Creativity and politics

I have been working on a piece on the general subject of creativity, and what has emerged have been a number of themes: the nature of the spaces within which creative activity is more likely to happen; the capacity of people to "hang out in the fog" and to live with uncertainty and ambiguity; the extent to which creativity is an unconscious process that "happens behind our backs" rather than something that we deliberately shape or control; the importance of bringing together in unexpected combinations both people and ideas; the question of whether there is really ever "something new" or simply new combinations of what already exists. This may seem esoteric and obscure, but the object is to link it to ideas about human development and the capacity to learn. I contrast all of this with the way I see the political and commercial worlds. In these I see little or no concern for truth, accuracy, rigour or imagination, but merely a slavish clinging to propoganda and the cynical manipulation of public presentations. Life appears "determined" and there are no choices, "there is no alternative" is what we are told constantly. There have to be cuts - decapitations more like! The markets and the credit rating agencies have to be "obeyed". Only wealth creation and economic growth can serve human purposes etc.
What different worlds these are then! No space for critical questions, new ways of thinking, being open to uncertainties, let alone the freedom and playfulness that makes us creative creatures.
Perhaps these two worlds simply don't mix - this is a "relation of non-relation", or disjunctive synthesis - or maybe it is about time our leaders "woke up", removed their blinkers, and rediscovered what it might mean to be human? In the meantime this really is a sad case of the blind leading the blind down a long dark tunnel!

Volunteers and the Big Society

When I became a voluntary Board member of a Housing Association back in 1994, I remember a consultant telling us that only 4% of the population became involved in voluntary activity. I have no idea how accurate that figure was, nor what the equivalent is 16 years later, but I cannot imagine it being much higher, if at all. It is also important to note that of the percentage a significant proportion come from a faith background, and it is well established that religious groups are providers of "social capital", to use the jargon. So, on the one hand, we welcome an emphasis upon voluntary action, as churches are both sources and beneficiaries of exactly this type of activity, but, on the other, we wonder where it is going to come from. We might also welcome the question of what constraints are placed on this activity that government could now remove - increased levels of bureaucracy which discourage people from becoming volunteers for instance. But the underlying concern is surely that of what overall culture would need to be created in order to increase levels of volunteering, and the limits of central government action in reconstructing a more helpful operating environment for voluntary action.
I must admit, as I watched David Cameron being grilled this morning on BBC breakfast TV about his mission to create the Big Society, I almost felt sorry for him. Yes he was talking about this idea well before the policy of massive cuts in public spending which will undoubtedly damage the voluntary sector were on the agenda. Yes I do believe that he is serious about the idea and that parts of it are worth looking at and pursuing. It would be good for those with more experience of operating in this sector to sit down with the government and explain a few facts of life to them. But because everything is being done in an almighty hurry, and it feels as though we are being bombarded with a new policy each day, there is simply no time to reflect and consider what is really involved. What is of value here is in danger of being lost because of the way the government is going about its business, with undue haste and disturbing lack of rigour. A lot of reseach has been done in this field; there is good stuff out there. Take proper time and listen and step back from this "Ernie Wise" approach to government - i.e. here are another 3 policies what I wrote today!!! If you are serious about returning power to local communities and civil society, then you must accept that government will exercise far less control than at present, and that the result may not be quite as anticipated. The activists that remain are not likely to be in tune with other parts of the coalition agendas - bring it on then!

