Though published well before the Covid crisis the public response to that crisis illustrates just how differently people think about collective action and how opposed may are to constraints on what they see as their right to act as they please. The case for collective action has often been poorly expounded. It has reinforced the importance of one of the central debates in public policy – what are the legitimate boundaries to state compulsion and individual freedom? What kinds of collective action are we talking about – making some actions illegal or engaging in acts of kindness down the street? How should we think about these issues?

Spicker considers what kinds of collective action we might usefully distinguish, how social science has approached thinking about these issues, how philosophers, or at least theorists of various kinds, have discussed the moral issues involved. That leads onto a set of chapters about what we might think of as ‘the common good’ and how different agencies might seek to advance it.

The core argument in this text is that there is no straight ‘individualists right – collectivists wrong’ position or, indeed, the reverse. There is no such thing as a collectivist position. What is the collective you have in mind? The local allotment association or the National Health Service? How far should the local collective have the right to diverge from the national? What is national anyway? The very notion of ‘British’ social policy has disappeared. The most important and difficult collective action problem we face is global climate change. To that has been added the threat of global infection. Perhaps if the book had been written today there would be more on these global collective action problems and the dilemmas – practical and moral – that they pose.

But Spicker has produced a thought provoking set of arguments and covers a wide range of varied literature which students should find both accessible and valuable. Thinking back to my early lectures on this topic, based on a rather thin literature, one realises that the modern student has a much richer diet. This book is a good guide.

Spicker ends by setting out the elements of what he calls ‘the common weal’. That depends on individuals having certain basic rights, security and the capacity to have an influence on policy and there being limits to collective intrusion. But it also entails collective action to ensure groups and individuals are not excluded or left behind. The dignity of and respect for all individuals whatever their beliefs, background or gender is a collective endeavour – or should be.

I suppose I would have spent more time discussing the pros and cons of what kind of collective action, at what level of governance, or voluntary collective organisation, makes most sense in our world of very large and very local collective action problems. Our current fit does not seem right. But that is a task I leave to others.