The Big Society is no BS

Not just a pretext to bash government

NO-ONE could accuse the Conservatives of not giving their proposal for the “big society” appropriate billing in this election campaign. The slightly oblique “invitation to join the government of Britain” titles the party’s manifesto, while David Cameron’s exhortation to “be your own boss, own your own home, sack your MP…” and so on occupied the centrepiece of the party’s most recent election broadcast.

But the Tories’ big idea has three big problems. The first is tactical. “People on the doorstep want to know about what we intend to do about immigrants and hoodies,” says a Conservative councillor who has spent much of the campaign in key marginals in England and Wales. “Telling them we’ll let them set up their own school doesn’t cut it at all”. Despite the party’s strategists attempts to distill the idea into the above soundbite, the big society remains a concept, as opposed to a political programme that will push people to the ballot box.

The second problem is strategic. The big society remains a defensive posture for the Conservative Party, a bid to dispel the still festering notion that Tories believe only in individual men and women and families. Every time David Cameron or George Osborne assert that the vision of the big society, they are repudiating the suggestion that there is no such thing as society. For a party out of power for 13 years to find itself a week from polling day still having to deny its selfish and atomistic instincts is a weak position.

The third problem is the greatest of all. For all its veneer of optimism the Conservative conception of the big society is a negative ideal. It is a critique of the size, scope – and nature – of government rather than an articulation of the alternatives. Cameron’s rhetoric is telling, deriding government’s appeal for “a few more laws, a few more regulations, a bit more of your money” and suggesting “change doesn’t work like that”. In the Conservative analysis collective, voluntary or individual action is good mainly because it will supplant that of the state. The value of a big society is measured largely by its corresponding capacity to shrivel government. In this, the Tories are tapping into a popular dislike of sclerotic, faceless, incompetent and overbearing officialdom. But it is a sentiment they have misread as a repudiation of government itself. Given the choice, a majority of voters would probably opt for competent, benign and even paternalistic government over the sort of limited state envisaged by the Conservatives. When people hear the Conservative articulation of the big society therefore, it comes over as less a clarion call for a new relationship between governed and government, and more as a threat to cut away the safety net. Not so much We Are In This Together as You Are On Your Own.

You do not have to accept this assessment to concede that the Tory vision has failed to achieve cut-through, either among the party’s base or among those it needs to attract. Labour, Liberal Democrat and Plaid supporters might be tempted to take pleasure in this apparent stalling of their opponents’ vision, but this would be a mistake. Underneath the Conservative packaging lies an idea with much to commend it to progressives. Indeed, once you strip out the electoral and positional imperatives – the need to sell the idea on the doorstep, or use it to rebut a damaging charge – the only thing that progressives need contest is the implicit anti-government agenda.

But even here, the programme need not look so threatening. The big society’s central proposal is to build up community capacity, voluntary groups and social enterprises so that they can deliver certain public services. The instinctive reaction of many on the left is to recoil from horror and conjure up reasons why this cannot work and should not be allowed. It will result in services skewed towards certain groups. It will make coverage patchy. It risks placing vital delivery into the hands of evangelicals, neighbourhood dictators and other unsuitable types. In all sorts of ways, the big society seems to offend principles of equity and universality.

This presupposes none of these problems occur in state delivery, which of course they do. It also elevates the delivery of services to the end, as opposed to the means. But the true ends are social goods; we have schools because we think educating our young is important, not because we think it important to employ teachers. We don’t fund a police service because we enjoy the sight of people in uniform, but because we want to tackle crime. Moreover, where other mechanisms can deliver a desirable end – such as in the provision of a even vital things such as affordable food – most people believe state intervention should be kept to a minimum. There was a story a few months ago of a South African community fed up with anti-social behaviour and intimidation. Its solution was to equip each householder a cheap household walkie talkie. When trouble occurred for one, the others would “flashmob” the scene and stand alongside their neighbour. Within a short space of time the offenders had vanished and the community was more united. If anyone can advance a case for why this is a less ideal outcome than relying on CCTV and Community Support Officers, let’s hear it. If anyone can say why this is less left-wing than relying on the state, it would be even more fascinating.

There is another dimension. Building up community capacity obviates the need for some state intervention, which has been allowed to grow up as a surrogate but now acts as a deterrent. Why take action to keep your neighbourhood tidy when you’ve paid your Council Tax for someone else to do it? The state here acts as a disincentive to pursue a social good, when it could act as a catalyst. But replace that patchy, often inadequate state provision with local action, on the other hand and the state can concentrate better on the things it alone can do while the service itself may well improve.

The state still has a role – even the Conservative proposal would use public assets to train community workers – but it will be more enabling, less providing. Unlike the Tory idea, it will still be a power for good. And in the many instances where there really is no alternative to the state, the big society ideal of laying open public spending as a means of increasing scrutiny, along with increasing accountability of public servants and devolving power to the lowest possible level should not be anything then music to progressive ears.

The objections to the big society appear to be rooted in a belief that the state should be expansive for its own sake, not because this expansiveness is better. If we focus on the ends of public services – the attainment of good outcomes – there is reason to suppose a greater focus on bigger, more active communities has much to commend it. Labourites ought to like it because it speaks to a deep belief in self-improving action. Liberal Democrats ought to support it because it promises freedom from the state. And Plaid ought to like it because it offers a decentralist path.

With a week to go until the General Election, we still have little idea whether David Cameron’s Conservatives will enter Downing Street. If they don’t, perhaps their opponents should take up the cudgels for this big idea.