Chapter one: The Market and the Polis of Deborah Stone’s book was a comparison of two concepts of society: the Market Model and the Polis Model and how one often distorts the other. The Market Model views society through an individualistic lens focusing on concepts such as: maximizing personal gain while minimizing cost, the market exchange, and self-generation within the individual, self-interest, etc. This school of thought believes it’s that it’s the individual’s, “quest to maximize own welfare,” (Stone, 2012, p.35). This school of thought basically says if you’re in a crappy situation, homeless, have medical problems/bills, etc. it’s your own fault. You are what you make of yourself.

The Polis Model on the other hand is more focused on community and concepts such as shared interests, Altruism and self-interest, loyalty, cooperation, etc. It promotes cooperation and the good of the community as a whole. There are few issues mentioned involving the Polis Model. One involving the concept of Altruism. The argument is basically that you really can’t say that something is Altruistic if you gain anything from it, therefore if you feel good by doing something to help someone else you’re no longer really being Altruistic, because you gained satisfaction from what you did. Then the question of why you did it comes into play, was it because you like the feeling you get from doing it, or was it to really to simply help someone else in need. Either way, in the end the Polis Model doesn’t necessarily believe that just because you gained something from what you did that it’s wrong as long is it’s for the greater good of the collective. The second problem with the Polis Model is that many times people tend to have a, “conception of public-interest that differs from their conception of self-interest,” (Stone, 2012, p.25). Here is where we have trouble as human beings, there are times when what may be good for us may not be what’s best for the collective and vice versa. Getting the masses to change and try to view our community as a large collective, versus our individualistic nature as Americans is a difficult obstacle to overcome, when it’s something that’s so ingrained in our culture and the very being of who we are as a country.

Unlike Stone, Jansson’s chapter was not a comparison but they did share something in common. Both authors touched on the Polis Model, although Jansson’s was in a more indirect way, never actually referring to the Polis Model, but instead focusing on how to get the reader involved in social policy. The chapter still focused on society as a whole, and in terms of a collective versus focusing on the individual. Jansson defines social policy as, “a collective strategy that prevents and addresses social problems.” He then goes on to give a detailed list of areas that policies have been implemented in order to prevent or address social issues. One example given was Equality-enhancing policies which aims to help shorten the gap between the lower income and higher income individuals. Programs such as Medicaid, Social Security Income, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program all fall under Equality-enhancing policies. Jansson also touches on the reform tradition within social work, which also ties into the Polis Model, by looking to reform areas in policy such as the one mentioned above.

There was only one part of the reading that I found to be a bit bothersome in the Jansson book. There was a section that discusses that “affirmative action is sometimes needed,” (Jansson, 2017, p.8). I did attempt to try and understand why Jansson decided to choose to say it that way, but I’ve still ended up with more questions than answers. It bothered me because I feel like based on the current climate and the fact that there is still a large gap between minorities and our white counterparts in almost every facet of our lives that its sort of a cop out on his part not to take a stance on the issue and ride the fence. I can see that it’s safer that he did that, or maybe I am choosing to make the issue black and white, while he’s focusing on the grey. If he had gone into more detail as to why it is only “sometimes needed” then maybe it wouldn’t have triggered this reaction. Unfortunately, he just goes on to say we need to “beware of excessively stigmatizing a group,” which again I understand but I still feel like it’s a cop out (Jansson, 2017).

References

Jansson, B. (2017). Becoming an effective policy advocate: From policy practice to social justice (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning

Stone, D. (2012). Policy paradox: The art of political decision-making (3rd ed). New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.