Our Society Is Considerably Bigger Than Yours

Back in 2002, when Theresa May spoke about the Tories being seen as the nasty party a lot of people laughed at the prospect of the said Nasty Party tearing itself apart in internal battles. But in fact it was part of a well crafted PR job to get them back into power. And by hook or by crook (and with a bit of a Clegg-up) it worked.

We were bombarded with green logos, Green Goldsmith, Boris-on-a-Bike, podcasts of Cameron doing the washing up and tearfully proclaiming his undying love for the NHS. There was even a bid (from Andrew Lansley of all people!) to rebrand the party as the Reform Conservatives. But there was a problem; Margaret Thatcher!

Thatcher is living proof that the Tories were as nasty as everyone thought. The snatcher of milk from children, destroyer of industry and communities, who as Prime Minister famously said, in an interview in Woman's Own, that there is no such thing as society. This hung like a millstone round their necks - because it ran their selfish free-market philosophy up against an unavoidable fact; human beings are social creatures - it is the secret of our success as a species. Thatcher's comments seemed inhuman and uncaring and jarred with people at a very basic level.

So, what to do? Simple! In a glossy PR version of Orwellian double speak Cameron and his cronies shamelessly cloaked themselves in the empty rhetoric of The Big Society. While attacking every resource and value that society holds dear, they suggest that volunteers can take the place of librarians, park keepers, youth centre co-ordinators etc. etc. This ignores the very obvious inequality in resources available locally in different communities. This is amply illustrated by Ehrenreich & Russell Hochschild, in their excellent book Global Woman, where they point out that the hierarchy between an employer and his or her domestic help works on the assumption that the employer has "something better" to do with her time - not noticing the obvious implication that the cleaning person herself has nothing better to do with her time! Such an obvious inequality of resources inevitably impacts on any notion of The Big Society - and inevitably makes for it really meaning The Unequal Society.

But in the face of this attack - and however it is dressed up, it IS an attack, true community action will grow. It grew during the hardship of the Industrial Revolution. It grew during the hardship of the World Wars and flowered into the welfare state. It will flower again - maybe into something better. We have the resources and the skills to be a part of that - and we have to be. Because, anthropologically speaking, social organisation is instinctive and organic - even though it is shaped and constricted by the capitalist society we live in.

Every time the bosses relocate their factories and call centres to exploit cheaper labour elsewhere; every time we're told to get on our bikes and look for work; every time the heart is ripped out of a community, people seek to rebuild their social structures - in the face of people like Cameron, not thanks to them. There IS such a thing as society - but it is not just BIG, it is F**KING ENORMOUS!! AND IT IS OURS! It is in our DNA. It happens every day, in every street. At home and at work. It laid the foundations to the National Health Service that the Tories OPPOSED - and sought to reverse from the moment they got back into power.

The truth is that it is capitalism that creates much of the need for social services. Every time some Fat Cat's business plan means someone is thrown on the scrapheap, that is another person depending on the welfare state. Every time some bonus hungry banker lays waste to the economy and someone misses out on the opportunity to further their education, that is someone else who is less likely to lift themselves out of poverty. Every time someone is forced to move in search of work that is another person who has lost their community support network and been FORCED to rely on the state for help. The unfair and unequal distribution of wealth and is the reason we have such large public service costs. It is not some act of generosity by the government, it is an entitlement - and poor compensation for lives wrecked by capitalism at that.

The biggest threat to society is this PR double speak notion of The Big Society. You cannot on one hand tell people that we cannot afford to support the most vulnerable in society while on the other saying that we all need to volunteer to keep these services running. This tension will once again be exposed and the disconnection between capitalist self-interest and the basic human instinct to organise socially be laid bare. In that moment lies the opportunity to move forward from these dark days.