majority. In such a nation the greatest efforts are concentrated on the perfection of the deliberative organisation, by means of which the general mind may arrive at collective judgment and choice of means and may express its will. ”

“ Try to imagine any man wholly deprived of his group [Pg 79] consciousness and set over against all his fellowmen as an individual unit, and you will see that you could expect but little from him in the way of self-sacrifice or public service—at most a care for his wife and children and sporadic acts of kindliness when direct appeals are made to his pity; but none of that energetic and devoted public service and faithful self-sacrificing co-operation without which the continued welfare of any human society is impossible. ”

“ The social organization system and legal regime, ranging from ancestral family and community principles and ethical and moral standards, passing through production and trade relations, solidarity and social responsibility, forms of community and state administration; up to a very complex system of laws, rules, uses and customs that embodied free work by the community, the stewardships and charges system, which allowed the orderly and balanced community life as well as relationships and exchanges with other communities or states. ”

“ What this argument renders most apparent is, the necessity for an umpire, or mediatorial power, between collective society and the individual or family requiring aid, a power sympathetic alike with those who have more, and with those who have less, than necessity demands, and whose social position shall derive, from a source superior to either, a prestige which will inspire confidence in its discretion and give a certain authority to its decisions. ”

“ Our policies must be premised on and must reinforce values such as family, hard work, integrity, personal responsibility. ”

“ And, as the organisation of a nation becomes less dependent upon outer authority and upon mere custom and the unreasoning acceptance of tradition, and more and more upon free consent and voluntary contract, the nation does not cease to be an organism; it retains that formal and informal organisation which has developed in large part without the deliberate guidance of the collective will and which is essential to its collective life ”

“ There will be found in every progressive community societies and organisations which represent a far higher level of public spirit and enterprise than that possessed or displayed by such communities in their collective capacity. ”

“ The Big Idea is that the community—the company in this case—shall control the individual, and the individual shall exert his proper measure of control over the community. The two are interlocked and interdependent, each exerting exactly the proper amount of power and accepting proportionate responsibility. ”

“ Public responsibility.—The organization of community is best for the mass of the people when all desires are allowed to give their proper impulse to action, and when every enterprise is encouraged by freedom until it is seen to infringe upon the general welfare. Any system of government which checks natural impulses and hinders individual enterprise, without clear evidence that all must suffer from such freedom, is harmful. ”

“ Only if we work together in our businesses, our schools, our places of worship, our civic groups, will we transform our lives and our country. That is what I mean when I talk about corporate responsibility. ”

“ In this question of looking after the welfare of your men there are two opposing considerations to be kept in mind. You are to build up in them self-respect, initiative, individual responsibility and self-determination, and therefore must not patronize [Pg 136] them, coddle them, or treat them like children. On the other hand you have to recognize the characteristic of an individual in a group—he immediately shifts individual responsibility to the shoulders of the group. ”

“ Let us consider now the type of nation which from our present point of view is the most interesting, the type which approximates most nearly to a solution of the problem of civilisation, to the reconciliation of individuality with collectivity, to the synthesis of individualist and collectivist ideals; that in which the rights and wills of individuals are not forcibly subordinated to those of the State by the power of a governing class, and in which the deliberative side of the national mind is well developed and effective. ”

“ Suppose that all those conditions making for national unity which we have considered in the foregoing chapters were realised, but that nevertheless all men continued to be moved only by self-regarding motives, or by those which have reference to the welfare of themselves and their family circle or to any ends less comprehensive than the welfare of the whole nation. ”

“ Just as soon as through collective ownership every individual shall be assured of fitting conditions of existence, the law of solidarity will become preponderant.
When in a family financial affairs run smoothly and prosperously, harmony and mutual good-will prevail; as soon as poverty makes its appearance, discord and struggle ensue. Society as a whole shows us the picture on a large scale. A better social organization will insure universal harmony and mutual good-will. ”

“ In respect to community, the historic sequence can be summarized as follows: individuals loosely connected to their peers; individuals constituting viable entities for survival; transfer of individual attributes (self-determination, choice) to the community; integration in centralized community; distribution of tasks; decentralization. Each step is defined by the extent of an individual's optimal performance: from very high individual performance, essential to survival, to distributed responsibility, until society takes over individual responsibility. ”

“ DO YOUR PART.—Do your part, and be a man among men. Assume your portion of social responsibility, and see that you discharge it well. If you do not do this, then you are mean, and society has the right to despise you just as much as it chooses to do so. You are, to use a word more emphatic than agreeable, a sneak, and have not a claim upon your neighbors for a single polite word. ”

“ The only safety is in the general and intelligent desire for the public interest and common welfare. At this moment almost unanimous acceptance of responsibility for what we believe to be the public good and the maintenance of American ideals—though it brings to each of us sacrifice and to many the full measure of devotion—bears witness to the ability of human nature to adopt as its compelling motives a high end which opposes private advantage. ”

“ Our object is to labor for the benefit of the whole, to retrench in our expenditures; to be prudent and economical; to study well the necessities of the community, and to pass by its many useless wants; to study to secure life, health, wealth, and union, which is power and influence to any community ”

“ And the idea of outside coöperation in such a matter is a perfectly sound one, as you doubtless know, a--a sound, advanced socialistic idea. It's simply the community acknowledging some responsibility where it already claims the right to regulate ... ”

“ It is a purely false assumption that the ideal community toward which all ought to strive is a community of equals in either ability or capacity. That is the ideal community which gives to every member of it opportunity to make most of himself; that is, to make himself most useful, and able to enjoy the truest use of his powers.
Hence we find the tendency in every community, with reference to wealth as to other individual forces, to recognize early and complete personal responsibility. ”

“ The whole population of a country such as our own is permeated by a vast and complexly interwoven, or rather tangled, skein of the bonds of voluntary associations. Many of these are, of course, formed to undertake some definite work, to achieve some end which can only be achieved by co-operative effort. But in the majority of such cases the satisfactions yielded by group life play a very great part in leading to the formation of and in maintaining the groups, for example, groups of philanthropic workers, the makers of charity bazaars, the salvation army, the churches, the chapels, the sects. ”