SERVE CITIZENS, NOT CUSTOMERS
son, factions were “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority
or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common
impulse of passion, or of interest adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to
the permanent and aggregate interests of the community” (#10, 1). Thomas
Jefferson, on the other hand, strongly defended the involvement of citizen in
the conduct of government, writing in the Declaration of Independence that
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from
the Consent of the Governed” (Declaration of Independence 1776/1970).
And so the debate continued.
While the United States constitutional system does not fully support the
democratic ideal, having a more legalistic focus designed in part to protect
government from excessive intrusions on the part of citizens, there has been a
strong informal commitment to the democratic ideal. As an abstract value, the
concept of citizen participation is unquestionably accepted as an unmitigated
good. Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address echoed the sentiment in
the well-known phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the
people.” Thus, there is a strong and explicit value placed on the role of the
citizen in American democratic ideology.
Moreover, Americans have a strong tradition of acting in a way consistent
with the ideal of democratic citizenship. Summarizing the history of civic
involvement in this country, Terry Cooper writes, “From the covenantal
tradition of the early Puritan communal with their forms of participatory
self-governance; the New England town meetings; the experience of forming
voluntary associations, which captured the attention of Tocqueville; Antifederalist
thought; and the cooperative establishment of frontier settlements,
there has emerged a set of values, customs, beliefs, principles, and theories
which provide the substance for ethical citizenship” (1991, 10). This strong
tradition of ethical citizenship stands in contrast to the more formal legal
approaches, and provides the basis for an active and involved citizenry in
this country.
Earlier we noted a difference between a perspective on governance in
which citizens look beyond their self-interest to the larger public interest,
and one in which government exists to ensure that citizens can make choices
consistent with their self-interest by guaranteeing certain procedures and
individual rights. What has now become clear is that theories of citizenship
diverge in a strikingly similar way. The democratic ideal of persons
actively engaged in the work of the community or nation, benefiting both
the society and themselves as they become more complete human beings
through their involvement in the political system, is contrasted with the
world of jurisprudence and legal rights, both shaped to protect our interest
in things, our possessions. In this chapter, we argue that the prevailing view