Paradigms, paradigms

Have you ever had a gnawing feeling that – recession and austerity aside – all is not right with the way we live today? And have you ever tried to describe why you feel that way, or what could be done about it, but drawn a blank? If you have, it seems you’re not alone, and recent thoughts from two Tonys – Travers and Judt – could explain why and offer some solutions. The trouble is, while the explanations for the gnawing they provide are similar, the solutions they suggest pull in opposite directions, begging the question: where, if anywhere, do we go from here?

In a recent post on the LSE politics blog, Tony Travers reported on the growing feeling in the UK that our relationship with politics and with institutions both public and private is not what it should be. Politics has become too distant for us to care about, and institutions too big for us to interact with; and we suspect that neither politicians nor institutions really care about us, either. This disenchantment is mirrored at a local level by declines in social capital and increases in community breakdown, leaving us caught in the middle, without the support of the state or our peers. (Actually, I’ve extrapolated his comments a bit here, but reading between the lines this seems a reasonable claim to make.)

This trend is being recognised in policy circles, where we can see an increasing interest in ‘localism’ and ‘community’ – the most prominent example being the continuing emphasis on the Big Society, but others include the recent Localism Bill and Giving White Paper. And beyond Whitehall, calls for devolution of government and private sector power to a more local level have come from across the political divide – viz. Compassionate Conservatives, Red Tories and, most recently, Blue Labour.

Travers notes the growing intellectual weight behind and focus on localism, but he also highlights a towering problem that its advocates will need to overcome. He argues that on the one hand ‘England has become used to hyper-centralisation, to demand-led dependency on the State and to government-imposed service guarantees’, and on the other most politicians and policy-makers see nothing wrong with centralisation per se and have little faith in local decision-making, as demonstrated by their reluctance to increase local powers over taxation.

Travers does not explicitly connect these two claims in his post, but his analysis echoes that of Judt in his compelling treatise on the state of social democracy in the US and the UK, Ill Fares the Land. Judt tackles the gnawing on a more general level. He believes that we have for so long lived in an age of self-serving materialism, obsession with growth, glaring inequality and the primacy of the market and the private sector that we have forgotten how to question the validity of all this. Even if we sense that things could be better, he argues, we no longer have the vocabulary or the imagination needed to make a strong case for an alternative.

Judt identifies a paradigm shift that explains why change is so difficult, and the same is surely true of centralism: we have got so used to a dominant, paternalistic state over the past few decades that we have forgotten how to think locally and argue for local power. And it is not just politicians and policy makers who have developed this collective amnesia, it is all of us. Quite apart from cynicism about spending cuts, one reason why it has been so hard to explain and establish the Big Society is that the people who need to be engaged to deliver it – you and me – cannot get beyond the idea that the state ought to be doing it all for them. The fact that many people are quicker to dismiss the Big Society concept for harking back to a 1950s idyll that never existed than they are to consider whether it might actually have some value shows how distorted our view has become; and Blue Labour is criticised for harking back to the end of the 19^th century!

In both instances, then, we sense a need for change but are unable to articulate or argue for it effectively, with the probable result that nothing will happen and we all remain dissatisfied. But that’s where the similarity ends, because if one of these changes is achieved, it could well be at the expense of the other.

Judt’s hope is that the banking crisis and other recent events will lead to a resurgence in support for social democracy and social conscience. Travers’, by extension, might be that growing public disdain for central government, coupled with increasingly well-made arguments for localism, will force or persuade those in control at the centre to relinquish some real power. The trouble is, Judt’s vision necessarily involves the emergence of a stronger and more interventionist state, whereas greater localism would necessarily reduce the state’s authority. We can’t have both, so it will be interesting to see which paradigm we shift to next. Or, more likely, whether we simply stay as we are and carry on being gnawed.

Some are more unequal than others…

Like many people, I’ve been mildly fascinated by last week’s events at Manchester United.  For those of you who are totally detached from football, Wayne Rooney declared mid-week that he wanted to leave the club, claiming that it lacked the ambition and funds to compete at the highest level in the future.  He then, at the end of the week and after much agonising in the press and the Man Utd boardroom and changing room, did a complete U-turn and signed a new 5-year contract which doubled his income to £180,000 a week.

We’ll never know whether this was an extraordinarily crude negotiation ploy to double his salary, naivity on Rooney’s part, or guile on the part of Sir Alex Ferguson the manager – or a mixture of the three.  But whatever lies behind the scenes, what I find really interesting is the way in which the saga has been reported, and the apparent response from the Man Utd fans, because it speaks volumes about British attitudes to inequality and community.

This is the week in which 500,000 public-sector job losses were announced; in which cuts in spending and public services have been vigorously denounced as regressive and defended just as strenuously as fair; in which Goldman Sachs felt obliged to cut its ‘compensation’ fund for employees but still offered an average of £236,000 per employee; and in which the Downing Street website published salary details for senior Whitehall civil servants in the name of transparency.  Inequality and fairness are as high on the agenda as they have ever been.  And yet the fact that a 25-year-old footballer will now earn the median UK annual income of around £25k every day for the next five years has attracted considerably less attention than the heartache the uncertainty has caused fans and the task Rooney now has of winning back their trust.

It seems likely to me that such gross inequality is seen as acceptable in Rooney’s case, but not in the case of bankers and public servants, because of the influence of community.  Man Utd fans have a relationship with Rooney that, while not truly personal, is intense and two-way.  They love what he does on the pitch, appreciate the effect that he has in cementing the community of fans, and at some level recognise that he makes their lives better.  He’s also ‘one of us’, and could be the boy from down the street.

The opposite is true of bankers and senior public servants: despite the fact that they probably contribute more to this country, as far as the average person is concerned they are faceless, remote and disconnected from any aspect of community life.  As a result, they are pilloried for having incomes which, while considerable, are a fraction of Rooney’s.  (It will take Rooney a whole week to earn what the top civil servants take home in a year.)

My point in all this is that the context in which inequality manifests itself is all important.  Obvious inequality has been painted as a negative force, leading to increased stress, violence, health problems and other pathologies.  But perhaps it can also be used ‘for good’.  The RSA’s Connected Communities project has investigated community ties in New Cross Gate, a multiply-deprived area of South East London which borders the more affluent Telegraph Hill conservation area.  There is considerable local inequality here, as I highlighted in a previous post on the RSA’s Projects blog, and little interaction between the two areas.  But there is also potential for this inequality to be put to good use, if Telegraph Hill residents can be encouraged to engage with their neighbours in New Cross Gate and use their greater affluence, connections and capabilities to improve lives and community ties.

Inequality in the UK is not going to go away, but does it need to? The goals Wayne Rooney scores are more important to Man Utd fans than the fact that he earns so much more than them, and fans recognise that he wouldn’t be playing for them if he didn’t earn so much.  Could the same be true in areas like New Cross Gate; could local inequality not only be overlooked, but also appreciated, if it is put to good use?  And if this happens across the UK, in the context of the Big Society or otherwise, could greater engagement between rich and poor start to change the terms on which inequality is viewed?

Also posted at RSA Projects – the link’s on the right.