There is a paradox at the heart of the ‘Big Society’ message namely that it can be identified as desirable by legislators, but it cannot be legislated for. For if we legislate for the Big Society then it is no longer society which expands but the state.
People comply with rules because they are law-abiding, not because of what they feel. What we are required to do is governed by law. What we are free to do is governed by social mores, values and desires.The problem of the erosion of social capital has been the result of the rapid expansion of law—2685 new laws in a single year under the last Labour government. Thus the lives of ordinary citizens were subjugated to the top down, tick box culture which squeezed out trust and replaced it with policing and surveillance of action.
As we saw from the collapse of the financial system people became accustomed to simply asking whether their actions complied with the law rather than whether they were right or prudent resulting in an atrophy of moral judgement and personal responsibility.
Immanuel Kant, the eighteenth century German philosopher wrote: ‘Law makes the demand to act externally so that your freedom can coexist with the freedom of all others whereas ethics requires a right motive as well as a right act.’ Thus government may be able to legislate for the right act, but it can’t legislate for the right motive. This is a problem because the aspiration of the ‘Big Society’ has to do with motive, how we see ourselves in relation to the community in which we live.
The government are absolutely right to identify the problem but can only create the space for others to provide the solution.
An example from ecology might be the loss of hedgerows due to intensive farming methods. It has been estimated that since 1945 we have lost 500,000 miles of hedges. Only relatively recently have we woken up to the fact that whilst the removal of hedges may give more space for cultivation there is a far more deleterious consequence for agriculture in the loss of vital bio-diversity and wildlife for which the hedges were prime incubators.
Farmers can re-plant the hedgerows but they cannot artificially re-create the abundance of life which hitherto occupied them. That said, if the destruction of the hedgerows is stopped and the habitat is re-planted and protected then it is very likely, over time, that the space will once again be re-populated and teaming with life.
The government can identify: that as a result of the intensive way in which we have been living we have eroded the vital hedgerows of our society; that with extensive cultivation of laws and surveillance we have lost a bio-diversity which was essential to supporting a balanced and healthy society, but it cannot artificially re-create it. That said, if the destruction is stopped, the space is re-created and protected then it is very likely, over time, that the space will once again be re-populated and teaming with life.
If the Big Society is to thrive again, as it must, then it will owe more to the Government’s conservation of social space than its cultivation of private action.
“Thus the lives of ordinary citizens were subjugated to the top down, tick box culture which squeezed out trust and replaced it with policing and surveillance of action.”
I cannot disagree with this and await impatiently at what the Government will do about Local Authorities acting in dictatorial manner and prying beyond what is necessary.
However we do need balance, it cannot be too much one way nor the other.
His Lordship speaks of the evolution that should happen if one allows. The main evolution this Government needs urgently to look at is what WILL happen because of it`s cuts. If money is shorter the risk of breaking the law will appear better odds, yet Policing is also to be in shorter supply creating a conundrum. Society, specifically at the bottom end will be the fastest to adapt, survival is a natural instinct. Drug dealers, car ringers, phishing gangs are a natural evolution of the lower end of society.
I think one has to be careful what one wishes to cultivate in the hedgerows and ensure that the predators of things that maybe bad are also allowed to flourish.
We know that from Parliament down, given the chance, parasites will emerge and thrive therefore it is necessary to maintain a reasonable balance.
His Lordship is also correct the “right motive” cannot be legislated but it can be taught with the right tools. However a 60% reduction in the tools will not result in that occuring.
I fear the hedgerows of this Government will only feed the fox and put fear in all others. The urban fox is not domesticated and depriving it of food and shelter may lead to unforseen consequences.
There are some inherent dangers of the ‘big society’ that are not being addressed because we have little experience of them under the present system. In China ‘big society’ is dominated by relationships. People give priority and loyalty to their relationships over the observance of law. As a consequence corruption exists at many levels of Chinese society.
Another feature of Chinese ‘big society’ is the ‘hukou system’ where the rights and administrative records of people are tied to their birth place. This is causing all sorts of problems in a ‘Federal’ system and a national census is in preparation to quantify the problem.
The other ‘Big Society’ we enjoy is the non federated EU. The consequence for us in the absence of a ‘European Hukou System’ is that families are free to migrate across borders and each member state has to pick up the cost of supporting these families. Had an EHS system been in place before the ‘Schengen Area’ was established, labour would have been free to migrate with families remaining in their country of origin unless they were of independent means.
If the EU wants to keep things the way they are then member states should be subsidised out of existing EU budgets. However, as member states cannot measure internal migration no realistic charge back can be entertained. The issue of internal migration without chargeback may ultimately cause political instability within member states especially as they recover from recession.
