Rowan Williams and the Non-Existent Fear

One of the greatest, and most important, political concepts of all time is the idea of the seperation of church and state. While we haven't quite managed it completely in this country, you'd think that we could be spared having to hear about the political preferences of the Archbishop of Canterbury. But clearly he wouldn't agree.

His New Statesman article is the sort of toss that continually gets printed by that magazine. And Rowan Williams has been comprehensively shredded just about everywhere this morning - particularly since he, as an unelected, unaccountable public figure, is really taking the piss when he criticises the democratic credentials of the coalition. One of the biggest problems, though, is that his whole article is predicated on the shakiest of grounds. Take a look at this paragraph on the much-maligned concept of the Big Society:

Government badly needs to hear just how much plain fear there is around such questions at present. It isn't enough to respond with what sounds like a mixture of, "This is the last government's legacy," and, "We'd like to do more, but just wait until the economy recovers a bit." To acknowledge the reality of fear is not necessarily to collude with it. But not to recognise how pervasive it is risks making it worse. Equally, the task of opposition is not to collude in it, either, but to define some achievable alternatives. And, for that to happen, we need sharp-edged statements of where the disagreements lie.

First up, it may not be enough to respond with things like "this is the last government's legacy", but it is still important to stress that. Labour were in power for 13 years - the situation the coalition inherited is Labour's fault. In fact, I'm amazed that the coalition doesn't spend more time pointing this out. If I was Cameron or Clegg, I'd be saying something like "this is all your fucking fault" every time Ed Miliband opened his stupid mouth. Likewise, the economy does restrict what the coalition can do. Labour could afford to do far more because the national bank account hadn't (yet) been ransacked. The Con-Dems were always going to be far more restricted as the money has been spent.

He's right, of course, when he says that the point of opposition is to offer some sort of tangible alternative to the government. But he's wrong when he talks about it coming from the left. The left (or at least the mainstream left) has become inherently conservative. That's the point of Blue Labour, that's why the Labour party in opposition can offer nothing more than "we'd do the same, but more slowly and with sad looks on our faces".

Indeed, as far as I can see radical alternatives will come from outside of the right-left political spectrum. Likewise, radical change does not - as Williams seems to believe it should - involve maintaining the current level of state power. There are radical alternatives to the status quo; these challenge that size and scope of the state in modern Britain. They dare to say that the answer to everything may not be state intervention and that the government both should not and cannot be held responsible for all aspects of national life. Take child poverty. The last Labour administration threw vast amounts of money at ending child poverty and nothing happened. It is time to consider other options and other institutions in society that might be able to help deal with and maybe end this problem. And it is striking that the head of one of those potential institutions is so utterly caught up in the statist myth.

But the biggest problem with the Archbish's article is that it is, as seems to be the case with many people writing for The New Statesman, based on unsubstantiated assertions of nothing more than the author's opinions. Williams writes about "plain fear". What fear? I have not come across anyone afraid of the coalition's policies. Sure, some people are angry and resentful about the coalition's approach, but no-one I've come across is afraid. As a result, the whole article comes across as a case based on a false assumption, and that is a fatal flaw. It isn't enough for anyone - even the Archbishop of Canterbury - to effectively say "it is true because I say it is". I doubt I am alone on demanding a little more proof of the fear that is the foundation of this article before I can treat Williams' views with the credibility that he seems to believe they deserve.

Government Enforced Giving

Longrider comprehensively fillets this pile of shite here, and I've not got a lot to add. All I would like to highlight is in relation to this idea:

The Government will also launch a ‘major campaign’ to promote payroll giving, where employees are encouraged to commit a slice of their monthly pay cheque to charity.

I would just like to point out that I already give up - without being given the choice - about a quarter of my monthly pay cheque to the government. It's a bit like charity but with me having the choice to (a) give up the money and (b) choose what it is spent on. But that's not relevant. My point, rather, is this - if the government wants me to give more to charity, they should substantially reduce the amount the extort from me each month. Economics plays a crucial part in all this, see? I only earn a certain amount of money each month, which means I can only ever give a certain amount to others. You want me to give more, Mr and Mrs Coalition? Let me give more by letting me retain more.

