Get Your Hands Dirty is a great read. I bought a digital version off of Amazon. This was the first time I have done this, but it saved me a bundle and I could read it right away. I will do it more often!
The essay on "crunchy cons" was one I read before and enjoyed even more this time.
The book is actually timely, for I am thinking long and hard about how to build an association and promote the work of its various members. These members of that association are great examples of the kinds of mediating institutions Ballor talks of that need to exist--the work they do cannot be done by markets, government or individuals alone.
A few of my favourite ideas quotes are below:
"Where avaricious compulsion and well-intentioned coercion created the problems of the sub-prime market, the principle of charity represents the solution. In this framework the poor are viewed not as sources of profit but rather as objects of love." Ballor argues that the market and government are not the only two options of resort. Rather we need to recover civil associations and voluntary organizations (which might now on verge of extinction).
Ballor quotes lester DeKoster - "work is the form in which we make ourselves useful to others" note 46
"In identifying the institutions of the church with these protest movements ecclesial leaders risk overlooking the most important occupiers: those Christians who occupy the pews every Sunday morning and pursue various occupations throughout the week."
Ballor says that some have good things to say of callings or vocations (in the plural), but it is "best to think of one calling, to follow Christ, which manifests itself in a variety of human relationships"
- "Instead of focusing on ways to empower other institutions and levels of government and galvanize them to relieve the burden of the federal government, these efforts simply feed into the fundamentally false dilemma of federal action or no action at all."
Ballor argues we need more mediating institutions - not just business or government.
- "As long as we continue to expect politicians to deliver programs and policies that are not sustainable, they will continue to promise them, and what is perhaps even worse, they will continue to try to make good on them, no matter the cost to current or future generations."
- "And therein lies the difficulty. Where government moves beyond the scope of its legitimate interests, it tyrannizes the proper authority of other spheres of existence. These institutions of civil society possess an inherent dignity and sovereignty that should limit the extent and duration of legitimate government intervention."
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