It is said that whilst our Human rights have improved considerably our rights in the community are drastically whittled down year after year. ASBO (harrassment) law may be one simple example.
The size of farm machinery these days, and the way it is all done under contract, guarantee even more hedgerow loss except by those farmers who who campaign tirelessly against all things non-organic.
One bloke near here in S Dorset is ploughing and reaping with 1950’s gadgetry, stooks to behold ‘n all, alongside a busy motorway style trunk road.
Complements of the season to the noble Lord Bates.
Funny how essays about the Big Society talking about how the tories are going to dismantle the self-diminishing structures of Labour rule, never seem to mention the welfare state, the public provision of vital services, or how much poorer and worse paid people will end up being.
We’re all setting out for an idyllic pre-industrial land of hedgerows and wild birds, “teaming” (really, Lord Bates? Really?) with life! Of course, back then it was illegal to be gay and much easier to die of cholera. But it was a simple time and people were happy! Unless they were gay, or black, or female, or dying, or poor… but, y’know, important people were happy. Wealthy white male landowners, I mean.
This veneer of compassion overlays a brutal and bitter inhumanity. The “Big Society” is a shocking buzzword, a meaningless catch-all for things that the Tories find should not be provided for by “The State”, which consists not only of ubiquitous but unnecessary surveillance, but looking after the disabled and the homeless. “If people think it important they’ll take up the slack” say the Tories, overlooking the fact that the people to whom it is important don’t have any money and already give a larger proportion of their incomes to charity than those to whom it is not important at all. Which is *why* we had this whole system set up to try and use the mechanisms of the state marginally *less* unforgiving than nature. Alas, such coddling of the sick and weak is no use for the Tories. If they were important, we’d look after them, but constructing a state mechanism to do so *doesn’t count* because of the rules I just made up.
The future holds hilarious irony. People huddled together in the cold because they’re too poor to afford heating, and a Tory Lord stood watching, saying “look at that community spirit! It’s the Big Society at work!”
MLB: What you are describing is a need for ‘Social Engineering’ a discipline of political science. What we are not seeing from the ‘Big Society’ idea is what parameters need to be measured to affect the required outcome.
According to wiki:
“Before one can engage in social engineering, one must have reliable information about the society that is to be engineered and effective tools to carry out the engineering.”
In China an upcoming national census is the tool that will provide their necessary information; from an EU perspective a simultaneous nation census across all member states is needed. Member states can no longer act in isolation; it’s a waste of time and money.
Wiki quotes Popper:
“the piecemeal engineer will adopt the method of searching for, and fighting against, the greatest and most urgent evil of society, rather than searching for, and fighting for, its greatest ultimate good”
The ‘Big Society’ notion as it stands represents the ‘piecemeal engineer’.
Ref: History: Karl Popper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(political_science)
McDuff, you’re unreasonably hard on Lord Bates. As with many political ideas, the Big Society notion, of transferring state power to local community authorities and groups, and encouraging local engagement has a lot going for it, with or without the need to tackle the public spending deficit. I know the Left interprets this to mean ‘abandon the poor’ and likens the Coalition policy to a pre-welfare state Victorian nightmare but I haven’t seen anything which suggests this is what is intended. (I’ll just remind you that I vote across the parties and don’t identify with the Right). What I did see with my own eyes was the vacuum of civic engagement left in Albania after the fall of the Communist regime, where everything was run directly by the State; there were no local authorities, no voluntary organisations, no infrastructure through which people could meet to devise solutions to the public health issues, supply of water, the breakdown of the educational system and waste management. We on the other hand already have a thriving third sector economy in the UK; we should capitalise on it. In mental health services in particular I have often seen local community organisations and national voluntary bodies respond more effectively to the special needs of black and ethnic communities for example than Big Brother NHS. There will undoubtedly be problems which haven’t been thought through in advance…but there are pretty ghastly problems now with our current State controlled services. Shouldn’t we be open to some new thinking?
The problem is that we’ve had thirteen years of ‘nanny knows best’ and the automatic reaction of most people to any sort of problem is to expect the government to fix it. The mindset of expecting someone else to sort it out has been programmed into an entire generation, which I find irritating because I think that the government should keep out of my life as much as possible. Of course, even then they often interfere by proxy via what I call ‘fake charities’. These are the ones that get most of their money from the government to do jobs for the government, so they’re a bit like quangos with charitable status and a few public donations to maintain the fiction of independence.