Balls, bikes and Big Society

Those familiar with the gentlemanly warfare of croquet - that will be Dave, Nick, George and myself - will recognise the concept of the double target. A double target is when the opposition leave their balls so close together that one is bound to hit one of them on the next shot. The news this morning that the coalition proposes to offer incentives for people in areas of high unemployment to move to areas where jobs are more likely to be created (that would be China or India then?) is at least a double target! The obvious comment is that we are back to the Tebbit tactic of the 1980s telling the plebs to "get on their bikes". The less obvious one is to ask how this coheres with the concept of the Big Society, as it is so clearly damaging to communities, social capital etc. Note that the minister in DCLG tasked with the Big Society agenda is a Lib Dem - no surprise there then!
So, a few shots at the target...........
If they have so much money to slosh around that they can afford to do this, why 25% cuts in public services?
Wouldn't the money be better spent trying to create jobs and employment?
Isn't this a tacit admission that certain areas of the country are going to become jobless no-go areas, despite what the budget claims about help for the disadvantaged regions?
Isn't this a return to the Washington consensus, neo-liberal argument about the need for labour market flexibility in the globalised economy?
How are numbers of people moving down to the south east going to be accommodated now they are allowing local areas to revise (i.e slash) the housing targets?
Sorry - this was meant to be a double target, not a duck shoot! But we do seem to be in the realms of a Monty Python approach to politics (and economics!).
So the real concern (!) should be the impact of such a policy on the Big Society..........
What will this do to already "left behind" communities, to remove from them the income generators - the old and the very young will remain, unsupported and without the capacity to function as, what are they called, mini-battalions, cosseted cohorts, of civil society?
Where is the logic or the coherence in this?
One cannot help but wonder whether the coalition is taking this job seriously, and, if they are, can they be taking "us" seriously, if they keep coming up with inept policies such as this!
Come on guys, step up and play the game at least!

Emergency Budget and Neutral Economics

Early days yet to add anything to the emerging comments on the budget, but one facet of the situation has struck me forceably. The budget is politically shaped and motivated - but could it ever be otherwise? Lib Dem influence has apparently determined some of the policies - so there is an obvious example. If they had not been in on the act and had the Tories instead got a clear majority, what would we now be facing? Then the coalition has set its face to keep a number of external parties "happy" - the City; the markets; credit ratings; its own supporters etc. There may be an economic aspect to some of this, but also strongly political reasons for pleasing these particular groups. So can one ever take the politics out of economics when it comes to government policies? Surely not! And yet the new administration claims to be doing just that by having set up the Office for Budget Responsibility, supposedly an independent and neutral interpreter of the national economy. Does it actually believe this claim, or is it simply an exercise in cynical manipulation? There is no such thing as neutral economics, but different schools within economics itself, often differing on political as well as pure economic grounds - e.g. Marxist, neo-liberal monetarist, New Keynsian etc. So which economists does one choose as one's tame experts and on what grounds? Perhaps the coalition really does believe in the neutrality of "experts", but then it is innocent in the extreme and I would suggest that Messrs Cameron and Osborne go back to Oxford for a while to read some basic philosophy or sociology! If they believe this still, then I suspect that many ordinary folks who are going to be in the firing line of the budget and spending review later this year, will be far from convinced that there is anything neutral about the policies or the experts wheeled out to support them. This is going to be seen as a renewed version of class conflict, with those who have protecting their position at the expense of those who have not, or those who won't have for very much longer. This may not be the intention, but it will be the effect. Good news for Marxists then? Maybe - but a call surely for more intellectual rigour in the way that current debates are being presented certainly.

Risk or Uncertainty

I find the supposed difference between these two as used by economists perplexing. Risk appears to be something that can be quantified and therefore the basis for rational calculation, whereas uncertainty means that no calculation is possible and that "anything might happen". So which are we dealing with now when it comes to making judgements about the best economic policies for the government to follow? A recent post on CityWire by a former economist from the Bank of England talks about the risk of current policies putting us into a double dip recession. One might ask how substantial this risk is and what would make it worth taking - what are the risks if we don't follow this path? All of this makes the decisions sound sensible, rational, capable of being defended through open argument etc. We take all sorts of risks every day in normal life, and to do so is perfectly sensible - we have to make decisions in good faith, with access to the best evidence available, and aware of the dangers of getting it wrong. I remember working with the Housing Association world and listening to financial consultants advising us on setting financial policies. They were based on certain assumptions. The rate of interest, rate of inflation, levels of LIBOR over the coming years etc. Then one could calculate what would happen IF...
It seemed a rational way of making decisions -basing the future on what had happened in the past and hoping/assuming that things would remain broadly similar. The problem is that nobody can really know if things are going to remain broadly similar, so the calculations can go badly wrong. One cannot calculate for the unexpected.
This sounds very much like the plea of most mainstream economists after the collapse of 2008. Unexpected and unforeseen events took place that could not be factored in to our equations. Except of course that some other economists did foresee what would happen, did publish their views, and were ignored because it was more comfortable and convenient to do so - until the balloon went up!
Has anything changed as we enter this new phase of the global financial crisis? Policies are being presented to us as if the risks have been calculated and argued through, and there is a consensus that it is riskier NOT to make cuts. But I see little evidence that the counterarguments have been listened to or taken seriously. Where is the public debate using a range of economic commentators which would present the populace with all of the possible scenarios, the arguments from previous experience that would back those up, let alone a consideration of the ethical risks arising from following certain policies? It doesn't exist - a few dissident voices get an airing in the press and on websites, but that is all. Government has made up its mind!
So the language of risk is being employed to cover up the reality that this is an area of great uncertainty where anything could happen, either an economic recovery of some sort or a slide into depression. Is this either a practical or an ethical response to decision making?

