One of us recently received a letter requesting information about whether we are doing
research “that relates to nonprofit, voluntary or charitable organizations or associations
(including grassroots or community associations and cooperatives).” Quite a mouthful! What
the social sector needs is a label, equivalent to government in the political sector and
business in the economic sector, that works, as they do, in the singular for the sector at large
and in the plural for the organizations it contains. And the query letter includes what is, in …

Résumé We have business and we have government. For too many intents and purposes,
we have nothing in between. This distinction has framed the great social debate for more
than a century: capitalism versus socialism, markets versus controls, individualism versus
collectivism, privatization versus nationalization,“free enterprise” versus “democracy of the
proletariat.” The debate features no cooperatives, no NGOs, no not-for-profits, no volunteer
organizations, not because they don't exist—clearly they are present in large number—but …