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Social Sector |
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21st-Century
Governance: Social Sector
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Voluntary
associations are an instrumental vehicle for change. By common
practice, one thinks of these organizations as dedicated to
helping people change. Parents send their children to school
to become more literate and people go to hospitals to get well.
In an Atlantic Monthly series titled, "The Age of Social
Transformation," Peter Drucker offers examples and explanations
as to why social-sector organizations succeed where public or
private-sector groups fail.
It all boils down to the distinction in the relationship they
have with their clients. Because social-sector groups are not
dependent on profitably selling products or services, they can
strongly advocate specific behaviors based on their beliefs.
They don't change their message or behavior just to meet their
client's desires. Because they can't use force, a power available
only to the public sector, social-sector organizations can't
force people to change. In other words, people must want to
change and voluntarily take the advice offered by the social-sector
players.
In recent decades, the historic role of the non-profit social-sector
organizations has eroded. The public sector usurped their role
and was even abetted by some social-sector leaders. Fund raising
is hard for schools, hospitals, churches and feeding programs.
When government came along offering to address the same problem
as the financially-stretched social leader, the latter too often
assumed the motivations, intent, and results would be comparable
and desirable. Only later did social-sector leaders learn that
when government gives an alcoholic money it cannot insist he
stop his destructive behavior. This has turned the social-sector
leader's uninformed optimism into informed pessimism.
Some citizens think that it is good that the public sector has
usurped the social sector since they believe the government
(public sector) or the free enterprise (private sector), can
do the job better. Others hold that experience has proven this
thinking false and put their belief in the success of the social-sector
as the only institutional framework capable of bringing about
real change in people.
Government may be able to throw more money at a problem than
social-sector groups, including the family, but does it really
succeed at helping people change? Since the welfare state's
invention by Bismarck in the 1880s, various levels of public-sector
commitment to providing the services needed in the social sector
have been tried. The extreme experiments of communist nations
have been declared failures. But in other developed nations,
large portions of national resources continually move to these
needs. Yet, the public assessment is that here too, the experiments
have failed as education results decline, crime persists, income
disparity grows, and chemical abuse increases.
Private enterprise may be more efficient, but is it effective?
Though the modern experiments (private-enterprise schools or
drug-treatment programs) are not as old, there is some indication
that capitalist efforts to resolve social problems may be more
efficient than public-sector efforts. But, still there is no
evidence that private-sector solutions are as effective as social
sector efforts launched by families, churches and the like.
Entrepreneurially-driven schools may be more efficient than
public schools, but they still cost more and produce poorer
results than religion-based schools.
Is the social sector a panacea? No way. As in the other sectors,
failure prevails in the social sector. History has shown that
excessive strength in the social sector also fails to meet the
needs addressed by the public and private sectors. Church-run
economies fail. Church-run armies fail. No single sector has
succeeded at delivering the total needs of a society. Balance
between all three sectors seems to be the desired state. |
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