The final analytical claim of a five-year project. Not a summary but a statement.
The Statement
The last argument of this blog is the simplest one — the one that the accumulated complexity of five years of analysis has been working toward and that the analysis itself is finally simple enough to state clearly. Institutions are the mechanisms through which societies decide, collectively and repeatedly, what they owe each other. The institution that provides healthcare to the poor has decided that the society owes each person access to care regardless of their ability to pay. The institution that enforces labour standards has decided that the society owes each worker the dignity of a safe workplace and a fair wage. The institution that funds public education has decided that the society owes each child access to the knowledge and the capabilities that participation in the common life requires. The institution that enforces democratic accountability has decided that the society owes each citizen a meaningful voice in the decisions that govern their life.
These decisions are not permanent — they are made and remade by the governance choices that each generation makes about what kind of institutions to build, what kind to reform, and what kind to defend against the forces that would degrade or eliminate them. The quality of those decisions determines the quality of the social contract that the institutions administer. And the quality of that social contract determines the quality of the lives that the people within it are able to build. This is the last argument. It is also the argument that began the blog. Five years later, it is more supported, more refined, and no less urgent than it was when the first article was published.
Institutions are the mechanism through which societies decide what they owe each other. The quality of that decision — the honesty of it, the comprehensiveness of it, the consistency with which it is honoured — is the quality of the social contract. Building the institutions that honour it is the governance work. It is never finished. It is always worth doing.
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