Goodness, Baroness, you’re right. It’s very unfair of me to simply assume that the “Big Society” is a cover story for a pernicious system of cuts designed to push the country in a particular ideological direction without any evidence at all.
Hmm… evidence, where would one find that?
“Given these figures, it’s questionable whether the voluntary and charity sector will be able to fill all the gaps left by cuts to public services,” Dame Suzi said. “In many cases, they have already been that public service.”
Research by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations found that 23,000 charities rely on local government funding for more than half of their income. Many of these are also seeing greater demand for their services during the economic downturn.”
—
“An analysis of charities which received government funding shows that many charities do not have sufficient resources to exist for very long if funding were to be reduced or taken away… If any cuts were made this could have drastic consequences on the charitable activities they carry out, not to mention the existence of the charities themselves.”
—
Housing Benefit – The Facts
Shelter:
“This map shows the average monthly losses for households entitled to the two-bedroom rate, as a result of the proposed changes to Local Housing Allowance across Britain.”
—
“More than 400 jobs could be lost at Bury Council as the authority seeks to save £28m over the next four years.”
—
Parkinsons UK:
“The research the Government funds both directly and indirectly is absolutely vital to maintaining a flourishing Parkinson’s research community in the UK.
The proposed cuts could jeopardise the momentum we’ve been building for the last 40 years and have a truly devastating impact on medical research in the UK for years to come.”
Richard Barker, director general of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said he would be “very disappointed” to see cuts of the order of 25% and warned that, even in such a scenario, there would be no reason for companies to step in to replace government funds. “The UK has been an attractive site for R&D because of the very strong basic science base. The vast majority of the UK research base is very competitive internationally and some of it is globally leading. Over a long-ish period of time [after spending cuts], companies would drift away. Any change you make to basic research, particularly basic life sciences research, the results will play out over 10-20 years.”
—
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8218115/Childrens-book-charity-has-funding-cut-by-100pc.html"
"A charity that helps children learn to read by providing them with free books has had its Government funding cut in its entirety."
(The government has now, to be fair, realised that this particular cut won’t play with the electorate and backtracked. But, make a note, they had to be *told* this. It wasn’t *immediately bl**dy obvious* to them that cutting funding to help improve child literacy would be a bad thing. Would you rather we perceived this as political cluelessness rather than as the result of a brutal ideology, Baroness?)
—
<a href="http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/Mental-health-charity-in-500k.6399964.jp"
"NHS Leeds has decided to cut the cash it pays for services provided by Leeds Mind.
That means that two projects which help people with mental health problems will have to shut and around 15 people could be made redundant.”
“A branch of the mental health charity Mind in Greater Manchester has had its budget cut by 80%.
The organisation has had its funding from NHS Oldham and Oldham Council significantly reduced in light of the Government Spending Review.”
—
Warning against a “barrage of uncoordinated cuts that hit the poorest hardest” he urged the PM to phase in planned cuts and do a “serious and urgent impact assessment”, giving groups more time to adjust. He proposed allowing Legal Aid to support groups giving advice until welfare reforms were “bedded down”.
“Allow us to draw breath or you will kill off the agencies you need to build the society you seek,” he said.
“You’ve staked your political future on the prospect of a stronger, more compassionate society. Don’t let your own government’s policies undermine it.”
A charity providing buses for other voluntary bodies in south London, Croydon Accessible Transport, fears it may cease operation after having its council funding withdrawn.
The charity’s Robb Mackie said: “We are doing exactly what the government say they want us to do, we are the ‘big society’, we’re doing it right here in Croydon – we’re using a large level of volunteer support, people are helping each other, often for nothing, working long hours.
“Without the cash to actually run the minibuses, what we are doing may have to come to an end.”
—
Oh look at all that evidence!
Turns out, Baroness, it’s not unreasonable to accuse the Tories of doing things that they have actually been doing. And what they have been doing is putting into place a system of pernicious cuts which impact public services while pushing The Big Society as a theoretical solution for the shortfalls, but also cutting the charitable organisations that they think might be part of the solution, and in general being unable or unwilling to produce any proposed mechanism by which society will radically remake itself to fill in the gaps.
High minded philosophical objections to our state-controlled or funded services don’t overcome the very real necessities for these services or for the *funding* that is necessary. The actual, real, practical upshot is one that is going to be very damaging to any “Big Society”, theoretical or otherwise!
