This Time No Mistakes

[...] Society is not an aggregation of individuals expressing their liberty, the foundation of [John Stuart] Mill’s thinking; instead, it is a social organism, an identity which, like a human being, is more than the sum of its parts. Every human being is in a constant interaction with their external environment in the form of society, argued [Thomas Hill] Green, which shapes them, and which they in turn shape; they are not blank slates, but self-conscious living entities whose minds and being are in constant iteration with the social world beyond them. The health of the social body, which so influences them, is thus integral to everyone’s own health, so that no human being can reflect their humanity if they only pursue their own selfish interest, which will hurt the social body. Holding society together and not pulling away is a common interest and purpose. The common good, and the ability of individuals to live lives they value and find meaningful, are interdependent.

The neoliberal era is plainly over, and a newly forged social democratic order needs to solve these challenges. Britain must get beyond the conservative idea of the ‘We’ defined by a very ancient nation-state, saturated in a complacent sense of its own greatness, seeing public activism as second best to a preferred world in which human endeavour and ambition are private with economy and society, as far as possible, left to their own devices. Instead, the ‘We’ must be re-surfaced as one that can pursue and deliver more because we work together to achieve shared goals, and which has our back whenever things go wrong in our individual lives. Public and private in this conception are part of an interdependent whole, with the nation-state as the indispensable guarantor of the common good and all our flourishing – whether securing minimum living standards, for example, or acting to contain global warming.

The reset to come must reincorporate the ‘We’, a shared sense of belonging and collective purpose, back into the DNA of our society; there must be a web of institutions that represent our collective need and common good, while proper space is offered to individual responsibility and agency – but not to libertarian narcissism. Its success might also allow the right, hopefully, to recast conservatism in less destructive terms, and rediscover a conservative philosophy that is less of a menace to our democracy.

Britain is at a decisive moment in its national fortunes. More of the same and we condemn ourselves to drop out of the front rank of nations, in every sense – in terms of personal and social wellbeing, economic performance, social cohesion and international influence. The position is precarious, as described in earlier chapters. There is scarcely a dial on the economic, social and democratic dashboard that is not flashing amber or red. None of these trends can continue for another twenty-five years.

The culprit is not hard to identify. It is a continuing inability to invest in ourselves purposefully – in our businesses, our public services, our infrastructure, research and development, our young, the preservation of nature and everything that makes life worth living. That failing has two key roots. The first is the grip that free-market, laissez-faire, set-the-individual-free economic thinking continues to have on the national discourse and on policy-making, ever since the election of Mrs Thatcher. The people may want collective action and investment in great public services; the Conservative establishment resists because it is unwilling on principle – it does not believe in the ‘We’ – and because such investment is incompatible with cutting taxes, the automatic preference if there is any fiscal latitude. The situation is made worse by the failings of our state structures as they have built up since the middle of the nineteenth century. Britain does not have the public institutions and official mindset to want to invest in and develop its economy. As observed throughout this book, a belief in laissez-faire and the self-organising market has never really died. Social and economic success in the twenty-first century demands a very different approach.