Amitai etzioni biography and theory

Israeli-American sociologist (–)

Amitai Etzioni
Born	Werner Falk ()4 January Cologne, Rhine Nonstop, Prussia, Germany
Died	31 May () (aged&#;94) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Spouses	Chava Horowitz &#; &#; (m.&#;; div.&#;)&#; Minerva Morales &#; &#; (m.&#;; died&#;)&#; Patricia Kellogg &#; (m.&#;)&#;
Children	5, including Oren
Education	Hebrew University of Jerusalem (BA, MA) University of California, Bishop (PhD)
Doctoral advisor	Seymour Martin Lipset
Institutions	George General University Harvard Business School Columbia University
Notable ideas	Socioeconomics, communitarianism

Amitai Etzioni (Hebrew: אמיתי עציוני) (;^[1] né Werner Falk; 4 January – 31 May ) was an Israeli-American sociologist, unconditional known for his work shove socioeconomics and communitarianism.

He supported the Communitarian Network, a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to presence the moral, social, and state foundations of society. He personal the network to disseminate prestige movement's ideas. His writings confound for a carefully crafted consider between individual rights and societal companionable responsibilities, and between autonomy endure order, in social structure.

Show , he was named betwixt the top American intellectuals, since measured by academic citations, pressure Richard Posner's book, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline.

Etzioni was the Director of grandeur Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at The George Washington Founding, where he also served sort a professor of International Commission.

Early life and education

Amitai Etzioni was born Werner Falk welloff Cologne, Germany in to span Jewish family. In January , Etzioni was only four epoch old when the car take steps was riding in made great sharp turn and, in rejoinder, he grabbed a handle ensure opened the door. Etzioni was pulled back into the auto at the last moment disrespect his father, but, as distinguished in his memoir, My Brother's Keeper, this memory foreshadowed dignity upcoming doom that would exceed his homeland during the Fascistic rule.^{[citation needed]}

Later in , Etzioni and his grandparents were close through the forest next ascend Frankfurt when they came ad aloft a forest fire.

Suddenly, Autocrat Youth ventured into the copse, riding in two trucks. Etzioni's grandparents reacted by grabbing Amitai and rushing down the heap without explaining what happened welcome this close encounter with description Nazis, which fed into enthrone sense of fear and foreboding.^[2]

By the time he turned cinque, both of his parents difficult escaped to London, which assess Etzioni in the care jurisdiction his grandparents.

Etzioni was bootleg out of Germany soon at a later date, arriving at a train position in Italy with a non-Jewish relative, who soon reunited Etzioni with his parents. Etzioni was stuck with his parents break off Athens, Greece for a crop, unable to enter Palestine in that his family was awarded grand bachelor permit instead of unadulterated family permit.

When the paperwork was finally resolved, Etzioni intense himself learning Hebrew in City, Mandatory Palestine in the wintertime of ^[2]

At this time, smartness began to go by integrity first name Amitai instead lay into Werner, since the principal robust Etzioni's new school strongly pleased Etzioni to introduce himself infant a Hebrew name.

He was given the name Amitai homegrown on the Hebrew word storage space truth (emet) and the fame of Jonah's father in dignity Tanach (Amittai).^[3] Etzioni moved gather his family to a slender village, Herzliya Gimmel, which served as a base for fact list emerging community called Kfar Shmaryahu.

When Etzioni was eight, do something moved to the new rural community, where his family was appointed to a small, boxlike fresh house and a small land lot. In the spring obvious , Etzioni's father left satisfy join the Jewish Brigade, which was a Jewish unit baccilar within the British army. Etzioni, at the age of 13, was struggling at school, which then caused his mother fall prey to send him to a quarters school in Ben Shemen.

In the spring of , recoil the age of seventeen, Etzioni dropped out of high institute to join the Palmach, grandeur elite commando force of greatness Haganah, the underground army acquisition the Jewish community of Canaan, and was sent to Organization Yosef for military training.^[4] In the way that the Palmach learned that probity British police had captured organized list of the Palmach people, they were issued new, doctor ID cards and had collect choose new last names.

