What is social growth?

The EPP announcement means I've only just caught up with yesterday's David Cameron speech on community.  It's very good.  David Cameron attempts to triangulate himself between 'the extremes' of Polly Toynbee and Simon Heffer.  Both of them are too obsessed with the state, he thinks, when the real answer to many of Britain's problems is the growth of society:

"Everyone agrees: we need more community. The problem is that we conduct this debate in largely sterile terms about the size of the state.  On one side you have people, like Polly Toynbee on the Guardian, who think that the restoration of community lies in expanding the size and scope of government.  And then there are those on the other side, like Simon Heffer on the Telegraph, who think that only a small state can deliver healthy communities. They argue that we must cut taxes and cut spending before we can hope to see a revival of community... The mistake both the Old Left and the Old Right make is that they look at the problem from the wrong end. They concentrate on government, not the people.  The fact that they say opposite things - one that we should expand the state, the other that we should shrink it - is irrelevant. They're both talking about the state."

David Cameron is right to try and pull the national debate away from an obsession with the size of the state and towards a focus on the health of society.  When the 3D institutions of society are weak - the family, the voluntary sector, local schools - and when they fail to civilise, care and educate then the demands upon the state grow.  The state grows bigger because uncivilised citizens cause crime, because uncared-for-children and pensioners need state-provided help and uneducated people are more likely to become welfare dependent and less likely to contribute to economic growth.

David Cameron continues:

"Instead of expanding the supply of state services, as the Old Left wants, I believe we should strive to expand the supply of social services - services provided by society itself.  And rather than cutting the supply of state services, as the Old Right wants, I believe we should strive to cut the demand for them - reduce the numbers of people who rely on the state, rather than simple reducing the services they receive."

Reducing the demand for government was one of the best ideas to emerge from last year's leadership election.  In an article for The Times, this was my take on David Willetts' idea:

"The public will never vote for cuts in state services until they are convinced that those services are no longer needed. Voters may be unhappy at the performance of the welfare state but they will support its continuation until there are fewer needy people or until vulnerable people can call upon superior sources of care.  Social breakdown is a leading cause of higher government spending. A Conservative programme to reverse this breakdown is urgently needed, therefore, to address the crime-ridden estates, weak extended families and substance abuse that have all created chronic forms of dependency."

David Cameron wants social growth.  Here are a few suggestions of what such growth would look like:

• An increase in rates of marriage and a reduction in rates of divorce.
• More people volunteering and doing so in a reliable, regular way.
• A better funded voluntary sector with a smaller proportion of sector income coming directly from the state.
• More schools established and run by parents.
• Housing estates that through design are hospitable to community and inhospitable to crime.

There is now just the small matter of coming up with the policy environment that will nurture such social growth... I outlined some of them here.

Comments

[Sally Roberts]

Interesting and well thought out speech! This is an area in which Conservatives should be strong. Interestingly I remember David Willetts developing the same sort of idea a few years back when he talked about "the little platoons" - meaning local community networks such as residents associations, neighbourhood watches and voluntary organisations.
Joseph Chamberlain and the benefits he brought to the City of Birmingham is an example of what was going on in cities all over the Midlands and North of this country and getting back to that kind of philanthropy could possibly be one key to winning power back in our Northern strongholds.

[Sally Roberts]

Sorry - I meant to say our FORMER Northern strongholds!

[Denis Cooper]

By "marriage" I assume he means "long term partnership".

I'm not being PC here - just pointing out that a man and a woman in a stable marriage help to stabilise society as a whole, but so do two men in a stable partnership, or two women in a stable partnership, and so do a mother and an adult son, or two sisters or two brothers who choose to share their lives.

Maybe the concept of "civil partnership" should be extended, and the value of long-term relationships recognised by annually increasing tax benefits.

That would be separate from recognition of the costs of raising children.

[Chris D]

"Interesting and well thought out speech! This is an area in which Conservatives should be strong" Sally, I agree.
I also agree with Tim's suggestions about what that social growth should look like.

[Desmond Haynes]

Hilarious that the One-Nationer Cameron refers to the Thatcherite Heffer as "Old Right".

