The Tools to Be Free: Social Citizenship, Education, and Service in the Twenty-First Century

Linking broad-based public service to post-secondary education is the best way to make our society more free. Access to college ought to be a social right of citizenship. The core idea in T.H. Marshall’s concept of social citizenship is that, in addition to civil and political rights, people hold social rights, including guarantees to housing, health care, basic income, and, especially, an adequate education. These are resources we all need to participate in society as full and equal members. In America, opponents of these guarantees have effectively mobilized deeply held liberal ideas, arguing that state action is a threat to freedom. Against this, progressive arguments about fairness have fallen flat. Looking outside liberalism, this book offers a new approach. It argues, first, the civic republican tradition provides an authentically American basis for the social rights of citizenship. Republicanism understands that true freedom requires a degree of personal independence. The ultimate justification for egalitarian policies, especially in education, is that they make us more free. Second, our first major policy step in this direction ought to be adopting a large-scale service-to-school program designed to increase access to post-secondary education.

Table of Contents:
Preface: The Turn Not Taken Acknowledgments Introduction: Main Elements of the Argument Part I: Social Citizenship Chapter 1: What Is Social Citizenship? Chapter 2: Social Citizenship and Social Policy Chapter 3: Education as a Social Right Part II: Finding An American Social Citizenship Chapter 4: Traditional Liberalism and Social Rights Chapter 5: Education in a Liberal Society Chapter 6: The Civic Republican Basis for Social Rights Chapter 7: Dealing with the Fact of Conservatism Chapter 8: New Liberalisms and Republican Revivals Chapter 9: Social Rights and Egalitarian Liberalism Part III: A Path Forward Chapter 10: An American Social Citizenship Chapter 11: A Service-to-School Program for Social Citizenship Afterword: Getting There From Here Bibliography About the Author

About the Author :
Stephen Minicucci is a political scientist trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Review :
Written with verve and learning, this call for a vigorous social citizenship makes connections, necessary ones, that link thought, history, and practice. Supplementing the American liberal tradition, its prescriptions for deeper education linked to the grounded experience of service during the transition to adulthood advance ideas and policies regarding civic virtue that should be read urgently and pondered widely. “The civic republican tradition that was embodied in the early United States equated freedom with citizenship, expecting citizens of the republic to be able to relate to others, and to the powers that be, without reason for fear or deference. Stephen Minicucci draws brilliantly on this founding tradition to explain what such freedom, such social citizenship, requires in the country today. This book is deep but accessible, challenging but realistic. It offers a bracing and rousing picture of a society still within our reach.”