The Common Good

Etzioni asks how we can strike a healthy balance between individual rights and public safety in an age of global terrorism. He evaluates various new government devices, from wiretaps to viruses, which open our lives to public scrutiny. Particular attention is given to the issues surrounding government-issued DNA tests. The book concludes by questioning whether we can still talk of a relationship between the common good and the nation-state, or whether the “online” society in which we live will make it increasingly difficult to maintain those communities which are the very homeland of the common good.

This new book, by one of the world’s leading social and political thinkers, will be important reading for students and scholars of political science, social philosophy, sociology, and public policy, as well as for the interested general reader.