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Full-Text Articles in Social Work
And Lettuce Is Nonanimal: Toward A Positive Theory Of Voluntary Action, Roger A. Lohmann
And Lettuce Is Nonanimal: Toward A Positive Theory Of Voluntary Action, Roger A. Lohmann
Faculty & Staff Scholarship
Much recent conceptual and theoretical effort to identify and define the kinds of voluntary action that take place outside households, economic markets and governments has a consistent emphasis on negation: It seems to define these matters by what they are not: not for profit, or nonprofit, nongovernmental, unproductive, inefficient, examples of contract failure, market failure, government failure and more. This paper is a beginning effort to shift the emphasis to the positive and the describe and explain what voluntary action is and what it consists of. It proposes the beginnings of an economics of common goods production, and differentiates such …
Commons, Roger A. Lohmann
Commons, Roger A. Lohmann
Faculty & Staff Scholarship
The commons is a theoretical formalism that is useful in understanding many diverse problems of civil society. A common (or commons) is an economic, political, social, and legal institution that enables joint, shared, mutual or collective natural or social action by agents using a “pool” of shared or jointly held or mutually controlled resources. A substantial body of work exists detailing natural common resource pools acted upon by physical or biological agents. Another large body of work on humanly-directed natural resource pools study the human-natural environment interface, interspecies conflict and population density. Studies of social commons have also looked at …
Philanthropic Partnerships: The Theory Of The Commons, Roger A. Lohmann
Philanthropic Partnerships: The Theory Of The Commons, Roger A. Lohmann
Faculty & Staff Scholarship
In Anglo-American traditions, the concept of a commons has historically been most frequently attached to shared land in joint use by a village or community. The common theory of voluntary action presents organized collective action as consisting of shared purposes, shared resources and voluntary participation resulting in an evolving sense of mutuality, and moral order, consisting of shared norms of fairness and participation.
The Internet As Commons: A Tale Of Enclosure, Roger A. Lohmann
The Internet As Commons: A Tale Of Enclosure, Roger A. Lohmann
Faculty & Staff Scholarship
The original model of the internet developed as an electronic commons for scientists and academics. It will be only a matter of time before the same rich and powerful information barons who already control such "fourth estate" communication industries as newspaper, magazine and book publishing, television networks and movie production facilities establish their toll-booths on the information superhighway as well. Fortunately, within this electronic ocean of corporate and proprietary feudalism, there may also be room for an archipelago of freistaaten; "free citystates" functioning as autonomous and self-governing islands for the arts, sciences, humanities, social service and community.
The Commons: A Multidisciplinary Approach To Nonprofit Organization, Voluntary Action And Philanthropy, Roger A. Lohmann
The Commons: A Multidisciplinary Approach To Nonprofit Organization, Voluntary Action And Philanthropy, Roger A. Lohmann
Faculty & Staff Scholarship
The task of identifying nonprofit organizations, voluntary action and philanthropy as the principal constituents of a single "sector" within the larger economy, society and polity has been a central challenge for the multidisciplinary paradigm which seems to be emerging in this field. The concepts of the commons and common goods are presented as concepts with important multi-disciplinary implications. The commons is characterized by uncoerced participation, shared purposes and resources, mutuality and fairness and the derivative concept of common goods, as desirable ends which are universal and indivisible within a commons but not necessarily beyond. Taken together, commons and common goods …
The Repertory Of Social Care Of The Elderly, Roger A. Lohmann
The Repertory Of Social Care Of The Elderly, Roger A. Lohmann
Faculty & Staff Scholarship
This paper is an analysis of aspects of the emergence of a repertory of social care services for the elderly from the vantage point of the common theory of voluntary action. One facet of that theory, labeled here as endowment theory, is an emerging rational choice model of the praxeological implications of voluntary action within the pragmatic problem-solving tradition. Three terms – endowment, repertory and commons – are presented in the paper as terms whose conventional meanings contain previously undisclosed connotations relevant to a fuller understanding of voluntary action.