But this is the problem with the Big Society, and it is the logical fallacy at the very heart of David Cameron's spurious, ill thought through project. He expects more from the people of this country - he expects them to go an build a big society. But he won't reduce the burden that the state places on them. This is why the Big Society will fail. At its heart, it could be about a radical redistribution of power in favour of the people of this country. In reality, it is little more than a fig-leaf to disguise the fact that the money has run about but that the Tories are afraid of the genuine spending cuts and tax cuts that would really make a difference to this country.

So, yeah, by all means ask me to give more from my monthly pay cheque. But until you reduce the tax burden, you can frankly whistle for it.

UK Uncut Cretins

From UK Uncut - a group that seems determined to make student politics seem credible and forward thinking by comparison - I give you the concept of a bail-in. What is a bail-in, you might ask. You really don't want to know, I'd reply. But I'll tell you anyway:

Our next wave of actions will be even more exciting. A Bail-In means marching into our broken banks and building something better. Make your silent, sterile Barclays branch sing, dance, explode with life! Reclaim the space and make it into something thrilling, something that shows how much creativity the anti-cuts movement has. Let’s smash austerity with a smile on our faces. We are Cameron’s nightmare, a real big society with the vision and bravery to transform the institutions at the rotten heart of our system.

Right. So... a broken bank is what, then? One with a leaky roof or a run-down cash machine outside? Or is it one that we had to bail out? Because if it is, then you shouldn't be heading to Barclays because, as Jackart points out, they found other ways to keep going. I guess we're back at the idiot's equation when it comes to banks. The (il)logic runs something like this: I don't like bankers therefore bankers must be bad and therefore banks must be broken. It is audacious in its breathtaking stupidity.

This idea of making banks thrilling through singing and dancing also seems curious. To me, banks aren't cold and sterile - they are trying to project an image of being professional places where you can do business and where you can safely store your money. There is a reason why they don't normally have singing and dancing, my people. It's because it would be a fucking stupid idea for a bank.

And while we're on the subject, the talk of "reclaiming" a bank is also pretty stupid - at least until you realise that what we're talking about here is people invading the private property of others. Then it becomes downright malign. Think about how you would feel, Mr and Mrs UK Uncut, if I came round to your house and invaded your front room because I happen to think you are total dickheads disagree with you on this one. Wouldn't be fun, would it? But that's exactly what your bail-ins are about.

Oh, and by the way, you are not Cameron's nightmare. You are a minor irritant - like a mosquito bite on the butt cheek. If Cameron ignores you for long enough, you'll vanish. You're not going to change any institutions, rotten or otherwise, with your bland, anodyne and pathetic protests. All that will happen is that you'll look like cocks on Saturdays until you find something better to do at the weekend.

Which is rather the point. Far be it from me to champion Cameron's Big Society, but I dare say his response to this sort of guff would be "if you genuinely want to make a difference, stop interrupting businesses and do some constructive, voluntary work in your spare time". But that would be too difficult, wouldn't it? To do something that might actually be constructive. But that wouldn't get the media's attention.

Anyway targeting businesses like Barclays - which has done nothing more than trying to avoid (not evade) tax - is targeting the wrong people. Any tax bill has to be agreed with HMRC - if you don't agree with that tax bill, go bellyache to them. Furthermore, by damaging the trade of banks such as Barclays through these tedious sit-ins, you will potentially damage their future revenue and therefore decrease the amounts they will have to pay in tax in future. Which is the final irony - with behaviour like this, UK Uncut may actually be making future cuts more likely.

Absolute wankers.

Big Society, Big Government

Cameron's been defending his Big Society programme in The Guardian (of all places). It is, much like its author, anodyne and pretty bland. The only people it could truly work up are those who believe, like some sort of tedious cultists, that cuts are bad. To everyone else, it is a bland repetition of a case that already isn't convincing anyone.

For me, though, it is all about looking for those telling little signs that Cameron isn't actually all about smaller government. And you have to sift through pretty much the whole article to get to the crucial point. But, just so you don't have to, here it is:

But we understand that while the opportunity lies in the future the local authority cuts are happening now. So this week we are launching a transition fund to help charities prepare to bid for these contracts and a big society bank to provide some working capital when they're awarded them.

