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Big society was never a government initiative

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It was a label to put on the self-sufficient work that communities have always done, and the capacity for which, over many decades a series of governments have effectively eroded. As McKnight says

‘competent communities have been invaded, captured, and colonized by professionalized services’

and I would say seriously weakened as a consequence. Now that some debt needs paying off, and the ‘professional services’ are being withdrawn, the ask is that we pick up where we left off, as if all that capacity and capability could just be turned on and off like a tap.

And, that instead of focussing on real needs, we focus instead on how we can help these professionalised service providers to maintain their empires through ‘volunteering’.

Sadly many of us have been complicit in the professionalisation of services as we convert civic endeavours into social enterprises and re focus community development on state funded policy objectives – instead of having confidence to work on the priorities that we find at our own kitchen tables and at the places where, increasingly rarely, our neighbours meet.

So for me it is about re-discovering self-sufficiency, self-interest and association as the means through which we can build fair futures for as many as possible, with governments and their policies and procedures being seen increasingly as, at best, impotent.

For me Big Society was never an inspiring initiative but really just a political land grab. But the work of building our communities needs to be bought back inside our communities and we need to recognise that any form of dependence on our government as an investor needs to be handled with immense care. For they are often a fickle investor. Much of my work at the moment is helping a range of charities, social enterprises and other components of the beloved Big Society to re-build themselves in a world where the public money has simply disappeared.

Building a strategy for social change based on assumptions that the state will be a benevolent and consistent investor has always been risky.

This post was first published as a comment on, and inspired by Tessy Britton’s piece Big Society R.I.P.

The Purpose of a City: economic development or something more?

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Why do we choose to live cities?  What are they for?

Well, for many of us they are ‘Where the jobs are’.  We don’t choose to live in or near them.  We do so because that is how our economy is configured.  We are drawn into they city and ‘enslaved’ by it and the economy is exists to serve.  But many of us are, on the whole, happy slaves as the city fathers and their investor friends ensure we are regularly supplied with both  ‘bread and circuses’, superficial means of appeasement, from which they too can often make a handsome profit.

And, on one level, this is a purpose of the city.

To organise a modern population effectively and efficiently for the benefit of employers and those who bankroll and tax them.  They are above all else economic entities, where ‘culture’ and ‘community’ play secondary roles as part of the mechanisms for appeasement while the primary narrative is about the economy, productivity, profitability and gross domestic product.

As Margaret Thatcher put it “Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul.”

But, we can look at a city differently.

We could choose to believe that “Head, heart and soul are the method; the object is to change the economy”

We can choose to see the city as a collection of people who have converged on a specific location because it offers them opportunities to do the things that they want to do, to be the person that they want to be and fulfil their potential.  In such a city the primary relationship would not be one of ‘enslavement’ to an economy but as a collaboration of powerful citizens in a participative democracy.  A city where citizens primary responsibility is to each other and to the future.  Where an economy is produced that serves people, both now and into the future.

Such a city would almost certainly not depend primarily on the development of its physical infrastructure, (Supercasino anyone? Or perhaps a high-speed train or station entrance to inspire the business folk?) but on psychological infrastructure.  A network of relationships, support and encouragement that valued people, regardless of wealth or education, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or age.  A psychological infrastructure in which help could be asked for and offered. A city in which collaboration, association and innovation in the pursuit of progress was everyone’s business.

Now THAT would be a city I would want to live in.

Would Social Enterprise Deliver a Better World?

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Just imagine a world where every business is a social enterprise.

There was nowhere to spend your money that was not taking a portion of it to reinvest in social change, to alleviate hardship and increase social justice.

You eat at a restaurant that uses part of the price of your ham hock to help the homeless find a job.  You pay a premium on your office space so that your landlord can re-invest some of your cash into supporting entrepreneurs amongst the local poor folk.  You buy your petrol from an oil company that takes a slice of your cash to improve marine conservation and invest in promoting democracy in the oilfields of the planet.

Every time you buy something someone puts a smile on the face of the world.

The more we consume the better things get!

Growth is genuinely good! Isn’t it?

Well perhaps, because all of these social enterprises are also genuinely sustainable in a one planet economy, all paying a fair wage for a days work, and are well capitalised as investors recognise that social change is in their ‘self interest’ too.  The return they get on their capital is worth much more than just money.  It is a planet fit for the grandchildren.

How would the market for ‘social change’ play out in our new socially enterprising economy?

Life for us consumers might get a little more complicated as we factor in not just cost, quality and decency of the corporate that we buy our goods from – but also whether they are investing effectively in the causes that we want to support.

A post capitalist economy where entrepreneurs and markets set the agenda and provide the fuel for social change.  And perhaps just a quango or two checking the veracity of their claims for ‘re-investing profits’.  We could call it SEQC – the Social Enterprise Quality Commission.

What could possibly go wrong?

What Is Leeds Like?

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This is the title of a new photography competition being run by Leeds City Council.  The public are invited to submit their snaps that capture for them what Leeds is like in 2011.

And the prize for What Is Leeds Like?  The council and its partners may use your images in a report and in any other publication they wish, to portray the city.

On the one hand I admire the enterprise.  No doubt, strapped for cash, they can’t afford to commission a professional, or even to buy some of the existing great product of the Leeds photography community.  A quick search on flickr for Leeds 2011 produces over 28 000 images.

But  it feels a little one sided…

Is there a qualitative difference between professionally commissioned and briefed city portraiture and the chocolate box approach of a ‘send us your snaps’ competition?  Is there a danger of de-professionalising photography?  Or is it just another creative industry that needs to wake up to the fact that we are all creatives now?

So what could the council do that would meet its requirements for low/no cost but high quality photography and provide a meaningful and powerful platform for Leeds photographers?

So, Leeds photographers, what would you value as a prize in such a competition?

UPDATE

Delighted to see the Beyond Guardian Leeds have launched an alternative  photo competition through which I hope they can really attract attention to some great Leeds photographers.