He needs to read some history. We had this fight in the late 70's and early 80's.

His side lost.

[David Belchamber]

A very thought-provoking speech. GWB cannot be legislated for directly but what a government must do is to create a benign environment - under Nulab we now have a very malign one - by people-orientated legislation: government insitutions must put the pupil, the patient, the parent etc first.
Yes, do encourage community life - but first do assure us that the stranger we greet or look in the eye won't knife us. Yes, the family unit must be encouraged but do give concrete promises, however general, about tax incentives and greater stability in the housing market (especially for first time buyers).
Yes, do empower local authorities but do promise to remove undue red tape and bring the police under local control.
The foundation for a civilised society surely lies in the quality of its state education. This must be one of Nulab's greatest failures and a debate on what the tories propose to do is becoming urgent.

[Andy Peterkin]

Surely the answer is that the State in fact needs to do less, because the last sixty years have demonstrated that it isn't very good at what it tries to do?

[Richard]

The role of the state needs to be reduced if civil society is to flourish. Since the vast extension of the state that began in the early 20th century various social indicators have continued to show negative results whether it be crime, family breakdown, welfare dependency or something else. I'm not calling for the return to some sort of golden age of denying that things have undoubtedly improved for most people over the years. But things could be better if the state did less.

[Editor]

I think the key issue here is whether you think the state can help to build society/ social growth (a conservative belief) or whether you think the state simply needs to be smaller and as it shrinks free society will be reinvigorated (a libertarian belief).

I'm very much on the conservative side of this argument - believing that government can order its funding streams and tax system in a way that can grow families and charities.

[Richard]

"I think the key issue here is whether you think the state can help to build society/ social growth (a conservative belief) or whether you think the state simply needs to be smaller and as it shrinks free society will be reinvigorated (a libertarian belief)."

Personally I believe libertarian methods can be utilised to achieve conservative ends. An excellent article on this can be found here: http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1766

However, a radical libertarian programme is not politically possible. Therefore a more gradualist approach is needed but one that should nevertheless point in the direction of shrinking the state. The Tories have always believed in the authority of the state but have tended to prefer it to be small (hence their opposition to the fledgling welfare state during the 1900s). Even the One Nation Tories would have baulked at the size of the state as it is now.

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1766

[william]

Another key element is to abolish the mountains of regulations that make any individual enterprise of social or economic variety overly burdensome, to the extent that people prefer not to bother. People don't need much money to get social programmes going. They do however need the independence of mind which comes when bureaucrats get the **** out of the way.

Cameron's message is maturing. His phrasing is more punchy than the early attempts in Built To Last, and he has a clearer idea of his programme.

The Boy King wins his spurs.

[Henry Cook]

I really like the bit about supply and demand. It seems well constructed and thought out. Would be good to see more coverage of this in the media, and less misrepresentation of the now infamous "hug-a-hoodie" speech, which also had some great stuff in it.

[Sally Roberts]

ChrisD - Nice to be agreed with for once! It makes a refreshing change from everybody trying to kill me :-)

[Henry Whitmarsh]

"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation."

Mrs T, 1987. Conservatism in a nutshell.

[Julian Morrison]

It's interesting to me how closely Cameronism comes to resemble ultra-minimalist libertarianism, even variants of anarchism, seen from the other side. He wants the state devolved right down to neighborhoods, entirely out of the welfare business, not even the sole actor in matters of law enforcement. He just thinks it's necessary to build the societal infrastructure first.

It's ironic that the press portrays him as a bit centrist when in fact this is the most radical major-party politics in Britain pretty much ever.

[Julian Morrison]

Editor: "I think the key issue here is whether you think the state can help to build society/ social growth (a conservative belief) or whether you think the state simply needs to be smaller and as it shrinks free society will be reinvigorated (a libertarian belief)."

Mr Cameron was pointing out a third approach: that the libertarian solution is factually /correct/, it would just hurt awfully getting there. So the right way to approach it is to first work to make the state (in actions and in organizational structure) very much more friendly to the sort of voluntarist, locally neighborly and self-organising society that would be necessary to backstop a minimalist state.

