tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606798.post3898329532143043271..comments2024-03-27T16:39:43.522+00:00Comments on Liberal England: The Peckham Pioneer Health CentreJonathan Calderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00730157683743989696noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606798.post-76059587787381965952007-11-02T13:12:00.000+00:002007-11-02T13:12:00.000+00:00I share your concern about the decline of voluntar...I share your concern about the decline of voluntary organisations like the Peckham scheme, but I'm not so certain that it's all down to sixty year of the welfare state.<BR/><BR/>In that same period we've seen a vast decline in all sorts of small-scale social organisation. The decline of mass political party membership, trade unions, mainstream religious organisations, and the like have all been part of it. <BR/><BR/>Personally, if there's one things to blame for it above all, I'd say it's the box in the corner of the room. If you ask people why aren't there all those little clubs and things that used to exist in the past, they'll say "there's no time for it these days". But working hours haven't actually increased, and various labour-saving devices have made home tasks which were once time-consuming much easier. People have time to spend hours a day watching television, that's what they choose to do when in the past they might have been engaged in voluntary organisations.<BR/><BR/>What I've said above is also simplistic, but no more so than "blame it all on the welfare state". If the large centrally organised welfare state has a share of the blame for the decline of locally organised enterprise - and I agree it has - then so has large centrally organised shopping chains and media entertainment. All have contributed to a system where people have been socially de-skilled and more reliant on doing what they are told by powers remote from their own lives. <BR/><BR/>But also social mobility has contributed. It's easier to be clubable when you are living with the people you grew up with. To a large extent, clubability worked with inward-looking communities. We might not like to admit it, but the breakdown in social cohesion caused by large-scale immigration has also had its effect. In the poorer parts, social mobility has meant that the sort of person with the emotional and intellectual intelligence to organise things has now moved on to a management career and life in the leafier suburbs. In the past local organisation was often a way of dealing with the frustrations of intelligent people forced through lack of social mobility into unrewarding and unchallenging paid work. What I now see in the council estate I represented for twelve years until last year as a councillor is large numbers of people who actually lack the ability to cope with life, and very few of the sort of figures who once (I was brought up on a council estate, so I know how this used to work) acted as a source of wisdom and stability. That is why the lack of clubability is a particularly big issue in the poorer parts of our country. <BR/><BR/>I share your concern for various local government posts being "a job-creation scheme for the middle classes", but actually I think there really is a problem with people lacking the initiative to do things like this themselves. The blame for this, however, falls at least as much on modern consumer culture as it does on the welfare state. To this extent, I am more willing than you to contemplate state action to challenge the way people's lives are directed by the big corporations.<BR/><BR/>You might recognise this as a belated reply to our exchange of views some time ago on child-rearing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com