Or, to translate from Cameronspeak, the government will still fund various organisations, and make those organisations vie for funds. The difference between what has been happening and what will happen under the Big Society is a little lost on me: the government still takes money from its people and redistributes it to organisations of which it approves. Which is not so much Big Society as Big Government.

Which is the big problem; this isn't about reducing government control over society, it is about redefining government control. Paternalism rather than centralisation seems to be the order of the day. Which is fine if you are a paternalist; any true liberal, though, should be feel pretty despairing when faced with the Cameron vision of a Big Society.

I don't doubt some will latch onto the word "transition" in quote above, and argue that this is all a stepping stone to a genuine redistribution of power between government and society. They may yet be shown to be right, but at the moment that requires a leap of faith that I just can't make. The Big Society is still an exercise in central government control - plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Crippling the Big Society

I'm starting to read a lot that the spending cuts will undermine Cameron's Big Society. This is, of course, utter bollocks. In as much as we can define Cameron's Big Society, it seems to be asking the people of this country to do what the state can no longer afford to do. Therefore, the Big Society is not undermined by spending cuts; rather, it is (at least in part) created by those spending cuts. The more Cameron's government cuts spending (or, rather, cuts the growth in government spending) the more the Big Society will be called on to plug the gaps.

But I'll tell you what will kill off the Big Society - a failure to cut taxes. It is all very well expecting people to volunteer to work for and to donate money to their local communities; it is another thing entirely to expect them to do so while paying the same exorbitant tax rates for fewer services from the government. There's nothing wrong, as far as I am concerned, with expecting individuals and their community to take more responsibility for their own communities. There is something naive about expecting them to do so while still giving such a high percentage of their incomes to the government.

Spending cuts won't kill the Big Society; taxes will.

The Coalition's Progress

The coalition came to power promising a new politics; a common enough aspiration, and it is easy enough to understand why the Con-Dems would want to distinguish themselves from the completely compromised failure that was the Brown administration. But, as Obama has so clearly demonstrated in the US, it is far easier to talk about change in politics than to actually implement it. So how have the Con-Dems got on thus far?

In terms of spending cuts, they’ve obviously made a start – although the caveat about a reduction in future spending not being the same as an actual cut in spending is ever present and ever relevant. However, where the Con-Dems have completely failed is in the battle to dominate the discourse when it comes to spending “cuts”. Rather than making the case for spending cuts, and thus reducing the size of the state, they have treated cuts as something nasty that they are being forced to do. A bit of empty, half-hearted rhetoric about the Big Society is not enough to make the case for a smaller state and a freer, but more responsible, populace. Plus, the Con-Dems have completely failed to punish Labour enough for making these cuts inevitable. Every time Ed Miliband opens his stupid mouth to spout spurious nonsense about the “cuts”, the coalition should be responding with “well you and your party caused them!” There is an opportunity here to keep Labour out of power for a generation, but that will only happen if people truly understand the cost of Labour’s incompetence during their thirteen years of misrule.

The coalition has also made a small start with civil liberties. It is great that the ID card scheme has been scrapped, but that is simply a reversal of one of Labour’s most egregious attacks on our civil liberties. It is not the start of a genuine move towards a freer society in any meaningful way. And the much vaunted commitment to civil liberties from the coalition is not materialising in terms of practical politics. The state can still spy on us to a massive extent; landlords are not allowed to decide whether to allow smoking on their premises or not; protest is still draconically policed; we are all still “nudged” towards the sort of behaviour the state wants from us. If there is a distinction between the coalition and the last Labour government, then it is in a commitment to paternalism rather than overt coercion. Thus, we’re in a better state of affairs than we were under Blair and Brown, but there is still a hell of a long way to go.

The area where the coalition has had its most success is in maintaining what is a fragile and unlikely union between two different parties. Sure, there have been grumblings – particularly from the Lib Dem contingent, but generally speaking the coalition has defied cynics and managed to hold itself together, even through deeply divisive issues such as the rise in tuition fees. It is well within the realms of reality to now predict that the coalition will serve a full five years in office – something that, on paper, never really appeared possible even in the first flush of the new political union last May.