[Chris D]

Sally, I know the feeling!

[Richard]

"Mr Cameron was pointing out a third approach: that the libertarian solution is factually /correct/, it would just hurt awfully getting there. So the right way to approach it is to first work to make the state (in actions and in organizational structure) very much more friendly to the sort of voluntarist, locally neighborly and self-organising society that would be necessary to backstop a minimalist state."

If that is what he is saying then he has my full support.

[Richard]

Oops, wanted to add more to my above post.

I just wish he'd said it as bluntly as you said it. If there's one thing I can't stand it's wading through waffle.

[Julian Morrison]

Hmm. I didn't see awfully much waffle in that one speech. Defining waffle as stuff that's reduplicated, tangential, vague or not novel: less than a quarter.

[Richard]

I suppose I was giving waffle a wider definition and using it to mean taking a long time to say something that can be clearly expressed in a matter of seconds (as you did). Then again though he was making a speech so I suppose there will inevitably be elaboration just to take up time.

Regardless, I am pleased at the direction he seems to be heading in on this issue.

[Chris Hughes]

The speech of course is infantile and misses the point entirely. Cameron says "Everyone agrees: we need more community" and this is meant to be taken as the be all and end all. Since a majority is in favour, it must of course be correct...

Yes community is a great thing, and yes we all know that. But why? Community indeed is about emotional support, but it is also, crucially, about ECONOMIC support. Community has broken down because this role has been swept aside by the increasingly gluttonous state. Families, neighbours, church groups, and other local associations no longer need to club together to live and get by because strangers from the opposite side of the country of which they have nothing in common will pay for them via large tax bills.

Communities only survive and function when life without them is unimaginable, and the view many here on this blog seem to have of community - as postcard-picturesque niceness - is blissfully historically inaccurate and dooms community to an unfortunate grave.

"Social growth" will never occur fully unless community means something real again, something that is actually living and breathing, something whose role is not supplementary but utterly fundamental. This truly does mean rolling back the state. Sorry, but their is no meaningless middle way, and those with Simon Heffer on the so-called "Old Right" (I prefer the label 'conservatives') are correct on this.

[Andy D]

This is EXACTLY the sort of thing I joined the Conservative Party for.

I'd like to see him really focus on this message of reducing demand for the state - it's simple, coherent, compassionate and eminently sensible. Its appeal should spread way beyond our "core" support.

An impressive and mature contribution to the debate by our leader.

[Opinicus]

The devil as always is in the detail and Dave gives us no detail. On the editors analogy above I read his as a Conservative rather than a Libertarian solution and Julian as wrong. Dave is specifically excluding a Libertarian plea for a smaller state which he rhetorically but of course incorrectly labels as "old Right". However, though I hesitate to agree with Dave about anything, I think this is actually the correct approach.

The collapse of civil society from the 1950s to now has been accelerated where it hasn't been caused by deliberate acts of public policy. It will require deliberate acts of public policy to restore it. The normal state of man is selfishness and indigence. Society is an unnatural construct. If it is not supported it falls apart. History shows that every Society as diverse as the Romans or the Soviets collapses when the will is lost to continue it.

To take one example their has been a steady drop in the number of marriages but the divorce laws have been so transformed (albeit largely through judicial medling rather than any more democratic process) that a successful young man today would have to be insane (or have an hereditary peerage) to commit to a marriage. It is a wonder that anyone gets married any longer.

But the measures required to build up Society again are so counter the zeitgeist that there is not a snowball's chance of Dave introducing them.

[RodS]

More well meaning waffle from Cameron that cannot be pinned down and cannot be measured.You can have it all - trust me !!

It must all start with reducing the impact of the State and the Dependency culture. Parkinsons Law applies here - demand for social support services will always expand to exceed the funding available - and the NET taxpayer foots the bill. What's wrong with everyone paying their own way, buying their services directly rather than wastefully through the state. Of course there should be a safety net for the genuinely 'needy' but the driving ethos should be look after yourself,your family,community and country - in that order.The power and influence of the state must be rolled back.

