Against the Big Society: A Durkheimian socialist critique

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to take a critical sociological look at the UK government’s flagship ‘Big Society’ policy. To do this I utilize the political sociology of Émile Durkheim, specifically what I call his ‘socialist theory’. This overlooked aspect of Durkheim’s sociology contains a strong normative critique and alternative project concerning the role of the State, private property, economic regulation and inequality. By applying this to the Big Society it is argued that the latter will result in: increased moral fragmentation, the furthering of economic inequality and the development of a ‘postcode lottery’. Instead, Durkheim’s advocacy of functional representation in the form of the ‘corporations’ seems to hold some contemporary relevance.

Keywords

David Cameron functional democracy inequality localism the State

For years, there was the basic assumption at the heart of government that the way to improve things in society was to micromanage from the centre, from Westminster. But this just doesn’t work … It’s time for something different, something bold – something that doesn’t just pour money down the throat of wasteful, top-down government schemes. The Big Society is that something different and bold … It’s my hope – and my mission – that when people look back at this five, ten year-period from 2010, they’ll say: ‘In Britain they didn’t just pay down the deficit, they didn’t just balance the books, they didn’t just get the economy moving again, they did something really exciting in their society.’ (Cameron, 2010)

David Cameron’s claim that his government wishes to build the ‘Big Society’ would seemingly be a chance for sociology to reassert itself as central to social policy analysis. After all it is less than thirty years ago that his predecessor- but-one as Tory Prime Minister was claiming ‘there is no such thing as society’. Perhaps Cameron’s rejection of this particular Thatcherite creed is a demonstration of the continued importance and usefulness of sociological analysis? Who better to analyse what exactly makes a society ‘big’ than those who devote their energies to social analysis? However, the broadly left-wing/liberal allegiance of most sociologists is hardly a secret at this point; how might this stand with a Tory-led and advocated project? Personally I make no secret of how my own political commitments may influence my sociological position on this question; I know whose side I am on (Becker, 1967). So, is it the fate of sociology to criticize the Big Society policy because of its proponent, rather than its content? To shoot the messenger? If we are to criticize Cameron’s scheme as sociologists it would seem essential to not only ‘take sides as our personal and political commitments dictate’ but also to ‘use our theoretical and technical resources to avoid the distortions that might introduce into our work’ and ‘limit our conclusions carefully’ (Becker, 1967: 247). This paper sets out to do just that.

I argue that the Big Society programme is fatally flawed, not in its intent to reassert a moral aspect to politics (cf. Jordan, 2010), but in its execution. Most notably it overlooks the continued forms of economic inequality and, by tying political devolution to continued economic deregulation, it is more likely to increase and retrench current forms of inequality and fragmentation. To argue this I will utilize a critique emerging from Émile Durkheim’s political sociology, specifically what I argue to be Durkheim’s socialist theory.

Durkheim’s relevance to social policy and more specifically to the analysis of the Big Society policy is threefold. Firstly, Durkheim is part of a long sociological tradition which tries to engage in political debates, particularly regarding the possibility of fundamental changes to the current order, such as those advocated by the Big Society (Eldridge, 2000). Therefore, Durkheim is the representative of a publicly and politically engaged sociology. Secondly, a poorly elaborated or ‘punk’ Durkheimianism was argued to be a building block of the problematic ‘social exclusion’ debate in public policy (Levitas, 1996: 13). A more accomplished understanding of Durkheim can, as will be seen, lead towards very different conclusions. In this sense I am attempting to ‘rehabilitate’ Durkheim for sociologically-driven policy analysis. Thirdly and finally, Durkheim’s focus on associations as a means of renewing public morality (Durkheim, 1952: 345–351, 1984: xxxi–lvii) and his supposed conservative concerns with maintaining public order (Coser, 1960; Bottomore, 1981) may seemingly place him in favour of the general thrust of the Big Society programme. However, these normative similarities mask a powerful critique of policy, making his political sociology especially relevant.

I begin by outlining Durkheim’s relation to socialism and his ‘socialist theory’ before applying some of its central concerns to the Big Society programme. I will then conclude by placing Durkheim’s critique within contemporary social policy debates and, as will be seen, central to this discussion is the role of the State.