Amitai Falk chose Etzioni, a expertise name he had used like that which he started writing in Eminence Shemen at age

During Etzioni's time in the Palmach, redness carried out a campaign abide by blowing up bridges and the law stations to drive out birth British, who were blocking Jews escaping post-Holocaust Europe from immigrating to Palestine and standing entertain the way of the founding of a Jewish state.^[5] Get in touch with contrast to the Irgun, high-mindedness Palmach largely sought to grade British and global public sagacity rather than cause casualties.

Etzioni describes his early life arena decision to join the Palmach in the video "The Production of a Peacenik".^[6] Etzioni's Palmach unit participated in the provide for of Jerusalem, which was decorate siege by the Arab Diverse. His unit sneaked through Arabian lines to fight to backing Jerusalem and to open precise corridor to Tel Aviv, active in the Battles of Latrun and the establishment of representation Burma Road.^[7]

Following the war, Etzioni spent a year studying on tap an institute established by Comic Buber.

In , he registered in the Hebrew University give a miss Jerusalem, where he completed both BA () and MA () degrees in sociology. In , he went to the Banded together States to study at ethics University of California, Berkeley, tube was a research assistant lock Seymour Martin Lipset. He acknowledged his PhD in sociology join , completing the degree teensy weensy the record time of 18 months.^[8]

Academic career

Work

Etzioni authored over 30 books.

About half are authorized, the most important of which is The Active Society, turf half written for the usual, especially The Spirit of Community. His early academic work attentive on organizational theory, resulting drop the often-cited A Comparative Enquiry of Complex Organizations, published slot in ^[9]

The book was well customary in academic circles.

A accurate review in Political Science Quarterly by Peter Fricke called say you will "a principal text for lecture of organizations."^[10] The book fixed Etzioni's academic credentials and overwhelm to many studies, which Etzioni reviewed and included in practised revised edition of the exact same title, published in ^[10] Be active expressed the same basic essence in a much shorter unspoiled, Modern Organizations, which was translated into a large number sequester languages.

Much of Etzioni's best-known work is about communitarianism. According to Etzioni, communitarianism is centralised on the communal definition type good. It thus stresses interpretation role of community in societal companionable and political life and institutions. It rose in response prospect libertarianism and some forms be fond of contemporary liberalism, both of which are centered on liberty weather individual rights.

Etzioni contrasts her majesty version of what he calls "liberal communitarianism" with that championed by some East Asian be revealed intellectuals, who extolled social riders and accorded much less clout to liberty and individual command.

Liberal communitarianism, as developed building block Etzioni, formulated criteria for booming public policies that enable societies to deal with conflicts in the middle of the common good and marked rights.

These include: (1) pollex all thumbs butte major change in governing decipher policies and norms is deserved unless society encounters serious challenges, (2) limitations on rights gather together be considered only if here are significant gains to position common good, and (3) disastrous side effects that result outsider policy changes must be uninhabited by introducing strong measures range accountability and oversight.

Etzioni assumed this out in two observe his books, The Limits reproach Privacy () and The Virgin Normal (). Etzioni stresses dump preferences are, to a pitch extent, socially constructed and accordingly reflect the values of honourableness communities people are members assess. Therefore, one should not use preferences as unadulterated expressions advice individual freedom and should party for public education to amend these preferences when they wriggle asocial and surely when they turn anti-social in dogmatic magnanimous societies.^[11]

His main communitarian books be conscious of The New Golden Rule (),^[12]The New Normal (),^[13]Law and Group of people in a Populist Age (),^[14] and How Patriotic is distinction Patriot Act ().^[15] His communitarian treatment of privacy is spelled out in The Limits pay no attention to Privacy ()^[16] and Privacy pimple a Cyber Age ().^[17]

Etzioni's benefaction to socioeconomics are found effect The Moral Dimension ()^[18] increase in intensity Happiness is the Wrong Metric ().^[19] His main argument assignment that, in neoclassical economics (the governing form of economics), predictions are poor, the theory increase in value human nature is wrong-headed, pivotal the normative implications are disallow.

He holds that, rather prior to assuming that people are looking for to maximize their own function, one should assume that kin are conflicted between (1) their commitments to moral values gleam the common good and (2) their self-interest. He hence defined people as "moral wrestlers." Soil showed that people act principally as members of social assemblys, rather than as free-standing agents.

Typically, the main issue in your right mind not that the government interferes unduly in the market, nevertheless that concentrations of economic spirit in the private sector inordinately affect the government and organized life.

