Group items tagged

Prosocial is a method for improving human welfare through creating more effective, harmonious, equitable and cooperative groups. Prosocial has been applied in situations as diverse as helping a school to enhance collaboration among teachers and students, a community to reduce the spread of Ebola and a network of environmental groups seeking to cooperate more effectively to achieve their common aims. Prosocial works best for groups, and networks of groups, that are interested in human welfare, not just economic outcomes.

"I cannot overemphasize the importance of this fundamental flaw in poverty policy, i.e., the assumption that there is an ample supply of perfectly good jobs out there that poor people could tap if they just wanted to do so. To this day, this misguided notion underlies the conservative policy agenda that views anti-poverty policy as a narcotic that weans people away from the jobs awaiting them. Kill the programs, and they'll get out of their hammocks (Rep. Paul Ryan's term for the safety net) and get to work."

It is time for a profound shift. As we experience the effects of a global economic system that values profit and endless growth over the welfare of humans and the biosphere, we believe that people are more ready than ever to usher in something radically different. We are reconnecting to our hearts, to our communities, and to the jusearth, and committing to building a future that works for all.  A new system must be built from the bottom up, person by person, place by place, working together for the common good. We believe that change is inevitable, but justice requires conscious work. We stand for wise choices as we navigate the future, and we see a thriving network of people, working collaboratively, as the path to a regenerative economy and a more just society.

The Center for Civil Society in the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA was established in 2002 as a research center focused on civil society, nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, and social enterprise. Situated across the School's three academic departments of Public Policy, Urban Planning, and Social Welfare, the Center has, over the past decade, developed graduate curricula, served as a convening center for scholars, practitioners, and students, and has produced an array of studies and publications, including an annual State of the Los Angeles Nonprofit Sector report and survey that has become a trusted source of data and analysis for the regional nonprofit community.

The problem is that we use these powers in historically/culturally path dependent ways so the tensions become more acute. The rationalism of the nation-state as a system-hierarchy is good when talking to other states (treaty writing as per Kyoto or the Treaty of Rome), or when universal rules are needed (eg tax collection) but bad at the particular (eg helping troubled families). Passion-populism is critical for mobilisation but can also be corrosive as it fails to offer any real solutions (see UKIP et al). Creative-civic power is good at adapting resources, institutions, and policies to particular needs or ambitions but it is bad at universal welfare and justice. It can also be just as failure prone as passion politics and hierarchy (it's hard and complex to confront particular, local and personal challenges).