Durkheim and socialism

Durkheim’s interest in socialism was career long, lasting from his initial desire to produce a doctoral thesis on the relations between individualism and socialism, through to his concerns with violent revolution before his death in 1917 (Lukes, 1973: 66, 543; Stedman Jones, 2001: 111–131). There are three ways in which this relationship between Durkheim and socialism has been studied. The first of these is the question of whether Durkheim personally identified as a socialist. Decades of Durkheim studies have left the question unanswered conclusively.¹ As mentioned, there have been claims that Durkheim was politically a conservative who ‘always rejected socialism’ (Coser, 1960: 216) but we can also identify claims of Durkheim being a classic 19th century liberal (Neyer, 1960; Richter, 1960); a ‘liberal republican’ with affinities for socialism (Giddens, 1971); a corporatist (Black, 1984); a ‘socialist of the chair’ or reformist socialist (Lukes, 1973); or, a democratic socialist (Stedman Jones, 2001) who rejected the ‘socialism of the chair’ (Gane, 1984). This question is not the focus of this paper, but I would suggest that Durkheim was first and foremost a sociologist. His sociological analysis of his times led him towards socialist considerations, which in turn influenced his future analysis. In short, Durkheim can be seen to offer a socialist critique because he was a sociologist of his time (similar conclusions can be found in Collins, 2005 and Fournier, 2005).

The second way to assess the relationship between Durkheim and socialism is via his sociology of socialism. This is contained in his writings which assess socialism as a social fact (Durkheim, 1885, 1893, 1897, 1899a, 1899b, 1959). There are two significant factors here. The first is Durkheim’s conception of socialism as:

[A] cry of grief, sometimes of anger, uttered by men [sic, and throughout the paper] who feel most keenly our collective malaise. Socialism is to the facts which produce it what the groans of a sick man are to the illness with which he is afflicted, to the needs that torment him. (Durkheim, 1959: 7)

Socialism emerges as a specific response to the conditions which occur with the shift to organic solidarity. Most notable amongst these is the shift to individualism and the possibility for all to realize its central claims. Durkheim then defines socialism as that ‘which demands the connection of all economic functions … which are at the present time diffuse, to the directing and conscious centres of society’ (Durkheim, 1959: 19). Whilst this does not mean the ‘subordination’ of economic concerns to the State, it does mean their ‘connection’ to it (Durkheim, 1959: 21, 28). Controversially, Durkheim rejects the idea of socialism being defined in any way by the inequality or poverty of the workers (‘socialism of the stomach’). This is a concern only as a result of the socializing of economic functions (Durkheim, 1959: 15–16, 1893). Therefore, the study of socialism is useful since it ‘gives us another means of viewing’ the emergence of modern societies (Durkheim, 1959: 8).

The second significant factor of Durkheim’s sociology of socialism is his strong opposition to Marxism and historical materialism (Durkheim, 1897, 1899b). The realization of this would ‘turn society into an army of civil servants’ (Durkheim, 1885: 88). This is part of Durkheim’s main critique against the forms of socialism he studied: their focus on controlling the economic to achieve socialist ends overlooks the importance of moral integration and regulation to social cohesion (Durkheim, 1885, 1893, 1897, 1899a, 1959). In this they are just as open to criticism as the liberal economists (Durkheim, 1952: 216, 1992: 10). Here we see an inkling of Durkheim’s distance from the dominant liberalism and Marxist schools of his day. As we will see, this differentiation led Durkheim to take unique positions on the role of the State and economic inequality.

Durkheim’s sociology of socialism is not only interesting historically but is also significant for this paper, which asks the much less regularly asked question: did Durkheim have a socialist theory? It is my argument that he did, and his definition of socialism is noteworthy, since:

Far from being a retrograde step, socialism as we have defined it really appears part and parcel of the very nature of higher societies. Indeed we know that the more history advances the more social functions that were originally dispersed become organized and ‘socialized’ … There seems to be no privileged position for economic functions that would make them solely capable of successfully resisting this movement. (Durkheim, 1893: 120, his emphasis)

Durkheim saw the next stage in this historical movement to rest with the ‘corporations’, part of his unique socialist theory.

Durkheim’s ‘socialist theory’

A ‘socialist’ theory can take two separate, but interlinked forms. Firstly, it can critique society as it finds it via concerns such as inequality, the role of private property, and the prominence of the economic. Secondly, it can present a path for action, which hopes to overcome these problems. It claims to diagnose the disease and provide the cure. Like many socialist theories, Durkheim’s has both of these components, the normative theoretical critique and goals as well as the practical policy means. I will begin with the critique of what Durkheim termed the ‘malaise’ of fin de siècle society, before turning to his policy suggestions. This malaise had three roots: moral, economic and political.² Given Durkheim’s concerns, it is not surprising to find that the moral gives birth to the other two.

