High Peak Liberal DemocratsYou might miss the essay collection if you have gone for one of the greener options for the conference agenda, or if you aren't going to conference, but I must say they are interesting enough to put my natural cynicism for the project on hold for a while.
Rather than attempt a review, let me give you a little teaser of each. Quotes do not imply endorsement.
This is an extension of the implications of Popper's open society, and its implications are profound. Society, public services and the economy are the same in this respect: they work better if people are involved alongside professionals not consulted (some people are not articulate enough for that; this is not about committees), but actually involved themselves as producers as well as consumers, as service providers as well as service users.
It implies the need for a basic mutualism - and Ostrom won the Nobel prize for her work on mutualism - which binds people together in the co-production of society, and blurs the traditional boundaries between givers and receivers, between professionals and patients.
In each case of markets undermining themselves, the purpose of liberal intervention is not to edge towards replacing markets with state domination, but to preserve the market economy by saving it from itself.
Coming to the here and now, three issues stand out as ones where this constructive, non-tribal approach is urgently needed: climate change, the forthcoming referendum on EU membership, and fair votes. Today's concerned bystanders are watching the Liberal Democrats as I once did.
Social liberalism recognises that people cannot be truly enabled or free if they do not have the opportunity to develop their talents, and if their lives are blighted by poverty, unemployment or illness. Social liberalism recognises that collective action is sometimes justified and necessary, in a free society, to avoid exclusion and to ensure that freedom is meaningful and participation in society is real. Social liberalism should be pursued while carefully respecting the other forms of liberalism.
I think the Liberal Democrats should have more to say about how to bust cosy introverted networks, whether in banking, trade unions or indeed in 'community champions' patronised by politicians, often at the expense of the voices of the young and female.
It is wrong to think of them as Tories. These are people who just want a moderate, competent government which keeps the economy on track. One which ensures that there are decentpublic services that don't cost the earth.
As an educated woman of colour faced with continued poverty and having to navigate sophisticated institutional racism in places of work and services, participating in a global city (London) that lacks homes for ordinary people earning 'ordinary salaries', I have a voice within the Liberal Democrats' movement for social justice and equality.
A crucial challenge for us is the need to articulate social liberty, political liberty and personal liberty as core parts of Liberalism, while rejecting vigorously the economic libertarianism that underlies current Conservative political thinking.
Rebuilding our post-crash economy is not about recreating what went before. Equally, a flourishing society needs to be based on sound economics: you can't spend what you don't have indefinitely. We must resist the urge that some parties have succumbed to of putting forward populist plans that don't make economic sense. Our economic credibility- so hard-won in government- should be nurtured.
In many countries, the politics of fear has won over hope. Faced with the dizzying pace of globalisation, with huge economic, social, environmental and technological forces at play, there is an obvious political appeal to introspection.
Erecting barriers- both literal and metaphorical - create the pretence of safety and security, when in reality they deliver the opposite. Fear of 'them,' whether it's the Scottish, the English, the Europeans or migrants, is used as a tool to galvanise 'us.' It's dangerous and divisive.
Why not have a go yourself? You don't need to be able to link Karl Popper and Elinor Ostrom in a single argument, but it wouldn't do any harm.
* Joe Otten is a councillor in Sheffield and Tuesday editor of Liberal Democrat Voice
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