The traditional view of the economy, in terms of theory and policy, is of a two-sector economy made up of private or public ownership and control; the private sector - corporations, firms, and entrepreneurs -seeks to maximise profit or shareholder value; the public sector provides goods and services for consumption by society - public goods - and merit goods for those underprovided for, or unable to access private sector suppliers. The New Labour project of placing the Third Sector at the heart of economic activity and policy was imported into government by Brown and Balls over a decade ago.
The institutional heterogeneity of the Third Sector is reflected in the diversity of 'visions, ideologies, theories and philosophies' held by the organisations within it which cover from small community groups, through the voluntary sector, to national charities, reaching the social enterprise sector which includes large, non governmental organisations, credit unions, banks etc.
Major government support has been offered to the Third Sector since 1997 to increase its role in economic, political and social life and increase, too, the number of social enterprises. The Office of the Third Sector defines social enterprise as:
a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or community.
The OECD speaks more clearly:
any private activity conducted in the public interest organised with entrepreneurial strategy but whose main purpose is not the maximisation of profit but the attainment of certain economic and social goals and which has the capacity of bringing innovative solutions to the problems of social exclusion and unemployment.
Petty examples of this economic model are the Eden Project or the Big Issue, 'charitable' think tanks like the Smith Institute; medium sized examples are the private provision of outsourced local services by specially founded companies with Third Sector mission statements, and state-guaranteed contracts
Major examples are Northern Rock and the Northern Rock Foundation, where an entire area of England, suffering from very high levels of economic failure measured by any index you care to use has been provided with a Third Sector financial, economic and sociocultural system whose failure can be measured in the £60 billion of tax-funded transfers made in the last 3 months. The abysmal collapse of this undemocratic and unsung economic and social experiment has impoverished the chances of any proper recovery of the north east for another generation, and burdened the rest of the United Kingdom with taxation levels that have limited their enjoyment of their lives and stunted opportunities for themselves and for their families.
The Office of the Third Sector, now established in the Cabinet Office and not in the DTI, so as to remain under Brown's eye, is exemplary of incorporation of Third Sector thinking into Treaury policy since New Labour came to power. Brown has stated that the government is now:
stepping up efforts to pioneer decentralised public service delivery, and empowering private and voluntary sectors to deliver services in innovative ways which meet local needs. The Leader has called for:
more investment in the UK in social enterprises - projects which have social objectives and are not simply profit oriented. And:
The truth is that much of the best work in communities takes place through Third Sector organisations and their alliances...social enterprise, a term not widely recognised 5 years ago... 55,000 social enterprises founded for a social purpose, united by a commitment to social innovation....a major role to play in the environment, jobs and investment.
I am optimistic...because of the dynamism and power of what I see as these great forces of change ...in British society; the growing role of social enterprise, the expanding of corporate social responsibility of companies.'
Brown is not just variously odd, he and Balls have indulged a fantasy economic world where even Keynes recognised the 'tunnel of economic necessity.'
And now Brown is in China to beg for the £60 billion he needs to prevent his world from collapsing and the real world intruding on his vision.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
8 comments:
HG,
Not particularly apropos of your article - if at all, then at a tangent - but did you know that the state has taken over the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce).
According to their website, their main remit is to
"work(s) to remove the barriers to social progress"
Uh?
Elby, the RSA is, par excellence, the state we are in.
No one can, no, I mean should, object to the amelioration of the cruel effects of economic workings, but first the interventions should be democratically agreed and, second, sensibly organised.
Why we are in thrall to the overwheening intellectual arrogance coupled with total lack of self awareness embodied in the New Labour elite puzzles me.
According to the second law of angelic analysis (SLAA) if I can understand they are a bunch of preening, self-interested, life-style-and-the-money-to-support it-grubbing pseuds with little understanding and less sense, failing to emulate the successes of the German Democratic Republic, so should everybody else see it. And act accordingly.
The Third Sector and its product is very real - there is a supportive article in today's Telegraph all about charities and their reform in the interests of society and New Labour's vision thingy.
What is unforgivable is the levels of unemployment, the deepening of poverty, the continued deindustrialisation of the UK - the sheer, appalling waste of opportunity and people's lives by this perpetually self-renewing group. We used to laugh at them, we thought they were inadequate in every way, but goodness did we underestimate their determination, persistence and the driving force of selfishness and self regard.
Newmania traces some of their interlinkings (shudder at any other notion of the way they link) but it is like a horrid latterday version of Trollope's 10,00.
Yes - bollocks like that on the RSA website used merely to amuse. No longer - the New Labour prkject alternately terrifies me and makes me furious. When both happen together, I guess I will just have learn how to handle a gun...
By the way, the thought that Brown was off to China carrying a Jumbo-sized begging bowl had occurred to L and me as well. He's devious enough to cover it up. Wonder whether any journos will pick it up?
Richard Branson is reported to have said he has 'no plans' to ask the Chinese for money.
The worry is what the Chinese will require for this enormous £60 billion favour.
A small, but advanced capitalist though underdeveloped, country can be bought for £60 billion up front and the balance later.
This is relatively new to me, though I do know one or two people in the crossover between charity and local authorities. Looks to me like the quangoisation of charity, and I disapprove of quangos per se, since they enjoy the whore's privilege.
There is a lot going on all at once S:
Lack of institutions of global governance and answerability; the dissolution of national controls over interconnected economies; the push for post democratic politics and permanence of regime elites; straight forward lawlessness by government elected and administrative apparatchiks; hidden ideologies and agendas; the denial of failure in socialist and other authoritarian economic systems;....
This is a politico/cultural crisis facing the economic consequences of politically powered but economically illiterate choices.
It is looking as if Brown has received the same No from China and its sovereign wealth funds as did Citi. At least the Chinese know some economics still.
But so shaming - to have to ask and to have been refused.
The whore's privilege. Now there's a fine title for a post on the generation of a global economic crisis by political degradation.
... and off you go! I still think you have a book in you, which will allow you room for specifics.
Post a Comment