Durkheim’s moral concern was the lack of what he termed ‘professional ethics’, these are the moral guidelines which exist within an individual’s economic activity. With the increased division of labour, and specialization both between and within professions (Durkheim, 1992: 26), there has been little recognition of how different professions have different responsibilities and codes of conduct: ‘Those of the industrialist are quite different from those of the solider, those of the soldier from those of the priest, and so on’ (Durkheim, 1992: 5). New occupations emerge, and older ones evolve, without clear guidelines as to what are the moral purposes of the occupation’s activity and the rights of those who work within it (Durkheim, 1952: 211–213). Instead the ‘amoral character of economic life’ rules activity within the professions, the only guide for activity within the profession is simply to make more money, a ‘public danger’ (Durkheim, 1992: 12). Economic growth as a means towards a separate (moral) end instead becomes an end. This leads to the flowering of the economic anomie which so disturbed Durkheim in Suicide. The insatiable human appetites are not tempered by moral considerations, and instead the attainment of some wealth simply means the individual craves more wealth, which can never be justly recognized (Durkheim, 1952: 214). Hence, the lack of moral regulation within the dispersed professions of a modern capitalist economy means that within ‘the sphere of trade and industry’ anomie is in a ‘chronic’ or ‘regular’ state (Durkheim, 1952: 215, 219). Therefore a lack of properly regulated pluralized morality to match the increasingly pluralized activity of organic solidarity has contributed to a moral and economic malaise.

These economic problems are not restricted to anomie however, but can also be found in continuing forms of inequality. Durkheim’s views on this are often overlooked, mostly because they are contained in the final chapter of Professional Ethics and Civic Morals, not published in English until 1957 and not as widely read as Durkheim’s other works. His concern with inequality emerges from his consideration of the development of modern contracts. These grow out of the covenants which emerged from sacred rituals, such as sharing blood, and which can still be found in the Catholic ceremony of the marriage contract. However, our moral considerations now shift from this consensual or sacred contract to the just contract, which ‘is not simply any contract that is freely consented to, that is, without explicit coercion; it is a contract by which things and services are exchanged at the true and normal value, in short, at the just values’ (Durkheim, 1992: 211). This new conception is due to the increased number of economic transactions individuals enter into, as consumers and producers, as well as the standardization of prices at an international level (Durkheim, 1992: 193, 210). Taking this contractual form as an expression of individualism, Durkheim alights on his main object of economic critique: the inheritance of private property. Here Durkheim’s views are quasi-Marxist, and worth quoting at length:

If, for instance, the one contracts to obtain something to live on, and the other only to obtain something to live better on, it is clear that the force of resistance of the latter will far exceed that of the former, by the fact that he can drop the idea of contracting if he fails to get the terms he wants. The other cannot do this … inheritance as an institution results in men being born either rich or poor; that is to say, there are two main classes in society, linked by all sorts of intermediate classes: the one which in order to live has to make its services acceptable to the other at whatever the cost; the other class which can do without these services … Therefore as long as such sharp class differences exist in society, fairly effective palliatives may lessen the injustice of contracts; but in principle, the system operates in conditions which do not allow of justice … It is in opposition to this inequitable assessment and to a whole state of society that allows it to happen, that we get the growing revolt of men’s conscience. (Durkheim, 1992: 213–214)

The inability to create just contracts means that workers enter a ‘state of subjection’, they may sign periodic ‘peace treaties’ (pay increases) but this is simply delaying resistance and insuring that conflicts between the different levels of the economic ladder remain ‘ever-recurring’ until the subordinated get their ‘longed-for day of revenge’ (Durkheim, 1992: 11). In short, ‘heredity inheritance … is contrary to the spirit of individualism’ (Durkheim, 1992: 217).