Neo-liberals or Neo-Vandals?

Well, perhaps there is no ideological master plan behind the coalition's policies. Perhaps they simply don't know what else to do other than be seen to implement savage cuts because that is what the new "gods" of the rating agencies and markets want to see happening! The effects will be much the same. In my first article of the WTF Religious Futures Network nearly two years ago (Authoritarian Capitalism), I suggested that what we would see would be a rationing of access to the goods of global capitalism. This morning we are being told that universities need to charge higher fees and to teach more cost effectively. In other words, a university education will be rationed to those who can afford it. Maybe those at the lower end of the earnings scale will be protected as public services are cut, but then those in the middle range will be expected to pay for themselves or to lose out. Now there undoubtedly have been some silly and unjustified areas of public expenditure - for instance on consultants and other "jobs for the boys" - but are we being offered any rationale for how and where cuts will now be made? Is this cutting for the sake of cutting?
I have a number of questions about this.
We are no longer a manufacturing nation - that base was eroded in the 1970s and 1980s and has not been reversed. So where do new jobs come from? Leisure and the public sector. Take jobs out of the public sector and unemployment could well hit the numbers predicted by the CIPD today. Growth relies on export markets in China - what if this doesn't happen?
Is the sovereign debt situation in the UK as bad as is being portrayed? Reading recent blogs of Robert Peston and Stephanie Flanders of the BBC apparently not. In which case, why the current scaremongering?
What will be left once these cuts have bitten into our education sector that will create a base for future innovation and investment? Just which are the "luxuries that we can no longer afford", or which only the wealthy can afford?
It is all very well to state that "we" are going to be consulted on this, but no consensus would emerge and is this anything more than a PR exercise or desperate attempt to convince "us" that we have taken responsibility for the direction of our own demise?
So, are we being governed by neo-liberals or neo-vandals?

The death of neo-liberalism?

