The right traditionally held that such a society exists only if it can be reduced to the bonds of family, kinship, culture and nation. Otherwise it is not possible – ‘there is no such thing as society’.
Solidarity is possible on the basis of a shared conception of what it means for society to exist – that men and women can imagine such a society and fulfil its promise by their own will and conduct. Thus we are ‘socialists’.
Labour has entertained three versions of what its ‘socialism’ amounts to. The first was inspired by the mobilising power of the state in the face of world war. On this account, the state is the supreme agent of change, while individualism and the market are the enemies of solidarity. Its second version conceded the legitimacy of the market and private choice but retained the central role of the state in mobilising resources, directing outcomes and defining the shared notion of the ‘good society’.
Attention to a third version began to emerge in the third term of New Labour but was largely sidelined after 2006. This model may be called libertarian, communitarian or small-state socialism. It draws on socialism’s mutualist roots and the more recent work of thinkers such as Michael Walzer and Jean Cohen. The state does not define the good life: individuals and associations do that. Government decisions should be made at the smallest level practical. A larger state, high spending and high levels of public-sector employment are not ends in themselves and may get in the way of socialism.
We need, therefore, to move away from micro-management and towards micro-democracy. Of course some of this territory has been colonised by the ‘big society’-localism paradigm. The Conservatives have imported ideas from the left in order to reconnect with ‘society’ and ‘decontaminate the brand’. And they were given space to do so by Labour’s faltering on devolution and citizen accountability, lingering attachment to centralism, and an obscurantist persistence with a grammar of governance known only to bureaucrats. We can do better through our coherent understanding of what it takes to design ‘big societies’.
Our response will be founded on a robust set of neighbourhood rights. These include rights to self-governance such as the power to tax and manage, or commission, any service that can practically be delivered at this level. Such neighbourhoods would typically have a target population of 10,000. They would also have rights to control public land and facilities; rights to quiet enjoyment, including dealing with antisocial behaviour; and rights to equal access to competent public services and to a common set of outcomes.
Charitable law entrenches artificial distinctions between charitable purposes and campaigning or political activity. The benefits of charitable status could instead go to any not-for-maximising-personal-profit body that passes a public good test. Any organisation passing this test is to be regulated by one agency, a successor to the Charity Commission.
Through reformed neighbourhood governance, transparent institutions and a simplified and liberated community sector, we can offer a libertarian socialism fit for the 2020s.