This leads to the final form of malaise, political. This concerns the interaction between the State and ‘political society’. In typical Durkheim fashion, these two terms are defined in a very specific and unique way. A political society is any society where there is a group who govern and a group who are governed; the latter must also include a plurality of ‘secondary groups’ (such as occupational or religious groupings). The State on the other hand is, for Durkheim, the ‘social brain’ which ‘does not execute anything’ (Durkheim, 1992: 51, 53). Its role is instead to ‘think’; to produce representations of the nation and reflect upon the long-term collective concerns of society. The actual ‘governing’ is conducted by the organs of political society, such as ministries and councils, whereas the State is restricted to representative bodies, such as parliament. Therefore: ‘we apply the term “State” more especially to the agents of the sovereign authority, and “political society” to the complex group of which the State is the highest organ’ (Durkheim, 1992: 48). Part of the State’s role of representation is then to present ‘civic morals’, sets of moral guidelines which are broad enough to encompass the whole of society whilst also allowing for more specialized and localized professional ethics. Hence, there is a clear balancing act for Durkheim between a state which is present enough in individuals’ lives to allow for these civic morals to spread, but also one which does not become too present, a balance which is struck especially well in a democracy. This is a system through which the government representations are linked to the ‘mass of individual consciousness’, with each one able to temper, but not swallow, the other (Durkheim, 1992: 82–88).

Durkheim’s critique is that a lack of institutionalized secondary groups blunts political society, and therefore there is nothing between the individual and the State. This can have two possible outcomes: either the State becomes despotic and crushes the individual, by making the governing representation all there is (Durkheim, 1992: 55–64). Or, the State simply becomes a reflection of the views of the majority of individuals, removing its reflective and collective concerns. The latter is the more accurate depiction of fin de siècle society for Durkheim and is especially corrosive when the economically strong will inevitably be defined as ‘the majority’ (Durkheim, 1992: 100). Thus, any civic morals which are formed will not be reflective of society as a whole, but be particular, and a representation of ‘the [economically] strong’, inevitably having no pull on a large number of its ‘weak’ subjects (Durkheim, 1992: 100).

We have seen Durkheim’s diagnosis concerning the causes and symptoms of the malaise. The cure, and Durkheim’s policy concerns, return us to the centrality of the moral, since he prescribes the ‘corporations’. These are bodies made up of those working within a particular field, both workers and managers, who are then given the responsibility for regulating their occupation at both a practical policy level, and a representative, moral, one (Durkheim, 1984: xxxv–xxxvi). Whilst there may be representatives elected to govern, the key is that individuals maintain contact with their corporation as part of their day-to-day productive activities (Durkheim, 1952: 358). These subject individual activity within the profession to ethical considerations, not only by developing a code of conduct and giving the workers a clear written indication of their rights but also by regulating the distribution of wages and pricing of products (Durkheim, 1952: 201–219, 350, 1984). This would prevent ‘the law of the strongest from being applied too brutally in industrial and commercial relationships’ (Durkheim, 1984: xxxix). Economic activity would no longer be subject to purely individual, egoist, conditions, but to the social considerations developed through professional ethics. The occupational focus of the corporations ensures that the area in which individuals (a) have particular, individual, concerns and (b) develop forms of self-identity, is represented (Durkheim, 1952: 346). The strengths of this kind of representation when compared to the arbitrary nature of geographical representation led Durkheim to argue that society:

[W]ould become a vast system of national corporations. The demand is raised in various quarters for electoral colleges to be constituted by professions and not by territorial constituencies. Certainly in this way political assemblies would more accurately reflect the diversity of social interests and their interconnections. They would more exactly epitomise social life as a whole … the organised profession of the corporation should become the essential organ of public life. (Durkheim, 1984: liii–liv)

Thus, the corporations help fight moral malaise by providing forms of specialized moral regulation; economic malaise by distributing wages; and political malaise by developing a strong, pluralized political society and thus ensuring that the State does not ‘oppress the individual’ whilst also being ‘sufficiently free of the individual’ (Durkheim, 1992: 96).

There is one last economic role the corporations fulfil. Durkheim never advocates the socialization of private property in total but rather advocates the immediate ending of total familial inheritance of it (Durkheim, 1992: 217), which he saw as a socialist policy (Durkheim, 1959: 13). Whilst individuals would still be able to transfer some, very limited, property down the family bloodline most would be given to the appropriate corporation upon their death. By doing this individual property becomes truly individual and the corporation becomes ‘in the economic sphere, the heirs of the family’ (Durkheim, 1992: 218). Durkheim’s hope is that this would allow for greater realization of individualism through the lessening of systemic inequality and thus increase the possibility of just contracts.