Now, not being able to see into the hearts and minds of men, I’m willing to admit that they may not be travelling this road because they’re proto-Victorian moralists who don’t understand that their grand ideas to remake society are just warmed-over versions of the same guff that well meaning but unimaginatively schooled right-wing toffs always come up with when they’re trying to work out the problem of how come the poor people need so much of this “tax money” lark. But, frankly, until I see some evidence to the contrary that’s certainly what it *looks* like. And, in any event, their motives for financial idocy are not nearly as important as the practical impact of this idiocy – and the impact is likely to be exactly the opposite of the sales pitch. Unless you’re already wealthy, that is.
“I have often seen local community organisations and national voluntary bodies respond more effectively to the special needs of black and ethnic communities for example than Big Brother NHS.”
Why though ? Because the NHS is full of inequalities.
“Black Health Agency aims to challenge health inequalities for BME and marginalised communities and to make a positive contribution in health provision and service delivery.”
http://www.blackhealthagency.org.uk/drupal/history
The ethnic minorities of this country, specifically afro-carribean are more often the poorer bought up in poorer housing, have poorer education and poorer outlook in life. There may well be specific mental problems in the black population especially concerning schizophrenia but that is not 100% proven.
The charitable organisations are,I`ve no doubt,good but they`re dealing with societal problems in most cases and I fully expect could do better with more money.
It`s not good enough coming from someone in your position to say these volunteers do better than the organisation setup to deal with this, let them get on with it. Why are you are not asking questions ? Why are you, the person who promotes qualifications stating let the amateurs deal with it ?
Should you not be asking if these charities are doing so well why we see figures like this:
The National Confidential Inquiry reported while 54 people were killed in England and Wales in 1997, this had risen to over 70 in both 2004 and 2005.
There was however an increase in the number of perpetrators with symptoms of mental illness at the time of the killing, but not in mental health care.
These symptoms included hypomania, depression, delusions and other psychotic manifestations. Of those who were psychotic, nearly 80% had a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8173386.stm
McDuff:
“We’re all setting out for an idyllic pre-industrial land of hedgerows and wild birds, “teaming” (really, Lord Bates? Really?) with life! Of course, back then it was illegal to be gay and much easier to die of cholera. But it was a simple time and people were happy! Unless they were gay, or black, or female, or dying, or poor… but, y’know, important people were happy. Wealthy white male landowners, I mean.”
What are you saying here? That the past wasn’t perfect, therefore we shouldn’t try to learn anything from it? That it’s impossible to replicate the best aspects of Victorian society without also replicating the worst? That every time a politician talks about the “big society”, they really mean “I hate anyone who’s not an aristocrat”? TBH I’m not sure your post makes much logical sense.
“Replicate the best aspects of Victorian society”.
Please educate me in what you think were the best parts of that society ?
I’m saying that anyone with more than a passing knowledge of history knows that the infrastructure of civil society was not constructed on idle whim over the last century, but in recognition of certain basic principles about human beings that no high-falootin philosophies have ever been able to completely sideline.
I am sure that the pompous Lords in the Tory party don’t hate everyone who’s not an aristocrat. They just have an incredibly distorted notion of life outside their coddled bubble and a tendency to get sold philosophical bills of goods that happen to support their personal sense of entitlement and superiority. But these theories are in the past for a reason: the Victorians didn’t just happen upon their way of life by accident, they implemented policies based on certain sets of ideologies and values. The 19th Century was almost in totality an experiment to test certain libertarian and Tory hypotheses about not stifling the poor with an overburdening state or on the capacity of private charity to fill in the gaps in the absence of government services. These hypotheses did not, in fact, turn out to be a reasonable basis for a governing philosophy, on account of how for the most part they were utter b****cks.
They are also, almost to a man it seems, really rubbish at mathematics, preferring to peddle idle and vacuous theories about making society intangibly better and happier rather than engage with brutal and dismal facts about what exactly a house or a tin of beans costs these days.
It would be easier to convince people that the “Big Society” wasn’t a smokescreen for a regressive ideological assault on the working class if it wasn’t being tied onto one of the most vicious and ludicrous austerity programmes ever launched by a group of pampered economic illiterates in modern memory.
there are pretty ghastly problems now with our current State controlled services.
The gifting, by GPs, of disproportionately large incomes, to people claiming illness, swelling govt payouts by hundreds of millions, being one example.
£30,000 per year, including other charity payments, as well as govt ones, to look after a severely handicapped child, seems too much to me.
Infectious hepatitis? Which may be lived with alone; £18,000 per annum.
Payments to the single mother? (with a hidden partner working for local authority)Full state benefits during the first ten years or so of the child’s life.That acts as hidden block payment to local authority staff by central govt.
You don’t need a Big Society to tell you those chaotic things in govt spending.
