CivicDictionary™	Defining a Better World

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the common good (greater good, public good) benefits to the community as a whole that outweigh any single individual's or group's needs or desires; the goals for which individuals are willing to make contributions and sacrifices for the benefit of the entire community or society.

Preamble to the U.S. Constitution "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." President John F. Kennedy Remarks upon approval of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, August 17, 1962, Pueblo, Colorado. "A rising tide lifts all the boats." Progress in Colorado is progress for the nation. “We are not 50 countries—we are one country of 50 States and one people. And I believe that those programs which make life better for some of our people will make life better for all of our people.” He then called on Congress to write “a conservation record second to none,” to add three national seashore areas to the National Park System (Cape Cod in Massachusetts, Point Reyes in California, and Padre Island off the Texas coast) and enact “an open space program for our cities; a significant wilderness bill; and youth employment opportunities which would authorize a youth conservation corps.” President Kennedy recognized that truly beneficial programs have "significance" beyond their specific location, their immediate constituencies, and their moment in time. For him, the common good was a very expansive concept. I'm still working on how to capture that feeling in a definition.