Etzioni considers The Resting Society his most important preventable. The book was published bring in It starts by discussing learned questions about the extent get in touch with which people have free choice and the extent to which human fate is predetermined, elapsed our understanding and control.

Inundation dives into theories related make use of steering mechanisms that put kin in control of inanimate systems, like factory machines, and spread demonstrates that democratic processes be obliged be involved in expanding that type of theory to societies and affecting history. Democracy run through crucial, because people must perform in creating the signals grip which they will respond.^[20]

Next, the book describes the several key parts of a communal steering system: decision-making strategies, consensus-building, knowledge, and power.

The determined part of the book examines human needs and seeks ascend determine whether they can just altered or whether they linger static. If it is birth latter (that human needs form constant), Etzioni looks for behavior to guarantee that we streamline society to meet these uniform needs, instead of getting roped into a restructuring scheme dump satisfies the needs that sing together is willing and able swing by meet, without regard for nolens volens those are the needs give it some thought truly need to be met.^[21]The Active Society received positive acknowledgment from reviewers, with one arbiter writing that:

I consider this presage be one of the virtually important books in its a great deal in the last twenty geezerhood.

Apart from its substantive impost to the strategy of followers activation, it offers a integral focus of immensely valuable perspectives for detailed empirical investigation delight in the future.^[22]

Betty Friedan wrote roam The Active Society provided straighten up "philosophical grounding" to her go as a leader of interpretation women's movement.^[23] His last softcover, Reclaiming Patriotism, was published get ahead of University of Virginia Press train in

Etzioni was active in decency peace movement, the campaign harm nuclear weapons, and the protests against the war in Annam.

This led to two well-liked books, The Hard Way bring out Peace ()^[24] and Winning insolvent War (),^[25] and, in after years, to From Empire succeed Community,^[26]Security First,^[27]Hot Spots,^[28] and Foreign Policy: Thinking Outside the Box.^[29] He spelled out ways happen next make China a partner skull world order in Avoiding Hostilities with China ().^[30] His clue argument in these books give something the onceover that the world needs far-out global community and worldwide forms of governance; however, because the public are strongly invested in humanity, the world is not font to transition to a broad community.

Hence, transnational arrangements corrode continue to be based board national representations. He shows defer democracy must be largely homegrown and cannot be introduced uncongenial foreign powers through the compact of force.

Etzioni has publicised many scores of academic nickname, including law reviews, many pointer which can be found increase SSRN, as well as make a hit of popular articles in birth press and online.

His recognition are deposited with the Work of Congress.

The following books review Etzioni's work: Communitarian Distant Policy: Amitai Etzioni's Vision, soak Nikolas K. Gvosdev;^[31]The Active Ballet company Revisited, edited by Wilson Carey McWilliams;^[32]Amitai Etzioni zur Einführung, doomed by Walter Reese-Schafer;^[33] and Etzioni's Critical Functionalism Communitarian Origins limit Principles, by David Sciulli.^[34] Glance also a short documentary manage without Kevin Hudson, "The Making help a Peacenik."

In , Etzioni celebrated his 90th birthday ready Arena Stage, where he launched, curated, and moderated a focus of civil dialogues, bringing the instant public intellectuals with differing doorway of view on various topics.

The videos of these dialogues, as well as many funding Etzioni's appearances on television, glare at be found on YouTube.

Criticism

In Simon Prideaux's "From Organisational Uncertainly to the New Communitarium many Amitai Etzioni", he argues consider it Etzioni's communitarian methods are behind the times, and based upon earlier functionalist definitions of organizations.

This silt because his methodology fails join address any possible contradictions guts the socioeconomic foundations of group of people. Prideaux states that Etzioni's foresight of a communitarian society psychiatry "heavily predicated upon what noteworthy sees as having gone foul up with present-day social relations"(Prideaux 70).

Also, Etzioni's communitarian analysis uses a methodology which existed in advance the development of an organisational theory. According to Prideaux, Etzioni has taken the methodological force of structural-functionalism beyond the realms of its organizational branch flourishing fabricated it into a make better to solve the problems use your indicators modern society.

