Here’s your starter for ten as we experiment with a new Saturday slot posing a view for debate:
Here’s what David Marquand had to say in a recent issue of the New Statesman:
The truth is that the left commentariat’s default position – social permissiveness combined with economic regulation; toughness towards bankers, but softness towards cannabis hawkers – was always incoherent and has now become disastrous. Of course, the right’s alternative – economic permissiveness combined with social regulation – is equally incoherent. But for the left to rely on that kind of yah-boo retort only deepens its current malaise. After all, the right has been out of power for the past 13 years; and however unfair it is for David Cameron to blame our “broken society” on the present regime, his charge rings bells with large parts of the electorate. The truth is that our society is broken, and by pretending that it is not, the left merely proves that it is in denial.
The beginning of wisdom for the battered and bewildered left, as it approaches what may be an electoral disaster, is to acknowledge openly that casino capitalism, family breakdown, asset stripping, binge drinking and welfare dependency are all part of a single web; and that the crisis of capitalism which has overwhelmed the global economy is part of a wider social and moral crisis.
Is Professor Marquand right? Are we in a social and moral crisis? Or is this an hysterical over-reaction? After all, for every family breakdown and boozed-up teen drop-out, we can point to a more racially tolerant and less homophobic society.
Agree? Disagree? Comment away …
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15 Comments
The Economist has nailed this pretty comprehensively this week. Editorial
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15452811
“the story of broad decline is simply untrue. Stepping back from the glare of the latest appalling tale, it is clear that by most measures things have been getting better for a good decade and a half. In suggesting that the rot runs right through society, the Tories fail to pinpoint the areas where genuine crises persist. The broken-Britain myth is worse than scaremongering—it glosses over those who need help most”.
The main feature has some very interesting historic trend analysis
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15452867
We might all have different views about what is wrong or needs to change.
But it seems simply impossible to mount any serious or evidence-based “broken Britain” claim in terms of social facts and trends. In terms of values, the only subjective perspective from which a “broken society” claim is plausible would be from a deeply traditionalist socially authoritarian position which sees the growth in social liberalism on issues like gay rights as proof we are all going to hell in a handcart.
An environmental critique that how the society is unsustainable without significant change is valid, but that is surely something different.
Which raises two questions:
Why does such gloomy scare-mongering enjoy so much attention and resonance, even among people who do not recognise it as a perspective of their own lives. (Of course Moss Side is Baltimore is not aimed at those who live in the cities, but at a different audience?)
And how does a Conservative Party which often looks so weak on data manage to have so much “framing” success when it comes to narratives?
Oh Gawd the dithering Marquand raises his ugly head again. Perhaps if he’d shown more commitment and loyalty himself I might be more amenable to his hand-wringing views. I find these people so old-fashioned and really should be pensioned off. When he says the `left` what or who does he mean? Only in his eyes can there be this binary view. Once in the SDP then the Alliance then Labour – and now falling out with Labour. Where next – the Tories? This man just wants to be with the most popular gang. Thank God we’ve outgrown him.
I’m sorry, when was the right out of power? ‘New Labour’ is not known for their social permissiveness or economic regulation – quite the opposite really.
I suppose you could put all these things together and call them a “crisis”. Still you have to realise that these are not new developments. Things are this bad, but they have always been this bad, and in some other respects we’re doing better than society’s ever managed before.
The wrong-thinking here is that we built some great society and civilisation, and then it all went wrong. Society has been dragged up out of ignorance, in-fighting, insanity, and sheer greed to this point. This process has not been completed. It still has a long way to go. What we need to do is make it better.
Marquand presents the establishment view blaming everyone else except themself.
Of course it’s never their fault -it’s always our fault – especially when they think we are they!
The fact is that government is broken – if it was ever got right in the first place!
What we’ve got is an over-centralised over-blown state which is at war with itself and can’t do anything but cause confusion as the means for old interest groups to cling onto a veneer of rotten ermine while society and the economy marches on ahead trying and testing new ways of forging progress.
Every new attempt at fixing the problems they’ve caused only creates newer, more complex problems as the people in temporary charge pick and choose the bits which favour their friends.
We don’t need a referendum on AV – we need a New Great Reform Bill giving a clear vision from bottom to top (rather than the old way round) which will make all our country’s representatives represent rather than selectively dictate.
