Alexis de Tocqueville may have come to America from France ostensibly to gather information about prisons, but his book, Democracy in America, would be an astute observation about the country’s political and social life in the 1830s. One aspect that particularly got the French aristocrat’s attention was the inclination of Americans to form “associations” — not only “commercial and industrial associations,” but also “a thousand other kinds: religious ones, moral ones, serious ones, useless ones, very general and very particular ones.” Coming from a country with a centralized government and state religion, Tocqueville found America to be a place where citizens created institutions of their own, whether to heal the sick or uplift the poor. And so it is today.
What we now call civil society can be quickly described as the coming together of local leaders and independent, nongovernmental organizations to bring people together for a common purpose or solve a pressing public problem in the community. Oftentimes, we see this in the nonprofit sector with the help of volunteers and private philanthropy. When thinking of examples, I consider many of the community groups not permitted in China: independent churches, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and PTAs.
America remains in many ways the society Tocqueville described. But when it comes to civil society, there has been a key change over the last several decades. Thousands of organizations, which were once independent of the government and funded by their communities, are instead government contractors now. Today, the U.S. government enters into some 350,000 contracts with 56,000 nonprofit organizations.
In doing so, our federal government has changed not only the source of funding — it has changed the character of civil society and its ability to serve local communities best.
In my book, Who Killed Civil Society?, I tell the stories of Americans such as Charles Loring Brace, founder of New York’s Children’s Aid Society, and Jane Addams, founder of Chicago’s Hull House, the first of what would become hundreds of settlement houses helping immigrants across the country in the early 20th century. These organizations differed from today’s legions of government contractors because they focused on what Brace called the “formative” rather than the “reformative” work. They emphasized the bourgeois norms (strong families, self-discipline, American citizenship) they knew would provide the poor the tools to succeed. The goal, Brace wrote, was “to avert rather than to cure.”
In contrast, our government’s “social service providers” inevitably are called upon to assist those who are already troubled or facing a crisis: the substance abuser, the single teen mother, or the parolee. We spend billions on such programs. The Administration for Children and Families is the heart of the Department of Health and Human Services and distributes $53 billion in grants annually, while the budget of YMCA chapters across the country is just $155 million. As positive social norms, notably our work ethic and strong families and which have served America and Americans well, fray, organizations that once promoted such norms have been diverted from that task by government dollars.
It’s not an easy situation to change. Government programs position themselves as the go-to resource for assisting those in need, and many have come to rely on them. Even modest funding changes lead to a backlash. But although government-supported social programs may be necessary, at least for those who cannot care for themselves, it’s important to recognize the role civil society can play in limiting the need for such programs and offering those in need the hand up that helps them change the course of their lives.
That’s why those who understand the value of an independent civil society should, instead, look to support organizations that operate outside of government. Americans continue to form and sustain such groups, and this is something we celebrate at the Manhattan Institute through our Civil Society Awards Program, which awards four inspiring nonprofit leaders with $25,000 prizes for their efforts to address social challenges in their communities.
Our former award winners have included groups such as the English Language Learners In-Home Program, which started in Nevada to help immigrants learn English and prepare for their citizenship test; Better Together, a Florida program that operates a short-term foster care system supported by churches and volunteer families; and Community Renewal International, a group in Shreveport, Louisiana, that places married couples in “friendship houses” in low-income neighborhoods, in part to serve as role models.
One can hope that supporting enough organizations of these types can reduce the perceived public need for government social service programs. One can envision a society where, somehow, if fewer Americans abused drugs in the first place, we wouldn’t need as many substance-abuse programs. The same goes for so many of the pressing social challenges our neighborhoods face. Restoring civil society to health could allow us to transcend the need for government programs by offering another option, and perhaps, a more effective solution to these problems.
This piece originally appeared at the Washington Examiner
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Howard Husock is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where he directs the Tocqueville Project, and author of the new book, Who Killed Civil Society?
If you know a group that is assisting those in need and helping people change the course of their lives, we would love to hear about them.
We are accepting online nominations for our Civil Society Awards until March 20, 2020. By nominating a nonprofit, you will be offering them a chance to win one of four $25,000 prizes and a trip to New York City to receive the award. For more information about the awards, past winners, and how to nominate a worthy group, please visit civilsocietyawards.com.
This piece originally appeared in Washington Examiner