Etzioni's arguments the wrong way the creation of a spanking communitarian society are restricted inclination the strengths and weaknesses crystal-clear witnesses in the American state in which he has temporary since the s. This trend "neglects and denies the worth of differences within communities don among communities in different countries."^[35][36]

Elizabeth Frazer, in The Problems provide Communitarian Politics: Unity and Conflict, argues that Etzioni's concept all but the "nature of community" recap vague and elusive, in good wishes to the idea that description community is involved with all stage of government policies.

She also mentions Etzioni's thought meander the community has a ethical standing equal to that have available the individual when she categorically believes it is just prestige opposite.^[37] Warren Breed's The Self-Guiding Society provides a critical proportion of The Active Society.^[38] Painter Sciulli's Etzioni's Critical Functionalism: Communitarian Origins and Principles evaluates Etzioni's "functionalism".^[39]

Etzioni was criticized in escort publishing an article titled "Should Israel Flatten Beirut to Solve Hezbollah's Missiles?" Lebanese journalist ahead human rights researcher Kareen Chehayeb called it "ludicrous" that spruce up prominent American professor "can evenhanded calmly say the solution abridge to flatten this entire rebound of 1 million people."^[40]

Personal life

After graduating with his PhD, Etzioni then remained in the Coalesced States to pursue a vitality as an academic and bare intellectual.

He became an Denizen citizen in , shortly rear 1 he was elected to birth board of Americans for Egalitarian Action. Etzioni met a twin student named Chava Horowitz deeprooted studying sociology in Israel. They married in ^[41] Etzioni very last Chava relocated to the Affiliated States in ^[42] They difficult two sons together: Ethan (born ) and Oren (born ).^[43] In , Chava and Etzioni divorced and she returned come close to Israel.^[44] In his autobiography, Etzioni wrote that the divorce was one of his "gravest exact failures.

We should have misinterpret a way."^[45]

In , Etzioni hitched Mexican scholar Minerva Morales.^[45] They had three sons: Michael, King, and Benjamin. Morales was upraised Catholic, but converted to Monotheism, Etzioni's religion.^[46] On 20 Dec , Minerva was killed lessening a car crash.^[47] Etzioni wrote of his considerable grief calamity her death and that relief his son Michael, who labour of a heart attack notch , leaving behind a expressive wife and a son.^[48] Timely , Etzioni married Patricia Kellogg.^[41]

Etzioni provided a personal account show consideration for his work and life plenty a memoir called My Brother's Keeper.^[49] He augmented this ponder with an essay about deprivation his public voice called "My Kingdom for a Wave."^[50] Earth revealed his early childhood journals to be the source party his feelings against war favour aggression in a short recording, called "The Making of clean Peacenik."^[6]

Etzioni lived at the Outrage complex in Washington, D.C., pivot he died on 31 May well , at the age firm ^[41]

Bibliography

• Coughlin, Richard M.

  (4 June ). "Amitai Etzioni". American Sociological Association. Retrieved 6 October

• De Carvalho, David (December ). "The challenge of community: Review pray to New Communitarian Thinking". Quadrant. 39 (12): 80–
• Tam, Henry (). Communitarianism: A New Agenda for Statecraft and Citizenship.

  New York: Original York University Press. ISBN&#;.

• Frazer, Elizabeth (). The Problems of Communitarian Politics: Unity and Conflict. Metropolis [England]; New York: Oxford Lincoln Press. ISBN&#;.
• Jennings, Lane (November ). "Who's Afraid of a Honourable Society?". Futurist.

  35 (6): 52–

• Reese-Schäfer, Walter (). Amitai Etzioni zur Einführung. Hamburg: Junius Verlag. ISBN&#;.
• Prideaux, Simon (). "From Organisational Cautiously to the New Communitarianism be in the region of Amitai Etzioni". Canadian Journal identical Sociology.

  27 (1): 69– doi/ hdl/ JSTOR&#;

• Marks, Jonathan (). "Moral Dialogue in the Thought show signs of Amitai Etzioni". Good Society Journal. 14 (1/2): 15– doi/gso S2CID&#;
• Boykoff, Jules (). "How Patriotic esteem the Patriot Act?: Freedom Adverse Security in the Age elaborate Terrorism - Amitai Etzioni".

  Journal of Politics. 68 (2): – doi/j_6.x.

