All you need is love?

Civitas, 14 February 2011

It is perhaps fitting that on Valentine’s Day David Cameron attempted to stoke up love for the Big Society in the face of recent criticism. It is perhaps doubly fitting because the success of the Big Society may depend upon love, or largely altruistic feelings, in the short term at least.

One way to look at the Big Society is to envisage it as an expanded welfare state, provided independently from government. Thus instead of the government running libraries or caring for forests, groups of private individuals do, cooperatives or charities perhaps. This is what distinguishes the Big Society from privatisation, if it was simply a case of private companies running things, either directly, or through outsourcing by the government, then this would clearly just be the small state, not the Big Society. Some critics of Cameron have suggested that the Big Society is just smoke and mirrors for the old Tory goal of cutting back public services and minimising the state, whether this is the case may become clear in time, but giving Cameron the benefit of the doubt, how can his self-professed ‘mission’ be achieved?

A reformulation of the question is: how can the public be encouraged to provide services usually provided by the government and the welfare state? Illuminating this question, a friend of mine recently gave me a preview of their research paper entitled: ‘Ideas of Social Justice and the Foundations for Redistributive Policies: Obstacles and Opportunities for Their Applicability to the Policy Debate, P. Buxton, 2010’. In it, the author examines how human behaviour can create demand for a welfare state. Utilising the work of David Miller (Altruism and the Welfare State, 1995) three types of altruist are discussed: calculating, reciprocal and conscientious.

The calculating altruist sees welfare provision as a type of insurance policy, in case he or she ever requires the services in question, and does not possess the resources to access them, except through public provision. Thus in the case of the Big Society such an individual might be encouraged to help run libraries, if they felt that one day they would rely on libraries for access to books.

The reciprocal altruist agrees to contribute to welfare provision because he or she feels that others will do so too, and, importantly, also feel that the burden of contributing is shared relatively evenly. A reciprocal altruist would contribute to the Big Society if they felt others were doing so too, and if they did not have to shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden of contributing.

Finally, the conscientious altruist sees it as their duty to help others, disregarding the fact that others may not reciprocate and that they will probably have to bear a greater share of the burden. The Big Society should be embraced by such altruists, and undoubtedly they are the kind of people that David Cameron hopes will be immediately attracted by the idea. Miller suggests that if society were composed of only such people, then we would not require a welfare state, perhaps we’d have the Big Society already in its most complete form.

Clearly however, society is not universally populated by such beings, but by all three types of altruist. The question for Cameron is thus: how can calculating and conscientious altruists be encouraged to partake in the Big Society, and how can the participation by already willing conscientious altruists be facilitated?

In terms of the latter problem, conscientious altruists need to be able to access financial resources to begin to take over governmental services. So far the Government has not done enough on this score, necessary cuts to local council budgets have not been coupled by a commitment to protect charitable funding, and there are early doubts about the Big Society Bank, both in terms of size and in how it will operate. In terms of the former problem, reciprocal altruists will probably only contribute when the Big Society is operational and seen to be effectively working, then reciprocation will be easier to assess, and its beneficial effects will be clearer. A tougher sell will be the calculating altruists, who will need to see that the Big Society is providing useful benefits which everyone may need to rely on at some point in their lives.

Undoubtedly the next 12 months, when the cuts start to bite, will be a big test of David Cameron’s Big Society. Sceptics may be wrong that Britain is full of self-interested individuals too busy to engage in the Big Society (a recent blog by the IEA indicates that Britain is home to a reasonable degree of voluntarism, though the IEA does also suggest that this is because it has not been forced on us by the government), but it is also clear that the UK is not full of conscientious altruists chomping at the bit to take over government services. There may be love for the Big Society but it is not unconditional, and there could be more than the odd lover’s tiff before next Valentine’s Day.