Neither Labour or Conservatives can offer this because they are wedded to the old model of politics where the people who pay the piper calls the tune – we offer something fresh: we offer a choice of something authentic: we offer real ideas and imagination where dry dogma has held sway for too long.
Left and right are meaningless terms in a modern society – the choice is to move forwards into a brighter future!
“boozed-up teen drop-out”
Don’t these belong to the Bullingdon Club?
@Sunder Katwala: The Economist has nailed this pretty comprehensively this week.
Indeed it has! Everyone should read those articles before they believe any more of Cameron’s scare-mongering. The two questions Mr Katwala asks are also highly pertinent.
Cameron is whipping up fear in order to justify more state authoritarianism and moralising (marriage bribes to families with stay-at-home wives/husbands, anyone?). In other words, he is copying the New Labour method of trying to scare people into trusting them (New Labour used terrorism and non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as well as crime and anti-social behaviour, but the principle is identical). As liberals we should reject these distortions and push for locally-based solutions for the people and areas that do have problems. The community justice panels pioneered by some Lib Dem local authorities are an excellent example of this.
Knee-jerk legislation and prohibition are both unedifying and ineffective, as A. C. Grayling points out in this excellent article.
So what does Dr. Marquand want? Social regulation with economic regulation? Social permissiveness with economic permissiveness? He seems to be indulging in the very fun intellectual game of critiquing one side of politics without providing a better alternative. Reminds me rather of Lord Rosebery and his ‘fly blown phylacteries.’
The fact is that this ‘broken society’ meme has been going on for a while – certainly since the 1980s, arguably before. It hasn’t been called that until quite recently, but this general feeling of national social malaise and the fear of the complete breakdown of social order has not sprung up on us in the 13 years since 1997, as some Tories would like you to think. The problem with the ‘broken society’ is the fact that one can point to any facet of any society as proof of it being ‘broken’ – it can never be ‘fixed’, which is why this feeling has endured to such an extent. The trouble is that it’s an essentially irrational feeling – not because it’s necessarily a complete fiction (I don’t think, in the long term, that it is), but because a ‘feeling’ of broken society, personal experience and reported anecdote trumps impirical reporting, for example the statistics that show that most sorts of crime have decreased over the past ten years. Any politician who tries to argue against this feeling is branded as ‘out of touch’, and it’s rather ironic to see the very model of an ivory-tower intellectual politician doing exactly the same.
Of course, you could argue that a society is more broken if people are sure it is, but then you’re getting to philosophy…
“Broken society” is a phrase designed to appeal to the only demographic that matters to the big two parties in general elections – authoritarian young/middle-aged parents. The phrase, in the Cameron argument, implies that:
– we had a really good society once, probably back when we were ruling all those brown people over there rather than ruling them over here
– something happened
– now society is appalling. Look at the number of kids drinking alcohol, for goodness’ sake. That could be your daughter
but not in so many words. It is the right-wing equivalent of “British jobs for British workers” – Labour uses greed, the Tories use fear.
Needless to say, when we look at the data, there’s nothing to back it up.
Society is broken. And in the dock for that should be the State. No faction that wants control of the State wants truly to repair Society, except by more imposition from the State, inevitably further breaking Society. The State, and the political factions who want to control it, all have an interest in claiming that “something must be done”, and, concomitant with that, “and we’re the people to do it”.
Properly speaking, the “Right” >is the State. The Left is> Society. There has only ever been one political party in this country who championed the latter, pre-1860 Liberals. But when both they and the nascent collectivist “Labour movement” decided that the way to achieve their end of equity for all was through legislation and control of the State to do so (rather than by recognising that the State, under the influence of the “Right”, had already caused most of the inequity in any case), they both turned irredeemably to the Right, to be yet more advocates of State action (see Spencer, “The New Toryism” in “The Man Versus the State“)
All these champions of State action, both “left” (in the 20th century corruption of that term) and “right”, are as Sirens, singing sweetly about what they will do about this perceived problem or that perceived problem, to lure what remains of Society onto the rocks.