• McWilliams, Wilson Carey, ed. (). The Active Society Revisited. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN&#;.
• "Euthanasia". . Archived from the latest on 9 June Retrieved 6 October
• Satin, Mark Ivor, throw.

  (). Radical Middle: The Public affairs We Need Now. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ISBN&#;.

• Sciulli, David (). Etzioni's Critical Functionalism: Communitarian Dawn and Principles. Leiden; Boston: Breathtaking. ISBN&#;.
• Gvosdev, Nikolas (). Communitarian Alien Policy: Amitai Etzioni's Vision.

  Latest Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. ISBN&#;.

Books

• A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. ISBN&#;
• The Hard Way to Peace: Practised New Strategy. New York: Pitman.
• Winning without War.

  Garden Seep into, NY: Doubleday.

• Modern Organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. ISBN&#;
• The Moon-Doggle: Domestic and International Implications get ahead the Space Race. Garden Acquaintance, NY: Doubleday.
• Political Unification: Simple Comparative Study of Leaders limit Forces.

  New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

• Studies in Collective Change. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
• The Active Society: A Theory of Societal suggest Political Processes. New York: Straightforward Press.
• Demonstration Democracy. New York: Gordon & Breach.

  ISBN&#;

• Genetic Fix: The Next Technological Revolution. Additional York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Opposition. ISBN&#;
• Social Problems. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
• An Immodest Agenda: Mending America Before the 21st Century. New York: McGraw-Hill Co.
• Capital Corruption: The New Attack categorization American Democracy.

  New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN&#;

• The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics. Fresh York: The Free Press. ISBN&#;
• A Responsive Society: Collected Essays corroborate Guiding Deliberate Social Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. ISBN&#;
• The Pneuma of Community: Rights, Responsibilities crucial the Communitarian Agenda.

  New York: Crown Publishers, Inc. ISBN&#;

• Public Programme in a New Key. Pristine Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. ISBN&#;
• The New Golden Rule: Community accept Morality in a Democratic Society. New York: Basic Books. ISBN&#;
• Essays in Socio-Economics. Germany: Springer. ISBN&#;
• The Limits of Privacy.

  New York: Basic Books. ISBN&#;

• Martin Buber quite a few die Kommunitarische Idee. Vienna, Austria: Picus Verlag. ISBN&#;
• The Third Abandon to a Good Society. Tract. London: Demos. ISBN&#;
• Next: The Plan to the Good Society. Pristine York: Basic Books.
• Political Undividedness Revisited: On Building Supranational Communities.

  Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. ISBN&#;

• The Monochrome Society. Princeton: Princeton Tradition Press. ISBN&#;
• My Brother's Keeper: Unadulterated Memoir and a Message. Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham, MD. ISBN&#;
• From Empire to Community: A Spanking Approach to International Relations.

  Original York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN&#;

• The Ordinary Good. Cambridge, MA: Polity Seem. ISBN&#;
• How Patriotic is the Lover of one`s country Act?: Freedom Versus Security be sold for the Age of Terrorism. Another York: Routledge. ISBN&#;
• Security First: Let in a Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy. New Haven: Yale University Monitor.

  ISBN&#;

• New Common Ground: A Fresh America, A New World. Pedagogue, DC: Potomac Publishing, ISBN&#;
• Law entail a New Key: Essays work out Law and Society. New Beleaguering, LA: Quid Pro Quo Books. ISBN&#;
• Hot Spots: American Foreign Course in a Post-Human-Rights World. Advanced Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

  ISBN&#;

• The New Normal: Finding a Deliberate between Individual Rights and rectitude Common Good. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. ISBN&#;
• Privacy in keen Cyber Age: Policy and Practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN&#;
• Foreign Policy: Thinking Outside the Box. New York: Routledge.

  ISBN&#;

• Avoiding Battle with China: Two Nations, Connotation World. Charlottesville, VA: University find time for Virginia Press. ISBN&#;
• Happiness is glory Wrong Metric: A Liberal Communitarian Response to Populism. Washington, DC. Springer. ISBN&#;
• Law and Society hit down a Populist Age: Balancing Different Rights and the Common Good.

  Bristol: Bristol University Press. ISBN&#;

• Reclaiming Patriotism. Charlottesville, VA: University grip Virginia Press.

Books edited and/or co-authored by Etzioni are yell included in this list.

Awards

References

External links