As somebody once said - well, you know the rest about this being somewhat premature. How obvious does this seem this morning? Let me remind you of the key elements of the neo-liberal project (Harvey etc). The increasing accumulation of wealth on the part of the upper echelons of the capitalist class;bringing wages down and creating unemployment; centralizing power;attacking workers organisations as disrupting the "normal" order of supply and demand;depressing welfare levels as far as possible. So the new regime warns this morning of savage cuts in public spending that will affect all of us for decades! The introduction of a Canadian style star chamber who will oversee the budget proposals and cuts of government departments. Lord Browne, formerly CEO of BP - now there's an interesting role model - as key advisor on how to bring business principles to bear on the operation of government. The shifting of welfare from the state back onto the voluntary sector. And so on........
And this is supposed to be different from the 1980s? How exactly? Well "we" are going to be consulted on where the cuts should be made. Consultations - we stopped believing in those decades ago surely? And such an exercise presupposes that "we" accept the basic assumptions on which such policies are based, i.e. that such cuts are essential and have to be made in this way. No challenges allowed there then!
The idea that this is any way can be described as a recognisable form of liberalism - and I don't just mean the Lib Dem party, although that is probably true as well - is an illusion, a cover for the continuation of the neo-liberal project. But maybe this was always the case anyway. This is central government imposing its own agenda and the interests of its supporters on the rest of the population. It is about consolidating power and wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. We need to be reminded that "there is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequals". The pain must be shared, we are told, but some are going to be more vulnerable than others!
So can capitalism be "moral"?
What is going to happen now is a revival of the politics of envy and even of class division. But this time more of the middle classes will begin to lose out as they take the hits to their lifestyles. There is an argument that their capacity to share in the "goodies" of global capitalism was always built on shifting sands anyway, and that this moment was bound to arrive. Capitalism can only renew itself through creative destruction and the benefits accrued by normal people are always subject to that reordering process, as in all previous slumps and depressions in the economic cycle. Nothing new there then!
We appear to have forgotten who got us into this mess in the first place - the collusion of politicians with the banking and financial sectors across the globe operating on outdated economic models employed by the business world. So who do we now have in charge of getting us out of this mess? Reassuring isn't it?
However, as my correspondent says, maybe all this agonizing is just wasted energy and we never really have much idea of what is going on or real control over events - there is no masterplan! We shall see. In the meantime watch out for the next episode in the neo-liberal saga and lets hear more about the Canadian experience before we see this as the quick fix!

Holiday Reading

The above included David Harvey's "A Companion to Marx's Capital" as a counterpoint to O'Hara's book on "After Blair". Two particular passages intrigued me. Harvey says that one of the major failures of actually existing communisms is the lack of realisation that an alternative political system would require new and appropriate technologies, plus alternative relations to nature, social structures and reproduction through daily life and mental conceptions of the world (P219).In other words, a whole new world view. One of my problems with all forms of Marxism is that they might reproduce the systems they deride in another, often totalitarian form. They are not radical enough. The other passage refers fleetingly to Deleuze (one of my favoured dead French philosophers) in relation to Marx's description of how various elements of human evolution interact (P196). Again, the suggestion is that a more radical (philosophical) theory or underpinning is required if our self-understandings are to change significantly. In my search for what political structures might best produce a moral perspective and therefore concerns for liberal conservatism, I question how utopian our thinking needs to be and how this might relate to a faith position. Giddens coined the phrase "utopian realism" which sort of closes it off for future reference, but something along these lines seems right to me. We need both. A utopian element that offers an ideal ground from which we can criticize existing practice, and a realism that enables us to move from where we are now - a classic "blurred encounter" then!

Coalition or Contradiction

I refer of course to the infamous and short-lived Fox-North coalition of 1783! Given that Lord North lived "next door" at Wroxton Abbey and is buried in the church I can see as I write this blog! Or maybe not! Can there be such a thing as a "Liberal Conservative"? David Cameron has presented himself as such in the early days of his leadership (see "After Blair" by Kieron O'Hara). Others have argued that the new regime is indeed a mixture of the two traditions and that there is a Republican Liberalism which contains the values of both (Demos paper of 2009). Meanwhile, Phillip Blond is "Red Tory", published just before the General Election in support of Mr Cameron heaps all the blame for the political and cultural ills of the UK on the liberal tradition and the power vacuums it creates. Each of these texts refers to the work of John Rawls.
I wonder who is right on this one. I also wonder whether it really matters? Do political principles or theories have any influence on what happens in practice? I would like to think so. If so, then there is a real debate here which needs to take place. What price principles for David Laws this morning, and which ones does he espouse? Is a liberal conservative a contradiction in terms? Likewise the idea of a "moral capitalism"? Maybe we are about to find out!

Religious Futures Network

Greetings all,
The WTF website referred to earlier is:
www.wtf.org.uk/ReligionandCapitalismNetwork.php
Please have a look at this and join in if you wish to contribute!

