Search -
The Big Society: Anatomy of the New Politics
The Big Society Anatomy of the New Politics Author:Norman, Jesse Norman The Big Society: the Anatomy of the New Politics shows how the Big Society will redefine British politics for a generation. Ranging widely over economics, philosophy, history, business, civil liberties, education and culture, it reveals how the Big Society is rooted in neglected British intellectual and social traditions?but also embodies some ... more »of the most unexpected and cutting-edge new policy ideas.
Among other things, it explains
-- how the growth of the Labour party has been a disaster for the Left in Britain
-- why so much "happiness theory" is intellectually bankrupt
-- the paradox of creativity: why high bonuses often reduce, not improve, human performance
-- why Conservatives should robustly defend common law human rights
-- the social power of music and the arts
Amol Rajan
Independent 21 November 2010
Packed with deep insights and new perspectives, this book tells you everything you need to know about the most exciting idea in British politics. It is essential reading for politicians, economists, social commentators, those in the public services?and the voting public.
"What's the big idea?" "Why can't politicians articulate one?" Nobody interested in politics can have failed to hear these laments. They are particularly discernible during election campaigns and following the death of demagogues.
Conservatives tend to be suspicious of big ideas. They think that when ideas get too big, they become ideologies. Ideology is a way of thinking that aims at power, not truth, and the whole basis of conservatism is scepticism towards the possibility of true knowledge. Yet the Conservative-dominated coalition ruling Westminster does have a big idea. It is called the Big Society, and Jesse Norman has provided the best explanation we have yet had of it. The new Conservative MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire has worked in finance, academia and the third sector. He writes lucidly, has the ear of the Tory leadership, and during his time at Policy Exchange, Cameron's favourite think-tank, published several works whose ideas this book coheres.
Its argument is clear and cogent: the state is too big and boisterous. It should be smaller and smarter. Growth in the power of our state has produced diminishing returns in the quality of public services, portrays citizens as passive recipients of centralised benefaction, and is unaffordable. It has taken place during the reign of homo economicus ? a flawed representation of the human being's economic preferences, which portrays him as rational and acting on the basis of perfect information, when actually he is neither.
At the same time, political theory has been obsessed with the freedom of the individual and the function of the state, but said too little about what is in between: institutions. We need a theory of institutions. The Big Society aims to harness their power, whether large (school) or small (family), to boost fraternity.
Norman calls on a central idea in the work of Michael Oakeshott, his conservative hero, to advance this theory. Oakeshott distinguished between two types of society: civil versus enterprise associations. The former is an association of citizens who are equal under the law but have no common purpose or plan; the latter is a project in which citizens are conscripted into a common, broad undertaking, usually aimed at world improvement. Oakeshott preferred the former.
Norman's introduction of a third category is liable to be remembered as his great contribution to political thought. It is timely, astute and compassionate. For the Big Society, the "connected" society, we need a philic association, from the Greek philia, meaning "tie", "affection", "friendship" or "regard". This can be a vehicle for the human affections embodied by institutions. Unleashing those affections is the aim of the Big Society.« less