Chronic overspending on clinical surgery, totally out of control. Got a pain? Put up with it!
Big society?
Isn’t it funny how people who are ill “claim” all these illnesses, rather than having them?
And isn’t it funny how people without them, and without medical training, seem to become experts on exactly how much medical treatment costs?
And isn’t it funny that the well and able-bodied among us are always so quick to proclaim that sickness and disability is nothing to be concerned about and that people should just put up with it?
If you think £30,000 pounds a year “seems” like far more than it would cost to look after a severely disabled child, I am sure you won’t mind letting us in on the back-of-the-envelope calculations you used to work that out. Because to me it “seems” to be bordering on pure idiocy. Or possibly just pure callousness.
“If these people aren’t able to afford specialised care for their child, they shouldn’t have got pregnant with a disabled child in the first place! This is just another example of the fecklessness of the poor!”
Maybe that’s not you, though, Mr Howell? Maybe it just seems like you’re aligning yourself with the Know-Nothings who see disabled children as an easy target, along with single mothers, Roma, prostitutes and women who wear burkas. Maybe you’ve basically got the moral compass of a Tabloid newspaper editor. Or maybe I’m wrong, and that’s just what it seems like.
Ball’s in your court, then. Off you go and prove that I’m wrong and this isn’t what it seems like.
No not me, Mr Duff. I would find it difficult to play the tennis that he has invited me to play, with the ball apparently in my court.
Research by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations found that 23,000 charities rely on local government funding for more than half of their income.
and then return it to precisely those people who are paid handsomely by the state already, or, more likely, in to their own pockets as highly paid management.
The calculations historically made to determine what, for example, a pensioner, (as I am)needs to live on, entirely supported by the state, are surprising in their generosity. Beer and ciggies are included, entertainment, and travel.
The acceptance by gp’s of their administrative role in determining who shall get the fat wages of disability , and their determination that the basic pension is a pittance, is equally surprising.
Several hundred thousand are classed as disabled or severely disabled on the strength of that “medical” opinion.
Acute and chronic disease syndromes have even been invented largely for the purpose of state benefit claims over the last 50 years in the developed world.
“Acute and chronic disease syndromes have even been invented largely for the purpose of state benefit claims over the last 50 years in the developed world.”
Thank you, Professor Howell, for sharing the fruits of your extensive research with us. The University of Your Local has done well to make you head of the Department of And I’ll Tell You What Else, You Know!
“The calculations historically made to determine what, for example, a pensioner, (as I am)needs to live on, entirely supported by the state, are surprising in their generosity. Beer and ciggies are included, entertainment, and travel.”
Why, it’s almost as if we historically valued our citizens as human beings rather than just skeletons wrapped in protein, isn’t it?
And with the current basic state pension being a whole, luxurious, munificent £97.65 I can see how they could afford all the marlbros and vodka they want to stock their mansions with. Fat, juicy wages indeed! How can I get in on this “living fat off the hog of the state” lark?
How does it feel knowing that you’ve let your misanthropy make you contribute willingly to the framework of your own subservience? Or didn’t you know that’s what you were doing?
You should probably read this. Not that I expect you to change your mind, but you should probably read it anyway.
Many of the obstacles encountered by people with disabilities are created by society, yet disability is framed as a personal failing, and we are told that it’s our responsibility to get the inclusion and access we need, even when this is functionally impossible. One person cannot fundamentally rejigger the very structure of society; I, for example, cannot singlehandedly make sure that every new construction in the United States, or even in my own community, is accessible, because there are too many obstacles in the way. Access and accommodations are treated as a tremendous hardship and a nuisance and disability is framed as a burden: On society, on family members, on schools, on hospitals. This contributes to persistent social attitudes about disability that make it harder for us to achieve inclusion.
This doesn’t mean we should just give up. But it does mean that looking at disability solely from the perspective of a more personalised model makes it inherently difficult to address a lot of issues impacting people with disabilities. Making the focus on individuals, rather than institutions, also allows society to get a free pass on the barriers it creates; it’s our fault, evidently, that we are more likely to experience poverty, rape, sexual assault.
— S E Smith
MLB: Looking at your stated paradox:
Add Legislation = Not (Big Society)
If you consider duality:
Remove Legislation = Big Society
We know the action plan aim is ‘Big Society’ but what are the objectives that define what legislation should be removed? The society we have now is a result of individual isolation by successive governments; the practical realisation that the individual does not need to depend on community, neighbours or others to achieve a lifestyle choice.
The driver for all of this: the pursuit of prosperity.