We have seen that Durkheim has a strongly normative political sociology, in fact a socialist critique, and an alternative project. Some have instead read this as being a corporatist project (Black, 1984), leading Muller (1993: 107) to argue that the Keynesian market regulation and recognition of trade unions of the post-war economies was, effectively, the realization of Durkheim’s vision. As we have seen in the above, this greatly underplays the radical, socialist, nature of Durkheim’s work and its possible implementation in policy. It is not enough to place inheritance taxes on the passing of property (Durkheim, 1885: 94); it simply should not be passed down the generations. It is not enough to give trade unions a ‘voice’ (which ensures only division, Durkheim, 1908); the workers have to be involved directly in the governance of their function. All of this requires government to cease its role as ‘tool and servant’ of business and instead curb economic growth to ensure economic activity is instead moral and socially focused (Durkheim, 1952: 216). Therefore, I side more with Filloux who argues that most of Durkheim’s normative mission has not been realized (1993: 225). Durkheim’s socialist theory fits comfortably into a tradition of democratic socialist thought which hopes to use socialist means to further individualism (Bauman, 1976: 72–76; Crick, 1987: 106–108).³

I now turn my attention to the Big Society; what might Durkheim’s socialist theory tell us about the possible successes and failures of the government’s flagship policy? As the following section demonstrates, Durkheim’s socialist theory can be utilized as a potent form of social policy critique.

Durkheim and the Big Society

From what has been outlined thus far, it is plausible Durkheim could be a Big Society advocate. The latter’s focus on moving power ‘downwards’, away from the State (Cameron, 2010; Glasman, 2010) may allow political society to flourish. Also, the focus on moral rejuvenation and ‘living within our means’ could temper forms of economic anomie (Jordan, 2010). Despite this, I will use Durkheim’s socialist theory to critique the Big Society. This critique has three components: local devolution, the State, and economic deregulation.

Local devolution

Much of the focus of Big Society policy is strongly local. The Cabinet Office suggests ‘The Big Society is about helping people to come together to improve their own lives. It’s about putting more power in people’s hands – a massive transfer of power from Whitehall to local communities’ (2011, my emphasis). In turn much of the inspiration for, and indications of, the programme is said to be found in local communities, from Cameron’s own leafy Oxfordshire constituency to ‘Balsall Heath in Birmingham … once depressingly known as a sink estate but now a genuinely desirable place to live’ (Cameron, 2011). This local policy focus stands on two sociological claims. The first is that our idea of morality and what constitutes moral action comes from our ‘situation’, a communitarian vision of morality supposedly misapplied by New Labour (Jordan, 2010: 129–147) and thus it is impossible for the State to take account of local considerations (Norman, 2010: 26–38). The second claim is that action is locally based, at the ‘nano level’ (Cameron, 2010; Blond, 2010), individuals act through the utilization of ‘compassion, flexibility and local knowledge’ (Cameron, 2011). Thus the enactment of policy which encourages localism has both moral (morality is formed at the local area) and pragmatic (individuals act locally) justification.

Durkheim’s critique lies with both of these claims. He considered the possibility of increased forms of local representation as an alternative to the corporations, at both a commune or départment level and argued that such ‘decentralisation’ was unappealing (Durkheim, 1952, 1984, 1992). Their supposed appeal rests upon a claim for ‘local patriotism’ which, whilst present in times of low functional differentiation ‘no longer exists nor can they exist’ (Durkheim, 1952: 357). The increased pluralization of local areas and geographical mobility means that affairs of the local are unknown to individuals and/or fail to ‘excite’ them (Durkheim, 1992: 103). Therefore, the pragmatic justification of the Big Society is flawed since individuals do not act locally, but in a functional manner, i.e. they act within their own professions and everyday activity. As we have seen, it is these areas that Durkheim argues give both long-term personalized contact, and forms of identity. This then impacts the moral justification. The lack of direct interest in, and the limited impact of, local occurrences for the individual means their sense of moral identity is derived elsewhere, from their professional activity or national allegiances. Durkheim saw the corporations as useful since they placed the individual’s immediate interests within a wider conception of societal interests, since ‘the individual can take in no more than a small stretch of the social horizon’ (Durkheim, 1992: 16). By constituting representation on a professional basis it allows individual concerns to be based within a collective form which can have a pull on the individual’s allegiances and moral sentiments.