It seems we are all socialists now

[sjm]

Who was it who said if the State is the answer, you're asking the wrong question?

[Sally Roberts]

Chris Hughes - Although I think you are wrong to dismiss the speech as "infantile" I can see the point you are making here and it is mostly valid. The biggest threat to "community" is the over-weening State and I think this threat is something that it will take time to deal with. A huge problem we have is that so many people rely on the State to make their living. I refer of course to public sector workers and those who are employed as social workers etc. - the jobs which are largely filled through the Guardian! This of course is where Labour finds its key support. Of course we cannot abolish this "at a stroke" - nor would we wish to - but we should develop ideas on how to get past this obstacle to developing "community" as defined in the speech.

[william]

RodS - More well meaning waffle from Cameron that cannot be pinned down and cannot be measured.You can have it all - trust me !!

Interestingly your alternative suggestions could be subject to the same criticism that you give to Cameron. Of course social ideas like Marxism for example cannot be measured. But are you saying therefore that they have had no effect?!!!

They say the pen is mightier than the sword.

That's because ideas drive actions. I wouldn't underestimate the potency of Cameron's set of ideas. In 100 years time you might seem very foolish.

[Richard]

"The collapse of civil society from the 1950s to now has been accelerated where it hasn't been caused by deliberate acts of public policy. It will require deliberate acts of public policy to restore it. The normal state of man is selfishness and indigence."

British society was cohesive when we had an essentially minimal state prior to WWI. There were mutual insurance socities and much more charitable donations. Shrinking the state doesn't lead to chaos. Enlarging it leads to social and relative economic stagnation.

[Tripper]

We built this state to win the Great Wars of the 20th Century. It was the way things were done then. We now fight with small (too small!)agile professional armed forces. Why do we stick with a huge conscripted sheeplike state - climbing out of its trenches and marching slowly forward to defeat at enormous expense?

[RodS]

"Ideas drive actions" (William)

Basic human behaviour prompted by instinctive need drives actions - and that hasn't changed in 2000 years. I believe Maslows 5 levels ( Self fulfilment - Recognition - membership - Safety & Security - Food,clothing & shelter)all apply to politics.

The State has eaten away the ability of individuals to react quickly to local circumstances and as a result - the individual takes no responsibility. In planning disputes NIMBY is a term of abuse. In reality it means that somebody cares about their patch of the environment. If everybody did that, communities would be in better shape.

Community means 'community of shared interests' and there is a limit beyond which a sense of strong identity and responsibilty can be stretched. Heath's 1974 Reorgansisation of Local Government has lot to answer for. Long live Parish Councils !!

[Editor]

Chris Hughes: ""Social growth" will never occur fully unless community means something real again, something that is actually living and breathing, something whose role is not supplementary but utterly fundamental. This truly does mean rolling back the state.'"

Intellectually I'm with you Chris but not practically. To recreate the kind of community we all want to create there would have to be a very significant reduction in the size of the state and I just don't think that that is going to happen. Voters are not going to support a big reduction in welfare provision, for example, if there are not alternative ways in which vulneranle people are going to be cared for. That is why I have great sympathy for an approach that reduces the demand for the state first. That will require significant investment in stronger families and freer charities. Rebuilding society, as I have written before, is the road to social justice and a smaller state.

It's not been the mission of any post-war British government but an agenda for social renewal could be enormously exciting.

[Henry Whitmarsh]

Long live Parish Councils

As long as people pay attention to what they're up to. Ours used our Daily Telegraph Village of the Year prize money to erect a two meter high metal sculpture of a magpie on a four meter high metal pedastal. Metal vermin, lovely.

If nimbyism is allowed to flourish, as usual, it is the lawyer-hiring, letter writing, well organised middle classes who will make damm sure that unfortunate but unavoidable things like hostels for those on their way to being released from prison are in someone elses back yard.

The problem with nimbyism is that it involves shirking responsibility. Nobody wants a rubbish burning plant near them, but they won't do anything to reduce, reuse or recycle to remove the need for one.