This changes the nature of the paradox:
Prosperity = Not (Big Society)
Legislation, added or removed is therefore redundant.
A Happy and prosperous New Year to all?
I WELCOME THIS TOPIC, BUT IT IS A PITY I WAS AWAY, FOR TOO many of my points are made by others.
Not that it matters, If I go overlong my posts don’t make it to the blog.
Still, I quiet agree with you and believe that one of the biggest problems in society is that we have gotten away from good old fashioned common sense, and replaced it with a sort of legal framework which defines what we are suppose to be or do.
The “Tick box” culture, as you call it.
We have to have exactly so much fluid in each drink, have to say exactly these words, have to agree with specifically this list of things which we must tolerate and can’t tolerate this other list, and must live in the way we are told is modern thus good.
I think that perhaps people can sort their own problems if they learn how to, and have always advocated less Government. I always liked Sark but then, that was before the Barclays and their model Democracy came along. It was created to cater to their personal whims, not because the Feudal System on Sark was somehow actually harming people, and the Feudal Society on Sark was lovely and functioned much better than anything on the Mainland. That’s the sort of model I prefer, where landowners and others who have real stake are able to exercise the rights over their own property and make the decisions concerning them, and others are in full control over their own lives.
I for one think that the Government needs to tone way down and not be so intrusive, and we need to focus less on “Social Justice” and more on just basic Justice. Lets all stop trying to regulate what everyone does and says to make sure society works the way we want.
Barring that, just make everyone do things my way!
So you’re saying we should return to the Feudal system?
You really are a historical illiterate, aren’t you?
If there’s a significant weakness in human physiology, it’s the inexplicable tendency to bend at the knee.
If you want to spend your time playing kings and castles in a fantasy world, you go right ahead. I’m sure you can find another tiny island of 100 agrarian play actors who don’t produce anything somewhere, and you can live your life happy and fat on imported goods. Meanwhile, we’ll keep bumbling along in our post-industrial society with the labour reforms we’ve won, thanks muchly.
McDuff, What you are really complaining about is your perception of what Tories are about-living in “coddled bubbles” and all that. Lord Bates mentions motives and you assume the worst. Best remember that the Lib Dems have long supported the proposals for local devolution and a multiplicity of third sector providers in the public sector. And so by the way do the Labour Party. Much of the Big Society was idea was tossed around by Blair (the Social Welfare Bank, the Social Impact Bond etc) Imputing base motives is not all one sided of course. To many people of course the massive expansion of the centrally chained public sector has always seemed like a national job creation scheme with major benefits for the workforce but less for those it served. During my working life the pubic services have expanded out of all recognition but are not reliably better or more valued by their users. I’ve learnt in parliament that idealism and moral motives are pretty evenly distributed across the political parties even though they accuse each other of the basest motives. Nor is it right to confuse the devolution of power from Whitehall with the need to address the deficit.
Actually, what I’m really complaining about is the shocking economic illiteracy. Say what you want about Brown’s magical juju approach to bubbles, at least the cat knew what happened in the 19th century onwards.
At least he had some vague conception of what the welfare state was about, even if he had no clue what to do with it. Compared to Osborne he looks like Einstein.
I posted a list of things that are actually getting done by this actual government that are actually going to cause direct and appreciable harm to actual people. This is not a partisan jibe from a Labour man. “They did it too” doesn’t mean it’s not foolishness. The current overton window of government is tiny, so the fact that the three major political parties all tend to favour the same nonsensical, illogical ideas is par for the course. So what?
“To many people of course the massive expansion of the centrally chained public sector has always seemed like a national job creation scheme with major benefits for the workforce but less for those it served. ”
I could probably quote some Keynes here but I’m not sure it would matter since he’s gone out of fashion since Thatcher and Reagan embraced Friedman’s Monetarism.
How’s the neoliberal post-Thatcher consensus working out, by the way? Any appreciable problems, recently?
” During my working life the pubic services have expanded out of all recognition but are not reliably better or more valued by their users. “
Funny, because during *my* working life most of the public services have been sold off to private organisations who then fail to run them properly and require constant assistance from the treasury, to the general detriment of service. Actual cost increases for the few public services that are still owned by the government haven’t increased “out of all recognition” but, rather, are on a par with (or slightly lagging) the western average over the last two decades.
Their “users” do, indeed, seem to have this peculiar pathology where they expect American levels of taxation and European levels of service. But I don’t really see what that has to do with anything, since they can’t have that, can they?
Still, there’s always someone willing to buy any old political rope you’ve got to sell as long as you put a shiny new sticker on it.
