The big society reminds us how things used to be

The Big Society is a bad name for a sensible idea

Tuesday February 15,2011

By Theodore Dalrymple, social commentator


The Big Society is a bad name for a sensible idea: namely that citizens should not rely upon the State and its bureaucracies for their own welfare. Instead, they should form voluntary associations to look after both themselves and others.

This is much easier said that done, of course. A bureaucracy can be created in an afternoon but it cannot be dissolved in a decade. When Mr Clegg tells us that we should not trust any government, including his own, he is quite right. “The natural inclination of government,” he said, “is to hoard power and information; to accrue power to itself in the name of the public good.” Or, as as an American senator once put it, you cannot get a hog to slaughter itself.

There is evidence from India, too. A civil servant there, noticing that thousands of ancient files that would never be open again were clogging up the office, went to his boss and asked if he could throw them away. His boss thought about it for a few moments, and then said: “Yes, provided you copy them in triplicate.”

Decreasing the size and reach of the state will not be easy, therefore. It has insinuated itself into every corner of our lives. Almost everything we do in public is filmed – we all have walk-on parts every day in countless films.

When you give money to a large charity, you are not so much being generous as voluntarily paying more tax. For many charities are de facto subcontractors to the state. The government is usually by far the largest single donor; it’s a cliché, no doubt, but he who pays the piper calls the tune.

Such charities are, in effect, misrepresenting themselves to the public. It is not only financial corruption that we should fear but even more the moral corruption of which this dishonesty is an example.

How do we love the state? Let us count the ways.

We entrust the State with our health care, cradle to grave; it educates us, right up to postdoctoral level if need be; it guarantees our retirement; for about a third of us, it houses us; it employs many of us, either directly or indirectly; it even keeps us amused, through the BBC. For an increasing number of children, the State – and the TV in the bedroom – is the only father they will ever know. It gives us rights we never knew we had, but once we have them we are reluctant to lose them.

This is all very convenient in a way, even delightful. So many responsibilities are taken away from us but the money in our pocket – admittedly much reduced by the taxes we have to pay – is indeed like pocket money. As children we spent it on sweets, as adults we spend it on entertainments and holidays. Why save, when everything will be taken care of? The problem with the State taking care of everything is twofold. First it tends to destroy our character, something that can be observed every day. Our faculties such as prudence and planning for unpleasant eventualities are lost if they are not exercised, a trend surely borne out by the fact that we as a nation save nothing and borrow much.

The second problem is that the State isn’t very good at what it does. How many of us find that, if we can afford it, we are willing to pay privately for services that are supposed to be provided by the State, such as education and dentistry? People pay twice over, first in taxes, then as fees – and the taxes drive up the fees.

If we cannot afford private services, how many of us are really satisfied with what we receive? If we are not, there’s nothing we can do about it and if we are, it is often because we have low expectations. In effect, we are all paupers at the gate of King State. We are paupers even when we are not poor.

There is no doubt that this is very gratifying to many of our governors. It flatters their self-importance which is often their strongest character trait. But it leaves the rest of us reduced human beings.

No one who’s had many dealings with British officialdom can be under any illusions as to the warmth of its heart. Indeed, it can show no compassion because it, unlike real charity, can make no distinction between the deserving and the undeserving. To fail to make this distinction is to increase the number of the undeserving. But human nature being what it is, no one can long feel benevolent towards the undeserving. So the comfort of the State is always cold comfort.

And there is another way in which handing over everything to the State hardens our hearts: we come to believe that, having paid our taxes, we have paid our dues to society. When we have spent half of our time, nearly, in working for the State (as we do even if we are employed in the private sector), we do not feel much inclined to perform social service afterwards, even for those close to us. Where the State takes care of us all, we become separated from one another.

Our governors, in their search for power, have done everything possible to make the State our family: and they have, in large part, succeeded. A third of us are now completely dependent on the State: and the supposed dependence of women on men – actually inter-dependence – has been replaced by dependence on bureaucrats. And all this costs so much in taxes that many have to go out to work when they do not want to.

In the name of social solidarity we have turned ourselves into a lonely crowd. But whether we can get the hog to slaughter itself is another matter – there are too many of us at the trough for it to be easy.