ABSTRACT
Chapter 20 concludes the book by presenting the case for radical moral communitarian criminology. For while regular recent terrorist atrocities have ended any legitimate notion of a postmodern society there is no justifiable basis for a return to the unquestioned moral certainty of high modernity. It is the work of Emile Durkheim (1933) and his observations on the moral component of the division of labour in society that provides the theoretical foundations of a ‘new’ liberalism – or radical moral communitarianism – which provides a legitimate political vision which actively promotes both the rights and responsibilities of both individuals and communities in the context of an equal division of labour. It is observed that it this highly significant element that deviates significantly from the orthodox version of communitarianism promoted by Amitai Etzioni (1993, 1995a, 1995b) and which has been embraced and distorted in the UK by New Labour with its enthusiasm for a strong dictatorial central state apparatus with which to enforce its agenda. It is accepted that some may well consider these propositions to be fanciful and idealistic but, at the same time, it is observed that the enormous economic ructions that are seen to be engulfing the planet at the time of writing could well provide the socio-economic context for the development of a radical moral communitarianism.
