The alternative to privatization and empire is not necessarily to put these concerns into the hands of more public systems like government or sectors of society that have the word “social” in their name. Social service. Social work. Social entrepreneurship. These all serve important functions, but are not at the heart of restoring the commons. The alternative to privatization is to say that citizens, in a given place, in the context of abundance and relatedness, can find in the civic space the best mix of citizen and system initiatives to care for the common good.

Where consumerism says we do not have enough, community is the belief that we do have enough. Community is defined by its focus on gifts in a culture that is currently organized around deficiencies. It organizes citizens to create and provide for themselves the human well-being that they now think they must purchase. This alternative, or counter-narrative, is to focus on the productive capacity of community and neighborliness as opposed to their consumptive capacity. Community gives rise to an economy of abundance rather than scarcity. It calls for a theology based on fallibility and mystery. It supports journalism that is generative. It nurtures the prophetic quality of art, and supports architecture that is welcoming and evokes aliveness. These are the elements of real reform.