But this is somewhat depressing; the most effective the coalition has been, according to this analysis, is in clinging onto the reigns of power. In other words, by acting for itself. The self-interest that has dominated so much of recent political history is present and correct in the “new politics”, rather sadly. And the progress of the coalition thus has not been impressive; at the moment, the very best that they can claim is that they haven’t been as bad as Labour. But if they genuinely what to do something new, and create a decisive break with the past, then they have to spell out a decisive vision for a smaller state and at the same time turn their rhetoric in civil liberties into something meaningful and practical. Forget the Big Society; the coalition can be genuinely ground-breaking if it speeds up the pace of change and gives us a free society instead of the status quo.

The Entitlement Culture (and how to end it)

About this time last year, I thought about writing an article called “The Entitlement Generation” – about all the graduates emerging from universities and claiming they were entitled to a job because they happened to do a degree. The point was not just to point out the hopeless naivety of that position, but to illustrate just how the society they are in make them think that they are entitled to a job by dint of having a degree (often in an irrelevant subjects). However, looking at our society today, it is clear that this sense of entitlement is not just in our students but can be seen across our society.

You only have to look at the response to the Coalition’s cuts – cuts are fine until they cut something that an individual is entitled to. Take the mindless whining about the cut to the playground scheme – the sense of wronged entitlement is palpable. They were entitled to that money and now it isn’t there – who ruddy dare the government take that money away?

The knee-jerk reaction is to just say “oh, do shut up!” No-one is entitled to money from the government – not least because that money actually comes from the taxpayer, rather than from the government. My initial thought is always “do what you want, but don’t expect it to be funded through my taxes!”

Yet this view – while technically being correct, does rather lack an understanding of why people might be tempted to think that they are entitled to funds from the government. It might well be because they have to give so much to the government through their taxes. Actually, no, “give” is not the right word – the government takes taxes – in what feels like ever-increasing amounts.

So why shouldn’t we demand things from the government? We pay for the fucking thing, so why shouldn’t we get some sort of return on our forced investment? You wouldn’t walk into a supermarket and give them a hefty percentage of your salary and then walk out with nothing.

Of course, it isn’t as simple as that. Tax money does go towards some goods – the NHS, schools etc. The problem is that the amount of money the government is taking from us is going up, while the quality of what they provide is at best stagnant, and at worst rapidly deteriorating. If the government was a business reliant on winning money from people it would have gone under a long time ago. It is only because it can demand money from people that it can keep the income coming in. But therein lies the problem. Now, when it is demanding more money from people at the same time as offering those people less. Of course people feel they are entitled to things from the government – they’re still paying for that government after all.

The only way in which we can end this culture of entitlement is by redressing our relationship with the government. If we want to feel that they are entitled to less from the government, then the government needs to take less from them. Ideas like the Big Society don’t cut it. “Your Country Needs You,” says Cameron. Well, frankly my country can fuck off – it has taken enough from me already.

There is a culture of entitlement in this country, and it has been created by our tax-hungry and profligate government. For that culture to change, the government needs to change in a far more radical way than anything being offered by the mainstream political parties. The state needs to get smaller – much smaller – and in doing so return both rights and responsibilities to its people.

Individuals, Communities, Society and the State

So I’m an individual. I don’t think many people are going to argue otherwise – at least not credibly. The fact that I am individual is very important to my thinking, and to my political identity as a Libertarian. Yet despite my standing as an individual, I don’t doubt for one second that I am an individual whose life is dependent on being part of society.

See, the shoes I stand up in, the clothes I wear, the house I live in – they are all dependent for their existence on the expertise of others. Likewise, I did not farm the food I eat and did not brew the booze I sup. The computer on which I type was built by someone else, as was the application that allows me to type this in such a way in which you can read it. My life is dependent upon others within society.

The quality of life is also enhanced by interacting with others in society. I’m not the most outgoing of people, but I value my wife, my friends and other members of society with whom I interact. Again, my life is not a vacuum – it needs others to make it worthwhile.