What does this mean for the success of the Big Society? It suggests the possibility of two occurrences. Firstly, the pluralized and periodic nature of local communities, if anything greatly increased since Durkheim wrote, creates little cohesion for the groups. My neighbour and I may wish for our neighbourhood to be peaceful and clean but we have different moral conceptions deriving from our activity which means that there are no continuous and quotidian concerns to generate the moral cohesion the Big Society aims for. Therefore, Big Society policies may appear uninviting, irrelevant or onerous to citizens. The second concern is that any Big Society bodies which are actually formed outside of professional ethics would simply be a place for ‘individual egoism’ to be expressed. Individuals would seek out the best for their own particular neighbourhood and concern without placing these within a wider, social concern (Durkheim, 1952: 357–358). Some groups, owing to their greater monetary and/or organizational resources, would be able to achieve their goals, at the expense of other groupings (Christie, 2011). The likely result of this would be a ‘postcode lottery’ whereby affluent areas are more effective in fulfilling their sectional desires, derived from egoistic individualism, than their less affluent counterparts.

A clear example of such an outcome can be seen in the government’s ‘free schools’ policy. It is claimed these schools complement the Big Society policy since they are ‘being set up in response to real demand within a local area for a greater variety of schools … they are all absolutely committed to providing young people with the best possible chance to succeed’ (Department for Education, 2011). However, early research has demonstrated both their limited number (thirty-three applications in two years) as well as their concentration in mostly middle-class areas which, generally, have the least need for new schools (Vasagar and Shepherd, 2011). This reasserts the importance of economic inequality, with departmental capital funding potentially being regressively spent and thus Big Society policy could aid geographical inequality. Before discussing economic inequality further I will turn to perhaps the central Big Society concern: the State.

The State

The main concern for Big Society advocates is ‘the growth and pervasiveness of the State’ (Norman, 2010: 179). The growth of State regulation and provision is seen to: create dependence (Norman, 2010: 30ff.); stifle localized and thus, specialized, forms of organization (Glasman, 2010); corrode personal responsibility (Cameron, 2010); lessen individual liberty (Norman, 2010: 141–160); and destroy ‘subsidiarity’ (moral responsibility for the local, Blond, 2010). The result is that the State has created egoistic individualism (Norman, 2010: 4–12). In this advocates share a similar concern with Durkheim who, as we have seen, hoped to lessen economic anomie and egoistic individualism. He also places individualism and the State hand-in-hand:

The more societies develop, the more the State develops … Progress towards centralization runs parallel to the progress of civilization … the State has in fact rather been the liberator of the individual … In history individualism has advanced hand in hand with Statism. (Durkheim, 1899a: 144)

Once again, seeming similarities mask more profound disagreements. Durkheim’s concern is not with the size of the State, but rather the way the State had simply become the ‘representative’ body of the (strong) majority. I would suggest the key to understanding Durkheim’s conception of the appropriate functions of the State is his comment that ‘it should not do everything, but it should not let everything be done’ (Durkheim, 1885: 88). The role of the State is to be the ultimate ‘stock-taking company’, in which the ‘association’ of society can be consulted regarding actions (Durkheim, 1885: 90). The Big Society on the other hand wishes to use the State to ‘foster and support a new culture of voluntarism, philanthropy, social action’ (Cameron, 2010); roles for political society. Their alliance with the State actually means that it is trying to do too much as part of its civic morals. A flawed blaming of the State for egoistic individualism, then leads to an assumption that it can be used towards the opposite end.

Egoistic individualism is more likely to occur when the State gives up this role of collective representation, when the diffused and pluralized moral sentiments of political society are not given a collective representation by the State. For Durkheim the very supposition of the Big Society advocates, that a ‘bigger’ State creates egoistic individualism, is faulty. The entrance of State bodies and regulation into further areas of individual life could only suppress individualism. The Big Society advocates make the mistake of placing the responsibility for individualism as the collective consciousness within the State (Jordan, 2010: 109–128), when in fact this is ‘diffused’ beyond the State, which has only the ‘governing consciousness’, akin to ‘the nameless and indistinct representations that form the sub-stratum of our mind’ to express when it ‘thinks’ (Durkheim, 1992: 80). Durkheim’s concern would not have been with the way the welfare state grew under New Labour, but rather the ways in which welfare policy was decided according to short-term, populist concerns about ‘benefit scroungers’. The state failed not by generating individualism, but by being subsumed by the ‘collective particularism’ of political society (Durkheim, 1992: 62). In effect, Big Society advocates aim at the wrong target (Kisby, 2010).

