The original goal of democracy is to liberate people from the oppressive will of tyrants and allow them to live their lives as they please. In this regard, civil society serves as a crucial accompaniment to the institution of democracy. “Civil Society” can be regarded as the ecosystem of groups, clubs, societies and institutions which are available for the citizens of a democracy to join for the purposes of furthering their beliefs and ideals, whether through discussion, education, charitable purposes, activism, the practicising of crafts or any other shared activity which they may chose to engage in, so long as it does not unduly interfere with the rights of others.
Human beings are social creatures and our quality of life very much depends on the actions of those around us. Yet how can we ensure that the people who surround us behave in a manner which is conducive to our well being, accommodate our sentivities, and participate in the kind of social activities we desire without infringing their freedom?
The answer is by freely associating and disassociating with the various different institutions that compose civil society, most individuals are likely – eventually – to find a sub-group within the nation, with interests, hobbies, values and goals that are compatible with their own. And while every citizen will not necessarily respect the sensibilities of all other citizen’s, through the use of diverse membership codes and other codes of conduct on the part of the various different clubs and institutions that make up civil society, it should be possible for everyone to find a community in which they are comfortable and in which they belong. The “association of associations” that makes up civil society simultaneously avoids conflict through enabling people who don’t get along to remain at arms length from each other while simultaneously bonding them all to a shared wider interconnected fabric that together constitutes the nation, and which every citizen has the opportunity to contribute to in their own unique way.
Another feature of civil society, is that it widens people’s opportunity to participate in shared non-commercial activities. Commercial activities can be very restrictive, and if we only engage with others through narrow commercial interactions it is difficult to get to know them as whole people. Only by engaging in a wide variety of shared activities with others, is it possible to get to know other people in the broadest sense, to see all their different sides. Furthermore, by expanding the shared activities in which we participate with others on a daily basis in the capacity of amateurs beyond our narrow professional career paths, it also becomes possible to get to know a much broader variety of people, which in turns facilitates wider social bonding and national cohesion.
A healthy balance between inclusion and exclusion is essential to a well-functioning civil sphere. The various institutions, that compose the ecosystem of civil society, would lose their mission and point of being without the ability to exclude troublemakers, disruptive individuals or individuals that would otherwise undermine the goals of these institutions. Indeed troublemakers can sometimes make an organisation’s events so unpleasant that other members may cease to enjoy them and stop participating. But while each individual organisation needs to be somewhat exclusive, the overall “ecosystem” of civil society should – ideally – in aggregate include all the members of a nation, or as close to everyone as is practical.
The foundation of civil society, and voluntary interaction in general, is the right to disassociate. The right of members of a civil group, club or society, to leave that group if they wish to, but also the right of the group organizer to exclude people at their discretion. While one might naively think that disassociation may lead to isolation, in practice, there is a selection effect among organisations in which the most inclusive organisations which attract the most new recruits will grow in size and influence, with less inclusive organizations shrinking and disappearing, so while it is important that group organizers have the right to exclude people in principle, in practice – due to this selection effect – the organizers of successful large organizations are typically very welcoming and inclusive and only exclude people as a last resort.
In fact, the ease of exclusion and disassociation is largely the reason why there are less problems in the civil sphere compared to say marriages, the workplace, mental institutions, prisons or schools where participants are either flat out forbidden from disassociating with each other, or where the barriers and costs of disassociation (i.e. marriage or the workplace) are high. In practically all circumstances where people can’t get away from each other and are “stuck” with each other you will find social problems like bullying, sexual harassment and the like. Amateur societies which people can easily leave, rarely suffer from this as any social problems will generally cause participation levels to rapidly drop.
Through, facilitating a diverse variety of communities, in the future, Socibuild intends to act as an “association of associations” that can aid nations in their development of civil societies within their borders, reduce alienation and foster civic participation by ensuring that every citizen is able to find communities and neighbourhoods which they truly feel they can bond with and belong inside communities that can act as a gateway to link individuals to the wider society that makes up the nation itself.
The fact that Socibuild Ltd. plans to own all the land where its communities are based will enable it to easily exclude troublemakers and disruptive individuals which undermine a community’s culture in a straightforward manner (simply by saying “get off my property”) yet, at the same time, as a company, we have an interest in expansion and so are dedicated, through the creation of community diversity, to ensure that – in aggregate – our communities are maximally inclusive and that – at least in the far future – everyone can find a Socibuild community that’s right for them.
Socibuild is, furthermore, committed as an organisation to reinvest a significant portion of the land rents it collects into in the civil sphere of society (clubs, charities, study groups, gardening groups, discussions groups, etc.,) in order to further increase the social capital contained in its communities.
We believe that the principles – and practice – which civil society embodies are of central fundamental importance in the creation of social capital, and social cohesion.