Amitai Etzioni (Hebrew: אמיתי עציוני) (/ˈæmɪtaɪ ˌɛtsiˈoʊni/;[1] né Werner Falk; 4 January 1929 – 31 May 2023) was an Israeli-American sociologist, best known for his work on socioeconomics and communitarianism.
He founded the Communitarian Network, a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to supporting the moral, social, and political foundations of society.
Etzioni was the Director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at The George Washington University, where he also served as a professor of International Affairs.
In January 1933, Etzioni was only four years old when the car he was riding in made a sharp turn and, in response, he grabbed a handle that opened the door.
Etzioni was pulled back into the car at the last moment by his father, but, as noted in his memoir, My Brother's Keeper, this memory foreshadowed the upcoming doom that would overtake his homeland during the Nazi rule.
Etzioni's grandparents reacted by grabbing Amitai and rushing down the hill without explaining what happened in this close encounter with the Nazis, which fed into his sense of fear and foreboding.
[3] Etzioni moved with his family to a small village, Herzliya Gimmel, which served as a base for an emerging community called Kfar Shmaryahu.
In the spring of 1946, at the age of seventeen, Etzioni dropped out of high school to join the Palmach, the elite commando force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Jewish community of Palestine, and was sent to Tel Yosef for military training.
During Etzioni's time in the Palmach, it carried out a campaign of blowing up bridges and police stations to drive out the British, who were blocking Jews escaping post-Holocaust Europe from immigrating to Palestine and standing in the way of the establishment of a Jewish state.
[5] In contrast to the Irgun, the Palmach largely sought to affect British and global public opinion rather than cause casualties.
His unit sneaked through Arab lines to fight to defend Jerusalem and to open a corridor to Tel Aviv, participating in the Battles of Latrun and the establishment of the Burma Road.
His early academic work focused on organizational theory, resulting in the often-cited A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations, published in 1961.
A book review in Political Science Quarterly by Peter Fricke called it "a principal text for students of organizations.
Etzioni contrasts his version of what he calls "liberal communitarianism" with that championed by some East Asian public intellectuals, who extolled social obligations and accorded much less weight to liberty and individual rights.
These include: (1) no major change in governing public policies and norms is justified unless society encounters serious challenges, (2) limitations on rights can be considered only if there are significant gains to the common good, and (3) adverse side effects that result from policy changes must be treated by introducing strong measures of accountability and oversight.
Etzioni stresses that preferences are, to a significant extent, socially constructed and hence reflect the values of the communities people are members of.
Apart from its substantive contribution to the strategy of societal activation, it offers a whole focus of immensely valuable perspectives for detailed empirical investigation in the future.
[22]Betty Friedan wrote that The Active Society provided a "philosophical grounding" to her work as a leader of the women's movement.
This led to two popular books, The Hard Way to Peace (1962)[24] and Winning without War (1964),[25] and, in later years, to From Empire to Community,[26] Security First,[27] Hot Spots,[28] and Foreign Policy: Thinking Outside the Box.
In 2019, Etzioni celebrated his 90th birthday at Arena Stage, where he launched, curated, and moderated a series of civil dialogues, bringing together public intellectuals with differing points of view on various topics.
According to Prideaux, Etzioni has taken the methodological influence of structural-functionalism beyond the realms of its organizational branch and fabricated it into a solution to solve the problems of modern society.
Lebanese journalist and human rights researcher Kareen Chehayeb called it "ludicrous" that a prominent American professor "can just calmly say the solution is to flatten this entire city of 1 million people.
"[50] He revealed his early childhood experiences to be the source of his feelings against war and aggression in a short video, called "The Making of a Peacenik.