Therefore, the formation of a Big Society State would be negative for Durkheim. The attempt to ‘create a Big Society’ (Cameron, 2011, my emphasis) would mean that the particular governing representation of what a ‘big’ society is would become too oppressive. Durkheim is clear that the role of the State is not for ‘canalizing and concentrating’ a specific representation of the social milieu (Durkheim, 1992: 49). To do so, would be to ‘force through’ a social representation which is divorced from, or alien to, political society, consequently, to lessen its autonomy. As noted by others, Big Society policy can be seen as a way of implementing a specific form of governmentality through the State (Kerr et al., 2011: 199–203). The consequences of this take two possible forms. Firstly, the State may use its bodies to lessen individualism in favour of a governing conception. This conception comes to dominate the spaces used for individual or professional expression – the use of the Arts and Humanities Research Council to fund research into the ‘Big Society’ seems a good demonstration of this.⁴ Secondly, communication between political society and the governing consciousness of the State is splintered. Whilst ‘social opinion’ and the representations of the State may sometimes be ‘in discord’ (Durkheim, 1992: 49) this discord is mostly due to the lack of collective realization, rather than an attempt by the State to give political society a particular shape. The attempt to create a Big (political) Society would therefore mean that the government’s aims are opposed by political society as currently constituted (the plan to sell off forests and the NHS reorganization being prime examples) whilst at the same time, political society does not feel fully connected to, and consulted by, the State (the TUC ‘march for the alternative’ and the English riots of 2011 being expressions of this). Public or ‘social’ opinion rejects the governing consciousness and cannot be brought in line with it through the communicative forms of democratic political society since this very consciousness aims at the transformation of political society. Therefore, the Big Society is more likely to lead to a Fragmented Society through a misunderstanding of the role of the State. So, if the State is the wrong target, which is the right one? This brings us to the role of economics in the Big Society.

Economic deregulation

There is a Durkheimian quandary at the heart of Big Society policy. This aims to reassert public morality and go against the individualism of New Labour whilst also aiming to strengthen and grow the economy (Cameron, 2010). This is demonstrated in Norman’s advocacy of ‘I-C-E’ (Institutions, Corporations and Entrepreneurship) to a ‘Big Society economy’ (Norman, 2010: 161–178). Here, the Big Society by ‘releasing social energy’ (Norman, 2010: 230) also releases an innate human ability to be creative and push forward economic innovation within socially responsible corporations. This economic language is then applied directly to the social sphere; the call is made for ‘social enterprises’ to take control of public services, and for ‘social entrepreneurship’ to find solutions to local issues (Cameron, 2010).

As we have seen, Durkheim would reject this equation as flawed. Economic activity is, by its very definition, amoral; the accumulation of wealth simply begets the desire for more wealth. This is manageable if there are forms of professional ethics to develop morality within occupational forms, and civic morals at a national level, but using economic means to develop these is simply a contradiction in terms. Big Society advocates see private companies (the I-C of I-C-E) to be bodies of Big Society themselves since ‘market processes are not intrinsically biased’ and ‘there are no particular barriers … that prevent us all from being highly entrepreneurial’ (Norman, 2010: 171). The ability to act morally is equated with the ability to act economically, and the government should encourage this through economic deregulation (Cameron, 2010; Cabinet Office, 2011). It is worthwhile quoting at length Durkheim’s view of the relation between government and economics:

[G]overnment, instead of regulating economic life, has become its tool and servant. The most opposite schools, orthodox economists and extreme socialists, unite to reduce government to the role of a more or less passive intermediary among the various social functions. The former wish to make it simply the guardian of individual contracts; the latter leave it the task of doing the collective bookkeeping … But both refuse it any power to subordinate social organs to itself and to make them converge towards one dominant aim. On both sides nations are declared to have the single or chief purpose of achieving industrial prosperity; such is the implication of the dogma of economic materialism, the basis of both apparently opposed systems. And as these theories merely express the state of opinion, industry, instead of being still regarded as a means to an end transcending itself, has become the supreme end of individuals and societies alike. Thereupon the appetites thus excited have become freed of any limiting authority … this liberation of desires has been made worse by the very development of industry and the almost infinite extension of the market. (Durkheim, 1952: 216)

Privatization, entrepreneurship, economic growth as an end, all of these are things which the government should try to regulate and, if needed, reverse, rather than play a role in developing. It is these which develop economic anomie and egoistic individualism, not the State. The Big Society goal to deregulate the economy cannot for Durkheim occur alongside the aim to reassert public morality; government can do one or the other, not both. Economic activity is amoral and therefore, to be constrained by professional ethics. Also, the continued forms of inequality within market economies mean the economically dominant and subordinate continue to view each other with mutual suspicion. Therefore, the Big Society policy would fail by sacrificing any moral concerns at the altar of economic growth (the tameness of Project Merlin and the extension of markets in the NHS and education being good examples). The inequality present within the British economy would also make Big Society moral goals unachievable without a radical redistribution of inherited property. A Conservative government is unlikely to consider this.

