Monday, December 27, 2010

It is the opponents of the "big society" who are conservative

A few days ago the Guardian seized upon an opinion poll:
David Cameron looks set for an uphill challenge in making his vision of a "big society" a reality as new poll findings suggest people in Britain are more willing to give their money than their time to good causes.

A Harris poll for the Financial Times shows that the British public are more ready than most to make financial donations, but less happy about being asked to volunteer to deliver public services.

The findings raise doubts about the prime minister's aims of boosting "mutual responsibility" by supporting a new culture of volunteering and encouraging people to take an active role in their communities.
There is an odd reversal at work here. It used to be the left that had an optimistic, evenstarry eyed, view of the possibilities of social change.

Equally, it used to be the right that, as its waistcoat stretched over its stomach after dinner, said: "You can't change human nature." (Often it prefaced this remark with: "I used to be an idealist myself when I was young, but....")

These days the left is more concerned with defending existing public-sector spending and career paths than it is with bringing about social change. (It is, of course, just these public-sector employees who buy the Guardian and have their jobs advertised in its pages.)

There are those on the right who want cuts in public spending purely so they can cut taxes for themselves and their neighbours. However, given that all parties fought the last election affirming they would have to make radical spending cuts, these types take some disentangling from the political mainstream at the moment.

More interesting are those on the right who have grasped that government spending can entrench problems as well as solve them. Their "big society" remains a poorly defined concept, but it takes in ideas of localism and community control that, as a Liberal, I find very appealing.

It is because of big society ideas that I find myself surprisingly relaxed at out going into coalition with the Conservatives. What we need to do now is to ensure that they are put into practice.


Ech0 Advertising said...

I think you've hit the nail on the head when you write that "big society" is a poorly defined concept.

As a marketer, I find it strange that Cameron after campaigning that "Big Government" is bad, would then try to sell "Big Society" as good.

Matthew Huntbach said...

What people on the right will not admit is that modern big business society which is all about turning us into passive consumers and couch potatoes has been just as much destructive of what is needed for "big society" to work as any state spending on welfare and other services.

Also they will not admit that the sort of society their attitudes encourage - where we are all forever worried we will lose our jobs, or working to some heavy targets imposed from above, is inimical to this "big society". I myself have had to give up most of what I used to do in terms of voluntary activity because growing pressures and the removal of job security in my job means I can't take the attitude towards it I used to take where I sacrificed promotion prospects to be politically and socially active. I always worked my hours and did my allocated tasks, but now it's expected one does far more than that, and if one does not, one's job is at risk.

What people on the left will not admit is that "community politics" (which is approximately what we used to call what Cameron is now trying to get called "big scoiety") tends to best with communities which are conservative and illiberal. A lot of voluntary activity in the past relied on "housewives". A lot of it was done by traditional type religious organisations which are now almost extinct (and weighed down by child abuse allegations ...). A lot of it relied on the sort of community where "everyone knows everyone else" and built on common cultural assumptions which can no longer be made in a racially etc mixed society.

dreamingspire said...

We could do Big Community where I live, if only the performance of the local Council could rise above the quality of the legendary curate's egg: good in parts. In too many relevant areas the concept of quality work applies only to parts of each dept, and they seem to think that we don't notice (and get upset when we do notice and remind them about Best Practice). Allegedly the management levels have been regenerated, and indeed some things are better, but there is a rigidity in too many depts that means they don't move resources into areas where there is a workload peak (such as handling consultations about spending cuts and about attempts to raise money by selling assets).

Yesterday afternoon went into the city centre, and was struck by the remarkably high proportion of young oriental faces in the shopping crowds. Smartly dressed as well.

Simon Titley said...

The trouble is that there is a 'Big Society' and then there is a 'Big Society'.

It worries me that many leading Liberal Democrats are claiming that the Conservatives' concept of the Big Society is virtually identical to that of the Liberal Democrats' community politics. They are wrong.

I have just read Phillip Blond's book 'Red Tory' (the Ur-text for the 'Big Society') and have written an article-length review for the January edition of Liberator (which subscribers will be receiving shortly).

While we Liberals undoubtedly share some common ground, the trouble is that Blond's analysis is that liberalism is THE problem. His thesis turns out to be just another variation on the old conservative trope that everything went wrong in the 1960s.

Blond is basically a social conservative and a communitarian, who wants to turn the clock back to an imaginary pre-industrial idyll. One senses that he wishes to rebuild social bonds through re-establishing the authority of the church and the village busybody.

So yes, let us fight for more devolution and localism, but let's not fall into the trap of assuming that our goals are exactly the same as Phillip Blond's.

dreamingspire said...

Indeed things were going wrong by the end of the 1960s, but the failure of both hues of govt to stop the rot suggests the cause wasn't political. Within government in the round we didn't develop a "get up and get on with it it" methodology appropriate for the situation beyond the post-war rebuilding - we didn't support excellence but instead started on dumbing down. In about 1960 one academic historian told me that in too many areas we had lost the best men during WWII, so the mediocre were dominant in many areas, and they blocked the route to responsibility of the best of the postwar generation (they were too bright).

dreamingspire said...

Sorry - that date should read 1970.