Governing security for common goods

“[W]e come back to the old—and never resolved—problem of the pluralistic society: Who takes care of the Common Good? Who defines it? Who balances the separate and often competing goals and values of society’s institutions? Who makes the trade-off decisions and on what basis should they be made? Medieval feudalism was replaced by the unitary sovereign state precisely because it could not answer these questions. But the unitary sovereign state has now itself been replaced by a new pluralism—a pluralism of function rather than one of political power—because it could neither satisfy the needs of society nor perform the necessary tasks of community... The challenge that faces us now... is to make the pluralism of autonomous, knowledge-based organizations redound both to economic performance and to political and social cohesion” (Drucker, 1995, p. 95).