And my opinions also do not emerge from a vacuum – they were created, enhanced and adapted through interactions with others. They evolve, they change as I hear viewpoints of others – regardless of whether I agree with those people or not. Intelligent thinking and opinion-forming is not simply a solitary activity – it is enhanced through hearing the thoughts and opinions of others.

So yeah, I’m an individual. But I’m also dependent upon a community. And so is pretty much everyone else in this country, unless they live as a completely self-sufficient hermit in the middle of nowhere.

Yet I want to be able to choose which parts of society I wish to interact with. I want to be able to choose which communities I wish to participate in. I don’t want anyone else telling me what I should be doing – I want to be able to choose for myself using my own intellectual faculties what parts of our society makes my life better. Which is why I believe in community, and society, but not in the state (at least not in its current form).

When you hear Cameron talking about the Big Society, or Miliband going all Platonic and talking about the Good Society, you should be very, very concerned. For what they are talking about is not the type of society or community that might arise naturally from people choosing to interact based on what makes life better. They are proposing a top-down “society” – one based on whatever the party in charge believes is best for the people in this country. Society is not, and should not, be a creation of the state – if anything, the opposite is true.

The nonsense of state-created society is that it is predicated on the idea that millions (in this country, over 60 million) people can all be treated in the same way, and that all will have identical concepts of what is good and what can enhance their lives. This is, of course, ridiculous. You will struggle to find a family of four who agree on what is best, let alone a country of millions. So what happens? What version of the “good” or the life-enhancing is chosen? The type that happens to correspond to the idiosyncratic view of the incumbent leader. In its starkest terms, the community or society that you live in and have to interact with is only a personal choice in its most narrow possible definition, in that it is the choice of a Gordon Brown or a David Cameron.

Which is precisely why I want to see the state being reduced to a minimal possible level in order to allow for more organic and natural societies and communities to arise in this country. I’m not an anarchist – I’m not calling for the abolition of the state – but I am calling for a fundamental redefinition of the state to allow people to be freer.

Of course, values and morality will very from person to person, and from situation to situation. This means that there will be conflicts in any group or society – and some of those conflicts will be irreconcilable and will need independent, external arbitration. That is the part a redefined state could play. As political philosopher John Gray puts it:

“...having a life in common cannot mean living in a society unified by common values. It means having common institutions through which the conflicts of rival values can be mediated.”

Now, I do not expect a state limited to this level to be always independent, and I do not believe that it would always make decisions with which I could agree. But a state that allows for a plurality of beliefs and communities is a far better scenario than what we have now – a succession of governments who believe in the impossible: that they will be able to find a “way”, a “truth”, a blueprint for society that will work for each and every one of the millions of people in this country.

I want to be able to choose which communities I live in and interact it. I want to be free to do that. Every flawed, arrogant attempt to build a society implemented by government denies me that right.

The Big Society

So that's it? Really? That's all it is? Cameron's great, exciting, bold new vision for the future is little more than a Lyndon Johnson rip-off? Actually, I don't know why I'm surprised. It was always going to be like this. They are, after all, the Tories.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for increased localism and increased voluntarism. Yet this doesn't feel like the great rolling back of the state that we almost seem expected to think it is. Firstly, there's a suspicion that the areas being foisted onto volunteers are all areas which the government can no longer afford to fund and run itself. Furthermore, I remain very uncomfortable about state-promoted voluntarism; it has the potential to become the state interfering further in people's lives rather than the state retreating from the private realm. Besides, by definition, voluntary work taken up under compulsion from others ceases to be voluntary work.

However the biggest problem I have with all this is that it is state led. The central government is telling its people what areas they are allowed a little bit of autonomy in, and no doubt will also tell people how to go about their voluntary actions. This isn't about freedom, it's paternalism rebranded. It is a bit like parents allowing their kids to do a few things on their own - ultimately the parents remain in control because they can decide which areas their kids are allowed to be free in, and can also decide to remove that freedom whenever they see fit.

All this is based on the assumption that the central government knows best, and that state control is a given. And I just cannot stomach that. All this is saying is "you can be free if the government lets you." And that isn't freedom; in fact, it is quite the opposite. I don't want a big society, headed up by a bloated government. I want a free society, where those living in it can decide for themselves what that society should look like, rather than responding to government control and "guidance".