The Samaritan's Dilemma: Should Government Help Your Neighbor? [Hardcover]

Deborah Stone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2008 | ISBN-10: 1568583540 | ISBN-13: 978-1568583549 | Edition: First Edition

Politics has become a synonym for all that is dirty, corrupt, dishonest, compromising, and wrong. For many people, politics seems not only remote from their daily lives but abhorrent to their personal values. Outside of the rare inspirational politician or social movement, politics is a wasteland of apathy and disinterest.

It wasn’t always this way. For Americans who came of age shortly after World War II, politics was a field of dreams. Democracy promised to cure the world’s ills. But starting in the late seventies, conservative economists promoted self-interest as the source of all good, and their view became public policy. Government’s main role was no longer to help people, but to get out of the way of personal ambition. Politics turned mean and citizens turned away.

In this moving and powerful blend of political essay and reportage, award-winning political scientist Deborah Stone argues that democracy depends on altruism, not self-interest. The merchants of self-interest have divorced us from what we know in our pores: we care about other people and go out of our way to help them. Altruism is such a robust motive that we commonly lie, cheat, steal, and break laws to do right by others. “After 3:30, you’re a private citizen,” one home health aide told Stone, explaining why she was willing to risk her job to care for a man the government wanted to cut off from Medicare.

The Samaritan’s Dilemma calls on us to restore the public sphere as a place where citizens can fulfill their moral aspirations. If government helps the neighbors, citizens will once again want to help govern. With unforgettable stories of how real people think and feel when they practice kindness, Stone shows that everyday altruism is the premier school for citizenship. Helping others shows people their common humanity and their power to make a difference.

At a time when millions of citizens ache to put the Bush and Reagan era behind us and feel proud of their government, Deborah Stone offers an enormously hopeful vision of politics.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Stone, a research professor and author (Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision-Making), takes a critical look at America's shifting attitudes toward public policy over the past thirty years, during which "economists, social scientists, conservatives, and free-market ideologues have had us believing that self-interest makes the world go 'round." Her aim, to "reunite politics with doing good," challenges "the new conventional wisdom: 'Help is harmful.'" She covers well-known objections to the welfare state in her second chapter, including the ideas that help makes people dependant, entitlements undermine good citizenship, and that "markets are better helpers than government." Citing surveys, anecdotes and the work of volunteer organizations and charities, Stone pushes back against the modern myth of American self-reliance and its guiding thesis, Ayn Rand's idea that "the only rational ethical principle for human relationships... is free-market trade." Illustrating that most average Americans are not innately greedy, but rather willing partners in community action, Stone finds America's true spirit in "everyday altruism." She makes the argument that the real "moral hazard" we face, as individuals and as a nation, is not coddling the poor, but walking away from those in need.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Francine Prose, "Oprah Magazine"
"Quite frankly, I've never understood why it might be a bad idea to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and help the poor. But the next time I find myself in an argument with someone who believes that welfare and public education are ruining our society, and that universal health insurance will destroy our medical system, I will be very glad to have read (and to be able to quote) Deborah Stone's "The Samaritan's Dilemma," Beginning with the disturbing observation that most Americans' feelings about politics have become almost entirely divorced from their notions of kindness and obligation toward those in need, Stone's calm, logical, and immensely reassuring book dismantles the standard arguments against a more caring society ("Help makes people dependent") and persuades us that acts of charity and social responsibility actually make us stronger as individuals and better citizens of a democracy. She looks at examples of "everyday altruism"--from Meals on Wheels to family caregiving--and at the ways in which, over the last decades, our government has actively discouraged Americans from acting on their better impulses. Finishing "The Samaritan's Dilemma," you not only want to give the book to your neighbors and send it to your congressional representatives but may find yourself wishing that, when the time comes for our next president to assemble a cabinet, Deborah Stone could be appointed our first Secretary of Compassion."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Nation Books; First Edition edition (July 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568583540
• ISBN-13: 978-1568583549
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #560,598 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring and Engrossing, October 20, 2008

By 

R.T. in DC (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Samaritan's Dilemma: Should Government Help Your Neighbor? (Hardcover)

I use Stone's excellent "Policy Paradox" in teaching classes on public policy, so looked forward to reading this meditation on the role of government in society and our political system. It surpassed my high expectations going in. Very readable: completely free of academic jargon, and a wonderful mix of thought-provoking points and engaging stories kept my interest throughout. At the book's heart is a deceptively simple--and vital--question: how and when should we help our neighbor? And who, if anyone, should do so when I'm unable/unwilling? Stone convinced me that our current answers, rooted in a false spirit of "self-reliance," are poorly thought-out and, too often, downright cruel. I'm a fiscal conservative, but her account of what we the people collectively (i.e., our government) should do for one another in times of need left me both profoundly moved and ready to help. A genuinely important book, by a national treasure of an author.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Open your eyes to how we've been led astray, November 21, 2008

By 

Ouida Crozier (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Samaritan's Dilemma: Should Government Help Your Neighbor? (Hardcover)

This book, better than any other piece of journalism that I have seen, lays out clearly and shockingly, all in one place, the way we as a society were led down the path of mistrust and the politics of scarcity over the past half century. It is mind-blowing even to someone who is well-educated and reflective like myself to have all this put together in one place, to see how the United States of America turned so dramatically from the legacy of FDR and LBJ to the path of Reaganomics along which even our one Democratic president during the time since Reagan also trod. The book should be required in all public policy, ethics, political science, philospophy, and ethics classes at every college and university, undergraduate and graduate progam, in the country! I did not support Obama for President (was a Hillary supporter), but after reading this I see why he won the nomination -- he knows how to speak the language of altruism and morality that Stone articulates so well in her many examples offered throughout the book. Somehow, if we are to survive as a society and a political entity/nation, we MUST get back to the recognition of our mutual interdependence and away from the politics of fear-mongering and threatened scarcity that conservatives have been so good at for so long. We are coming apart at the seams; this book helps explain why.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A ethic for our time, November 18, 2008

By 

Sanford F. Schram (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Samaritan's Dilemma: Should Government Help Your Neighbor? (Hardcover)

Deborah Stone's Samaritan's Dilemma is a wise book that we all need to take seriously. Extremely well-written, highly readable, it is also well-researched. While based on the best available social science, it practices what it preaches: it exercises real care for its subject matter. Stone obviously cares deeply about the topic. She not only has evidence on her side but is deeply concerned that we take some time to think about how people are motivated by more than self interest. When we do, we recognize the obvious. We all are human, we all have feelings, we all are basically afflicted by pain and cruelty, whether it is inflicted on ourselves or others. People are basically good and government is a manifestation of that. Sure government also reflects our ability to be cruel and to dominate, but it also reflects the better angels of our nature. Now, more than any time in the last 50 years, is the time for us to see this and to act accordingly. We can begin by reading this eloquent and very insightful book.