THE ENTITIES

This blog is currently reviewing the elements of a liberated federalist model.  This model is designed to guide civics curriculum in its choice of content material.  The second component of the model is the entities comprising a federalist union.  Entities can be persons, groups, sub-associations that comprise an association.

They can be both within and without government, be it a local government, state government, regional organization of states, the national government, or arrangements including the United States and other nations.  This posting’s aim is to describe the array of attributes that characterize entities.

To begin, entities in an association have constitutional integrity; i.e., they have moral worth which endows them with dignity and integrity as “autonomous” actors in the political arena.  They are autonomous in the sense that they can make decisions, act upon those decisions, and be held accountable for the consequences of those decisions.  They, therefore, have rights. 

Basically, at the individual level, entities are citizens, residents, and legal immigrants (illegal immigrants deserve special consideration). Entities, in terms of this model, are participants in some enterprise in which an arrangement with other entities has been formulated.  Arrangements are formulated for some purpose or purposes.  The entity is in a relationship with all other entities within the arrangement under the auspices of some agreement.

The agreement defines that relationship and can take the form of a verbal statement, a contract, or a compact or covenant.  For example, in the arrangement of a school, a teacher has a relationship with each member of the staff and the student body.  That relationship is defined by a contract.  In terms of a federalist union, what is here called an association, there is an agreement that uses a compact or covenant as the medium by which the agreement is formed.

Each entity has certain attributes within the context of such an arrangement.  There are three distinguishing attributes:  status, conscience, and practical attributes.  Together, these attributes allow other entities to define how any interactions will be conducted with the entity in question.

Status refers to the degree to which the entity can be considered an elite (e.g., a leader) or a non-elite (e.g., a follower).  Leaders of the arrangement have high status; followers have, to varying degrees, lower status; non-active participants usually have still lower status than followers.  In a more complex arrangement, there can be varied bases for status other than leadership.  For example, admiration at the societal level can be a basis for status. 

The second attribute is conscience.  The conscience refers to the individual’s or collective’s ideal domain which includes notions of what is right and wrong behavior.  If there exists an issue over right or wrong between or among members of an arrangement, the concern is what moralists call a moral issue.  If it is between or among members and those outside the arrangement and possibly unknown by either or both camps, it is an issue of ethics.  Of most relevance, in terms of morality, are issues that affect the association’s the reasons and purposes for the arrangement.

The third distinguishing attribute is practical attributes.  Practical attributes deal with many relevant characteristics which the entity brings to the efforts of the arrangement.  To expand, the categories of practical attributes include the following:  useful resources, character, interests, and role(s).

·        Useful resources – Resources includes political attributes (both practical and theoretical) such as power and authority, financial resources, physical resources, common sense, personal physical attributes such as health, attractiveness, location, time availability, skills such as listening skills, communication skills, physical dexterity, athleticism, research skills, and lobbying skills, and personality traits such as humor, friendliness, tolerance, an accepting disposition and, in some instances, assertiveness and decisiveness.

·        Character – Personality trait which includes reflective behavior and the courage to act out of conviction.

·        Interests – Related to conscience, includes relevant values which can be commitments, needs, and desires – short and, especially, long term.

·        Role(s) – These include first, leadership roles, second, follow-ship roles, and third, other strategic roles.

For any of these attributes, students can analyze the functionality of the attribute in an arrangement.  For example, in terms of roles, students can inquire as to the appropriate types of roles that an arrangement should have and what kinds of entities should fill them.  In determining which roles an arrangement should have and the persons who should fill those roles will primarily rely on the purpose(s) of the arrangement in making those decisions.

Within an arrangement there can be any number of entities.  Theory can be developed and a study can be conducted to determine the optimal number of entities given the purposes of an arrangement (beyond the scope of this posting).  But whatever the number, there needs to exist a relationship among the entities.  Federalist unions require that the entities, despite their varying statuses, enjoy equality among them; equality as defined by “regulated condition.”[1]

Donald S. Lutz points out a very important factor.  In the developing history of our nation, when parties joined an arrangement by agreeing to the provisions of a compact or covenant, the understanding, under American federalism, was that each party was equal to the other parties in that each equally gave his/her consent to the agreement and the resulting union.  This notion expanded so that, as part of the extended republic, all states were given equal standing when joining the federal union of the United States.[2]

Not all states enjoyed the same status of importance, but all were equal under the auspices of the association.  In like manner, the entities depicted within the model enjoy the same equality.  In both cases, federation theory explains this equality in terms of consent and one should keep in mind that the nation’s constitution was formed by the consent of its people and the consent of its states.

The relationship among the entities also has communal links tying them together.  The links can include the elements of the agreement, emotional ties, shared resources, shared interests, and mutual respect.  All or any of these links would make the entities closer and more committed to accomplishing the purposes of the arrangement.  This relationship relates to what Philip Selznick calls reciprocal advantage.[3]

This concern understands that a communal sense among the entities of an arrangement increases the chances of success; it is sensitive to the whimsical nature of fortune and fate, and it avoids the disruption that a lack of dignity and integrity can cause any collective effort.  Some of this can be obvious at times, but obscured at other times.  Its presence needs to be looked at seriously since a lot of what goes into accomplishing success depends on it.

The last aspect of the model associated with the entities is the relationship between them and the arrangement.  The entity has the obligation and duty to extend to the arrangement loyalty, trust, skills, and knowledge.  Of course, the nature of the arrangement will dictate the exact nature of these obligations and duties, but loyalty, trust, skills, and knowledge have the very practical consequence of making success and long-term satisfaction of interests appreciably more likely.

While any arrangement in which its member entities do not meet these obligations and duties to a minimal degree, it would find it very difficult to meet the purposes of its existence,[4] but the arrangement, in return, has certain responsibilities to the individual entities.  This return obligation has a couple of aspects.

First, the association has the obligation to guarantee the equal standing to which the entity is entitled.  This responsibility should be addressed by the arrangement’s policies and in its treatment of the entity as it pursues its goals and/or reacts to the challenges it faces.  In this aspect, one can take Kant’s sanctification of the individual to heart.

Second, in cases when an entity is lacking relevant resources and skills, the arrangement, in relation to its resources and purposes, should make special allowances by, if necessary, distributing some helpful subsidies or other policies that provide special accommodations.  The aim would be to “level the playing field” among the entities.  Of course, welfare in general falls under this area of concern.  More on this in a future posting.

The next posting will describe and explain the element of the liberated federalist model identified as the association.

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[1] Regulated condition believes that market processes or other competitive processes should determine basic distributive decisions, but that markets and other competitive processes can and do fail.  Therefore, these processes should be regulated so that all entities are afforded basic opportunities and minimum participatory status.  Mainly, the belief goes on to see skills as the result of arbitrary forces and that anyone can find him/herself in a significantly deprived state.

[2] Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism, (Baton Rouge, LA:  Louisiana State University Press, 1988).

[3] Philip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community.

[4] Ibid.