Niklas, I like that Grayling article you cite, but he might have had a better comparison between Conservative and Labour “moralising” had he used as an example of the latter not prostitution but the incessant growth of anti-thought, anti-speech and anti-discrimination (which, as recognised by liberal philosophers amount to the same thing since the latter are merely the expressions of the first) legislation. By these, Society no longer has the power of one of its greatest weapons, ostracism within the free market, because they cannot know what the person is thinking or if they do, they fall back on the draconian power of “people with guns” (State enforcers) to punish them. And, after all, there is nothing uniquely “Labour” about attacking prostitution – it is something both of them would want to do given the chance to demonstrate their “moral fibre” that makes them demonstrably worthy of controlling the State.
For example, as a gay man I would really like to know whether the florist whom I ask to write the card to my beloved for Valentine’s day would really prefer me to “rot in hell” or the hotelier doesn’t want to give me a double bed because it is against his religious convictions, or the employer doesn’t really care about getting the best person for the job, and really only cares about getting people of whose “lifestyle” he approves. In all cases, at least I could flounce out dramatically (not!) and make it known to everyone who listened that so and so was a bigot and “nice” people shouldn’t deal with them. But now I can’t. Because they are told that they must put up with what they may find disgusting and not criticise or the police can come and get them.
If the great majority of people want such bigots exposed and shunned and disapproved of, as presumably must be the basis of the argument for legislative censorship – since, after all the legislators will always claim to be representative of the majority will (and if not what makes them think they have a right to impose something on a majority) – then Social power can do that, without the interference of State power, and probably much more effectively whilst avoiding the draconian measure of thought-police and State-violence to their consciences.
I am interested in Marquand’s critique of welfare dependence though. It is certainly an interesting position, as it chimes with the “survival of the fittest” argument of Spencer whom Marquant would presumably reject out of hand. For when Spencer was talking about the “survival of the fittest” it was not, it seems to me, about whether we care for the weak and incapable as individuals – simple human, social compassion should see to that – but whether we nurture a culture of weakness or, in his word, indolence, which eventually makes that Society weak in terms of being able to compete with other societies. And that back then, this was also a sentiment expressed by the more populist collectivists, as “he who shall not work, shall not eat” (of course, aimed then at the landlordism that did nothing but exact tribute from its labour rather than but subsequently taken up by state socialism as, to paraphrase, if you don’t do your bit for the collective it won’t do its duty to you).
I’d say society is broken, but the key flaw is the outrage, hysteria and venom that is expressed much of the time.
We live in a world where opinion and perception is everything, and facts are just things political types make up.
I’m probably wanting us to go back to a place we haven’t actually gone, but I’d like to see more rational, thoughtful debate and less knee-jerk emotive hyperbole.
Of course Britain’s not broken. It’ll be fine just as soon as all the teachers have had their violence training.
If you claim that society is “broken”, then the implication is that -at some stage- it wasn’t broken. The implication, of course, is that an “unbroken” society is even possible. This is utopian nonsense.
The only question that matters is “how can we improve society?”. There will always be some way that life can be improved, and people will always claim that society is “broken”, simply because they can see ways that life could be better.
Ian: good point about not inventing a past golden-age, as nicely illustrated by this 11th century quote.
I recommend the best reference to find out more about this is the book; “The Spirit Level” by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.
They look at statistical measures for what makes a good society, and the UK/US and Portugal all fared the worst against comparable countries. Why? They found that there was a strong statistical correlation of a kind that is unusual in social sciences between how well a society functions and the level of relative inequality in that society.
The more unequal a society is, the higher level of crime, teenage pregnancy, obesity and the lower level of social mobility plus a whole number of other measures.
It is a fascinating read.
However it is unfortunately the case the the UK does badly, as David Marquand rightly points out.
I haven’t read The Spirit Level myself so I can’t give my personal opinion, but I thought I should flag up the problems in their methodology and some contradictory evidence. Johan Norberg covers the criticism well.
It is a significant weakness of their analysis that they have only done a cross-section study (comparing countries at one point in time) and not investigated whether changes in inequality have led to changes in health and other social goods over time within individual countries. This is surely the relevant question to ask if you want to draw policy conclusions. But if you look at change over time like the Australian researcher Andrew Leigh you find “precisely no relationship” between inequality and mortality. As Mr Leigh says (the second link to him in Norberg’s post): “…my own empirical work on the issue has convinced me that when you look at within-country changes, the picture that emerges is very different to what you see when you look at a snapshot across countries over time.”