*I rather doubt we've heard the last of this Phillip Blond guy. He sounds like an ideal propagandist for junking dysfunctional government and replacing it with preachy, radical social-media structures based on people feeling good about themselves.
http://www.respublica.org.uk/media/red-tory-intrigues-and-infuriates
(..)
Blond is best on his analysis of how civil society has been squeezed out between an increasingly intrusive, authoritarian state and an invasive market capitalism. By civil society, he means, all those associations, organisations and institutions distinct from market and state such as trade unions, local government, churches and co-ops. (((And, uh, the Internet, but you obviously knew that or you wouldn't be reading this.)))
Rather overstating his case, he maintains that none of them operate in an effective independent way. But the more general point stands: those associational activities whereby people could develop an understanding of their power to effect change and to shape their communities have been hollowed out.
Rare for a Tory, (((well, they're half the population and they've gotta contribute SOMETHING or we're obviously doomed))) he acknowledges that this is a process in which Thatcherism played a key role. There are plenty of other thinkers from all parts of the political spectrum in this territory now, aware of how power has been concentrated and centralised over the last two decades in the state and in what Blond rightly calls "monopoly capitalism". (((Why have we not heard this coinage before, and what does the breakup of that monopoly look like, and who is doing it right now?)))
But what will infuriate many on the left (((like the Left can do anything no matter how "furious" they get – seen a General Strike lately?))) is that he pins as much blame on the welfare state set up by "a middle-class elite partly to relieve poverty but also to deprive the poor of their habits of autonomous organisation". It was the welfare state that destroyed "vivid communal life of the urbanised working class". Instead of providing a safety net, it became a ceiling, trapping the working class in a benefits culture. And Blond takes the argument further by accusing the 60s sexual revolution of destroying working-class family life. (((The Sexual Revolution has gotta be blamed for something because it's just sort of sitting there in the remote past being unbearably sexy.)))
To those critics who will accuse him of romanticism and nostalgia, his defiant reply is the first page of the introduction: things were better in the past, and it's not nostalgic to say so. But it takes him several chapters to get to the core of his complaint: the loss of a British culture of virtue. That's why he wrote the book, he declares two-thirds of the way in, and the culprit for this crime is middle-class liberalism.
"Liberalism promoted a radical individualism, which in trashing the supposed despotism of custom and tradition concerning the true nature of human flourishing has produced a vacated, empty self that believes in no common values or inherited creeds" and in such a way militates against associational solidarity. (((I'm pretty sure I'm one of these "vacated empty self" guys, because that's where I find the mental capacity to maintain my interest in eccentric British right-wing political thinkers. Otherwise me and my know-nothing working-class family would have these daft buggers strung up in public like they deserve. "Fair trial?" "Free speech?" That's not our common value and inherited creed!)))
Other people are only perceived as restrictions on individual freedom rather than part of the web of social relationships on which we depend – and in which our freedom is embedded. (((I hope our future Millennial ruling class is listening to this on Facebook.))) The outcome of atomised individualism is paradoxically the development of an authoritarian state, which is the only agency by which to regulate and police the rights of individuals....
(((More right-wing maundering for the Red Tory new poverty, compare and contrast:)))
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/opinion/30brooks.html
"People get slightly happier as they climb the income scale, but this depends on how they experience growth. Does wealth inflame unrealistic expectations? Does it destabilize settled relationships? Or does it flow from a virtuous cycle in which an interesting job produces hard work that in turn leads to more interesting opportunities?
"If the relationship between money and well-being is complicated, the correspondence between personal relationships and happiness is not. The daily activities most associated with happiness are sex, socializing after work and having dinner with others. The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting. ((("Cars are the new cigarettes.")))
"According to one study, joining a group that meets even just once a month produces the same happiness gain as doubling your income. According to another, being married produces a psychic gain equivalent to more than $100,000 a year.
"If you want to find a good place to live, just ask people if they trust their neighbors. Levels of social trust vary enormously, but countries with high social trust have happier people, better health, more efficient government, more economic growth, and less fear of crime (regardless of whether actual crime rates are increasing or decreasing).
"The overall impression from this research is that economic and professional success exists on the surface of life, and that they emerge out of interpersonal relationships, which are much deeper and more important.
"The second impression is that most of us pay attention to the wrong things. Most people vastly overestimate the extent to which more money would improve our lives. (((Great news now that financier moguls have squandered all the money and the middle-class has none left. I bet you thought that massive income inequality was some kind of social problem.)))
"Most schools and colleges spend too much time preparing students for careers and not enough preparing them to make social decisions. (((I blame academia.))) Most governments release a ton of data on economic trends but not enough on trust and other social conditions. (((I blame bureaucrats. I blame anybody but churches, because man, those are great.))) In short, modern societies have developed vast institutions oriented around the things that are easy to count, not around the things that matter most. (((Awesome news for the Vatican.))) They have an affinity for material concerns and a primordial fear of moral and social ones. ((("Stop counting the money and go to Mass more often.")))
This may be changing. There is a rash of compelling books — including “The Hidden Wealth of Nations” by David Halpern and “The Politics of Happiness” by Derek Bok — that argue that public institutions should pay attention to well-being and not just material growth narrowly conceived.... (((Bureau of Happiness, armed Republican division, "operations other than government" "non-state-building", oh yeah, we'll be hearing plenty more along this line. "You're both homeless in that disaster breadline, but think how much better you know the guy who used to have the house next door." The Culture of Virtue is non-denominational.)))