I see I just made the classic typo!
McDuff-
So you’re saying we should return to the Feudal system?
It worked on Sark. It worked better than Modern Democracy does. We had more rights protected there before Democracy than after.
Further, we had more rights on Sark than in the UK itself.
So, what’s wrong with it?
Just because Democracy is in vogue and we talk of Freedom and such doesn’t mean tis the only system capable of supplying freedom, nor even that it automatically and always does.
You really are a historical illiterate, aren’t you?
Alas, no. That’s why I don’t think of the climb towards Democracy as a natural evolution of Humanity toward Greater Freedom, or even it as a new system of Government that replaced the older Monarchies. Its all been done before, and when all is said and done, Monarchies that have real power, but that are decentralised with a Hierarchy of Rights last longer and are more stable than the electoral nightmare we have now where we are lead only by ambitious politicians.
Also, the Middle Ages may be thought of still as “The Dark Ages”, but they really weren’t anywhere near as bleak as people fancy them to be if you read of them, and were far better than “The Age Of Enlightenment” that produced the Reign of Terror, and gave rise to the worst wars in Human History, as well as ideologies like Communism.
If there’s a significant weakness in human physiology, it’s the inexplicable tendency to bend at the knee.
If you want to spend your time playing kings and castles in a fantasy world, you go right ahead. I’m sure you can find another tiny island of 100 agrarian play actors who don’t produce anything somewhere, and you can live your life happy and fat on imported goods. Meanwhile, we’ll keep bumbling along in our post-industrial society with the labour reforms we’ve won, thanks muchly.
You do realise that the people of Sark have been a Democracy for only three years right? Yet Sark was far from the terrible place you seem to think Feudalism will cause. The Signure did not grow fat on exploiting others and people were free to come and go as they pleased.
Also, the only reason the Feudal System in the past did not have a massive industrial base was because Industry didn’t exist as it does now. Its rather silly to think that a feudal Governing system would mean abandoning modern technology. Why can’t we have computers and factories in a modern Feudal Society?
Sark did.
Sark is an island of 600 people with no major industrial base that makes its money off tourism. There are small northern towns in the UK with a higher domestic product than Sark.
Also, the only reason the Feudal System in the past did not have a massive industrial base was because Industry didn’t exist as it does now.
Actually, the reason you’re an illiterate is because you’ve got it completely backwards. Democracy and labour rights emerged via the process of industrialisation.
We can have computers and factories in a feudal system. You’d also have child labour, massive poverty and inequality. And then riots, protests, demonstrations, and eventually we’d end up with some form of democracy again.
For reference, please look at what actually happened in this country from about 1820 onwards.
So what are your plans for the deficit? From what I see the Lords voted themselves more cash, and less scrutiny.
Likewise what about the 6,800 billion of government debts? No scrutiny there because its almost all hidden off the balance sheet.
That debt doesn’t include bailing out the 50% of the population with hardly any pension provision. 13K a year at the moment, tax free to come from the rest of society. Something the students haven’t been told.
Not only were students not told but Lib-Dems were again misled and will roll over again.
“Student leaders say the government may drop proposals to pay first year tuition fees for students in England qualifying for free school meals.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12121591
People comply with rules because they are law-abiding, not because of what they feel.
Except politicians on the take with their expenses.
There is a rule that MPs for example shall not gain a personal benefit from their jobs as an MP.
52% have been forced to pay back expenses money. Not a single one has paid one iota of interest.
Interest free loans, nice if you can get them,
McDuff, you are once again being intellectually dishonest.
Democracy did not begin with Industry, its actually quiet ancient. Plato discussed it long ago, as did Aristotle.
As to Sark being small, this is True, but Sark also didn’t have Child Labour. You are committing a Logical Fallacy of thinking Democracy as a form of Government is what cured our social Ills, and if we did not have such a form of Government, we’d also loose all the rights we have now. That’s balderdash. Nothing actually exists inherent in any form of Government that would ensure our freedom of rights. Any Form of Government can abuse or exploit us, and nay can remove our rights and our freedom. Conversely, even an absolute Monarchy or True Dictatorship in which all power is exercised through one man can offer us rights and freedoms beyond what most nations have.
These matters are determined by many factors, and nothing inherent on any form of Government absolutely ensures anything.
Nothing stops a Feudal Society from imposing Child Labour Laws, nothing in a Feudal Society would hinder them from placing standards on goods, either. Nothing would stop a feudal Society from allowing basic Human rights to exist.
Your argument is just nonsense.
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Democracy doesn’t stop our social ills, you’re right. We still have several.