Religious Futures Network

Religious Futures Network is the title chosen by ourselves at the William Temple Foundation to our web-based resource on the global financial crisis, which will be available at www.wtf.org.uk
We share a concern that current political responses in the UK to the above are in danger of being complacent and inadequate and hope to stimulate further debate about how the future of market capitalism might be re-shaped building upon the initial article by Robert Peston, the BBC Business Editor. Issues not being addressed include: how ethical positions should be introduced into the debate; the need to reform the banking system in ways that create greater transparency and deconstruct banks that are "too big to fail"; the impact of environmental issues and policies; the need to reformulate the discipline of economics itself along the lines of the work of Steve Keen from Australia; how to link micro, macro and global levels of response. A critical question now is how the UK is to continue to fund "the good life" that people have taken for granted in recent years, and of course the possibilities of social unrest if unemployment and the impact of cuts in public spending and tax cuts last longer than anticipated. Also the role of China and ways in which this could change in the future create a huge uncertainty about the shape of the global economy. We invite others to engage with this debate.

Circulating references

I note that my last blog was on April 15th so I could be accused of not circulating at all in the last few weeks! I now wish to "circulate" the idea that circulation itself is at the heart of much that we do and of many of our current problems. For instance, lack of circulation of credit appears to be one of the major blocks in the global financial system. There are many who advise slowing the circulation down and/or controlling it in the ways that used to happen in order to prevent economies overheating or levels of debt getting out of control. Is it possible then to predict what levels of circulation are required for a vibrant but not overheated economy? Will a more restricted circulation lead to an even deeper depression or a stagnant, deflationary economy? Can the "experts" answer those question for us mere mortals? Then I am interested in how ideas circulate in such a way that people learn and develop, or else cross over thresholds into new ways of thinking or believing. What is required for genuine learning? Is it that we encounter new ideas and new people or experiences through a process of circulation, or do we have to be capable of responding to these through the circulation of our own emotions or curiosity? We talk about the "hardening of the arteries" and use this analogy to describe the intransigence often encountered in a faith context. Are people of faith capable of "learning" at all, and under what conditions? One of my favourite philosophers (Habermas) talks about the need for those of faith to learn through the encounter with those in the secular world but questions whether they can do this as rapidly or readily as their non-religious counterparts. Is there something then about religion that restricts circulation and "hardens the arteries"? Are other sets of beliefs and their institutions equally susceptible to the ossification and inertia that besets churches and congregations? So the trick is to keep the ideas circulating - or as my cricketing friend would say "keep those arms swinging"! Truth as "circulating reference" as Bruno Latour says - and there is another strange idea to feed into the conversation. When the music stops playing and we freeze on the dance floor - that is the time to quit and start all over again!

Public Theology or Private Language?

I have just received an email from a colleague suggesting that the type of approach used by the William Temple Foundation in the earlier blogs referencing comments on the global financial crisis is too academic and analytical to constitute a "public theology" that ordinary folk can understand and access. Is this type of public theology then in danger of becoming a "private language" spoken only by academics to other academics? I think this polarization of the debate is dangerous and misleading and damages both sides in the end. Are "ordinary folk",whoever they are, not capable of reading, absorbing and interpreting quite complex material from within their own tradition? Is there not a danger of "dumbing down" the levels of analysis required to come to grips with what are complex issues within current economic and political thought? All too often church leaders and local church commentaries resort to the glib and easy responses to issues that fail to do justice either to their own tradition or to the secular world which they claim to criticize. On the other hand, there is no doubt that public theology runs the risk of being absorbed into the academic industry and thereby losing its cutting edge or engagement with the outside world. People are needed who span this divide and wander back and forth in an annoying manner between the worlds of front-line practice and more distanced reflection - the sort of blurred encounter that I am advocating of late. If "public theology" fails to capture this essential activity then lets call it something else - but let us not underestimate the scale and nature of the challenge we face in attempting critical engagement between the tradition and the rest of the world!

John Reader's Publications

Just to add that one can find and access some of the other publications on the William Temple Foundation website. Read here

The New Capitalism debate

For a series of papers from research associates from the William Temple Foundation in Manchester UK here is the link to their website.
My own paper is entitled "Authoritarian Capitalism" and offers some detailed economic analysis and a fairly pessimistic view of future prospects! Read it here...