A greater role out of the state is what has caused this attitude. Since responsibility has been taken away from people by the state they no longer look at these kinds of issues responsibly, or see themselves as having a responsible social role.

That's what's wrong with nimbyism.

[Chris Hughes]

Of course we all agree in strengthened families and charities, though I have much less faith in the state's ability to achieve this than Cameron (but I do accept a limited role for the state). I think thats the disagreement here.

What I find bemusing is this idea of "reducing demand for the state". Such a thing is impossible. Human beings will always prefer public sector support rather than voluntary means because the state doesn't require anything in return. The government doesn't need a thank you and it doesn't need you to dig deep into your own pocket when it gets divorced or looses its job. It doesn't require give and take. Marriages, families and communities break up simply because there is an alternative at all.

On the practical side I sympathise with Cameron's quest for a middle way which voters might perhaps go for. Its not like a middle way is going to do any harm either. But intellectually it isn't a compromise because it doesn't make much sense; patch up the cracks it might but it will never tackle the root causes of community breakdown

[Opinicus]

Richard

I was talking about public policy not the size of the State - or at least the size of the State in intention and reach not in numbers of civil servants or economics. The government since the 50s has encouraged the collapse of christian morality and this has led to a whole series of social policy failures (from a conservative viewpoint). Only the State is going to be able to reimpose those values by reversing much of the social and tax framework of the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Drink driving and tolerance of homosexuality show that the government can, by ceaseless propaganda, initiate social change when they have the will.

It won't of course because that would be too counter-cultural but assuming that young men on sink estates will marry and raise their children or simply wake up and decide one morning to give up alcohol and drugs because the government loses a few civil servants or income tax is down a penny is nonsense.

[Henry Whitmarsh]

..Ah, the good old days, when you could climb, half-cut, into your british made rustbucket and run down a few queers.

[Julian Morrison]

Jonathan: "Society is an unnatural construct. If it is not supported it falls apart." -- is absolutely counter-factual to history and anthropology. When has there ever been a persistent group of humans who have been utterly asocial, without their exclusion being imposed upon them from outside, from above, or by tradition (itself a form of society)? Name one instance!

Humans are intensely social from birth and one of the worst horrors of the modern intrusive state is how badly it warps and impedes this culture-forming instinct.

[Opinicus]

Julian
I'm sorry make that "civilised Society is an unnatural construct...". All civilisations decay - every one - when the organising force becomes unwilling to defend itself and soldier on. Most famously the ancient Romans but also Soviet communism, the Church of England. Yes, man is a social animal but even today there are a good many Societies on earth that I have absolutely no wish to live in.

Civilised Societies give up - some are then beaten militarily, some economically, some are simply assimilated. Western civilisation which 15 years ago you would have thought was all conquering is also beginning to give up. Democracy is in reverse. Many traditional legal freedoms are eroded. Marriage for life is the exception rather than the rule. Multiculturalism has left us unable to cope intellectually with an Islamic culture that won't accept our liberal assumptions and "be nice".

Henry
I was not opposing either, merely giving recent examples that people are swayed by government propaganda.

[william]

Rods. Individually - yes. The discussion of ideas is about how people can best achieve their Maslow-defined needs and within what political frameworks.

Ideas drive actions, in that if people believe that one set of political ideas will do that better than another, they will deploy great efforts to ensuring that a political idea such as Cameron's Community are put into effect.

They'll even spend time writing on Conservativehome arguing with each other!

[johnC]

'Civilized Conservatism' is certainly something I could get excited about. It would however require cultural revolution on a massive scale and threaten many entrenched and vested interests such as the media with its degenerate and debauched so-called 'entertainment', the modernist movement in architecture which created those brutalist concrete sink estates where crime and alienation breeds, the educational establishment with its preference for the politically correct over classical merit in school syllabuses, the whole modern art fraud which wastes millions of pounds of public money on worthless rubbish and even the churches with their apparent desire to trash their own architectural and liturgical heritage. The cultural iconoclasm which has been going on for decades has certainly impoverished and alienated successive generations and it is good to hear David Cameron echoing what the Prince of Wales has been saying for years.