What did ameliorate a bunch of social ills, however, was people protesting. Chopping the heads off despotic leaders was also a favoured tactic.
Note, please, that it takes actual injustice to get people to riot. Well, that or some people with different coloured skin.
Plumbing also helped a lot of social ills. There’s a lesson in there, too.
You seem to be confused because you think “democracy” is a singular thing rather than a generic catch-all for a whole bunch of governmental systems. Also because you’re a middle class and, I’m guessing, white male, you don’t seem to quite feel the difference that suffrage made. I reckon you might see things differently if you were black, or a woman.
Oh, and incidentally, anyone saying “it worked on this non-industrial society of 600 people therefore it will work everywhere else, even places it was tried before several times before with a hundred thousand times the population” loses all their rights to call someone else’s arguments “nonsense”.
Some things don’t scale very well, Mr Zarove.
complaining about is the shocking economic illiteracy. Non numeracy?
I don’t recall McDuff discussing the Public bodies bill led by LN, but it is certainly an attempt to deal with the problems he raises, of government passing the buck to quangos over the last 30 years, now wisely to be reined in again, led by Mr Maude.
Compared to Osborne he looks like Einstein.
Somebody who spends 12 years as Chancellor and then as First lord of the Treasury, is bound to leave a mark!
I was charmed, and somewhat overawed, when he stopped by here for a moment one day,just passing, when PM. Attention to detail!
Mcduff-
Democracy doesn’t stop our social ills, you’re right. We still have several. What did ameliorate a bunch of social ills, however, was people protesting. Chopping the heads off despotic leaders was also a favoured tactic.
You know, people chopping the heads off people happened in the French Revolution against peasants as well as Lords and Kings. The same happens in Republics too, look at Cuba, only then they used bullets rather than Guillotines.
Those sorts of solution are not really correction of injustice though, they are themselves unjust, for they simply kill others so they can take what they have, and that is fundamentally wrong. All revolutions are.
Note, please, that it takes actual injustice to get people to riot. Well, that or some people with different coloured skin.
Now this is something of a Howler. I’ve seen protestors at football matches. Not over skin colour or over taxation or loss of property rights, either. People will protest when they are angry about something, but hat something need not be an actual injustice.
Look at the recent Student Protests n London. They are protesting because the Government has reduced the subsidies for them to attend University because the Government is running out of money. This is basically a protest because they can’t use the money someone else earned that was taken in Taxes for their own benefit, ad must now pay for things themselves. Are you seriously going to frame this as a riot over injustice? Or did it have something to do with Race?
Plumbing also helped a lot of social ills. There’s a lesson in there, too.
Actually not as much, the Woman’s Suffrage Movement was largely not one rooted by protests. Sure some existed, but most of it was won in public debate and lecture halls, not on the Streets.
Though I do think a Militant Atheist like you is a bit silly when you bring up either this or Race, as Racism was mainly fought by Christian organisations, and the first woman’s suffrage advocates where likewise affiliated with Churches, such as Lucricia Mott.
You seem to be confused because you think “democracy” is a singular thing rather than a generic catch-all for a whole bunch of governmental systems.
I never said it was a singular form of Government, and if you want to go that route you seem to think Feudalism is a singular form of Government that only produces agrarian societies that have rights at all protected.
Feudalism is as much a general catch-all term for a whole bunch of Government systems too.
But, no one really tries to make that sort of distinction in regular discussions on the merits of either because that’d take way too long, so its not really that I’m confused, I know full well America is not a Parliamentary System, for instance, but Britain is, I know Ireland and France operate far differently than Russia or America.
But, so what? The term here is used for a general Philosophical principle of Governance based around popular sovereignty and rooted in regular elections, supposed to landholder rights and the ability to rule based upon such a right.
Also because you’re a middle class
Never make assumptions. I grew up poor.
and, I’m guessing, white male,
This you got right.
you don’t seem to quite feel the difference that suffrage made. I reckon you might see things differently if you were black, or a woman.
Don’t play this card on me. Both Suffrage and Racial Rights were denied in the Modern era, well into the “Age of Democracy”, and there is no evidence at all to suggest that if we had not been a Democracy those things couldn’t have ended.
Indeed, there have been great Empires run by Black Men, and once upon a Time Egyptians were the most advanced people on the face of the Earth. China was once a Mighty Empire too.
Race or sex has nothing to do wit h this discussion.
“People comply with rules because they are law-abiding, not because of what they feel” Possibly. Or possibly they comply because the rules replicate or articulate social mores that already exist. And as to those laws that do not, they feel less inclined to comply with them.