In short, for Durkheim the Big Society would mean increased moral fragmentation due to lack of specialized ethics and the furthering of a postcode lottery. A fully functioning political society not only needs functional forms of organizations, but also needs the State to be a form of collective representation. The government needs to temper the growth of the market and to stop the ‘amoral character of economic life’ seeping into more social spheres. Those advocating the Big Society as a means for moral rejuvenation have chosen the wrong target; more, rather than less, economic regulation is needed. The radicalism of Durkheim’s socialist theory is quite clear when applied to the Big Society programme. With his focus on public morality and equality Durkheim provides a unique and valuable way of looking at how a policy which claims to achieve these same goals would have (and seems to be having) the opposite outcome. In short, Durkheim’s socialism fulfils socialism’s long-time desire to be a ‘counter-culture’ to dominant claims (Bauman, 1976). It claims to achieve a similar end result, but differs on the means of achieving it. I will end by considering how Durkheim’s claims stand in relation to contemporary debates of social policy.

Conclusion: The enabling vs. the marketizing State

Contemporary sociology, and via this, its application to social policy debates, has had a problematic relationship with the classics (Turner, 2006). Many, such as Beck (2005), hope to dismiss them as simply irrelevant to the global and individualized societies of the most recent fin de siècle (cf. Mestrovic, 1998). Others are more likely to take theoretical inspiration from more contemporary theorists such as Bourdieu or Foucault. Durkheim, with the least prominent political sociology amongst the classics (with perhaps the exception of Simmel), is often dismissed as a moral universalist whose reliance on a strong central nation-state as a mechanism for social engineering makes him a historical curiosity at best (cf. Bauman, 2005).

However, Durkheim’s desire to combine morality with socialism in a sociological theory remains useful as a way of assessing the successes and failures of a scheme such as the Big Society which claims to reassert the moral considerations within politics and, therefore, as a basis for sociological intervention in policy debate. Particularly significant here is the role of the State in social policy. Whilst we have seen that Durkheim is strongly critical of a liberal laissez-faire or ‘Schumpeterian workfare post-national regime’ State, which legislates only to marketize or encourage economic growth, he is equally opposed to what can be termed an ‘enabling’ or a ‘Keynesian welfare national state’ (Jessop, 2002). Instead for Durkheim, the role of the State in social policy is not to directly craft and implement policy, but rather to establish broad civic morals and leave the construction of policy to the organs of political society, such as the corporations. These bodies, with their intimate connection to everyday activity, are better placed to recognize the particular moral needs of specific fields. Beyond this, the only active intervention of the State should be to limit the corrosive extension of the amoral character of economic life.

As we have seen, the role of the State in creating Big Society policy is problematic with regard to economic inequality and ‘local patriotism’. However, as was noted earlier, similar concerns can be found in New Labour policy making and, for Durkheim at least, its inevitable succumbing to powerful economic interests (cf. Rustin, 2008). Whilst recent Labour Party moves towards encouraging ‘producer’ against ‘predator’ business may be more distinctively ‘Durkheimian’ there are still concerns regarding how the State could effectively legislate for these different areas. What is morally ‘predatorial’ in one area of the economy may be acceptable in another. In addition, Labour Party responses to the Big Society tend to equate mutualism with ‘localism’, underplaying the significance of functional differentiation (cf. Diamond, 2011). For Durkheim, it is only when political society is not choked by the State, that such specialized moral policies can be pursued effectively. This would require ‘institutional innovation and experimentation’ well beyond that found in Big Society policy (Christie, 2011: 31). In short, if the ‘challenge’ of the Big Society is ‘society not State’ (Glasman, 2010), Durkheim’s challenge is realigning political society and State.

That being said, it is not my intention to claim that Durkheim’s socialist theory contains an alternative which can simply be applied to contemporary society. Clearly his focus on occupation as a constant throughout an individual’s life course would need some rethinking. However, the broad principles upon which it is based may prove worthwhile. His focus on the inevitability of economic anomie – as the formation of desires which simply cannot be met given current resources – without the moral regulation of markets seems especially significant for societies facing debt-driven stagnation and recession. As does his instigation that devolving to the purely local level would splinter the moral fabric of society and create a true ‘postcode lottery’. The question of the role of the nation-state in increasingly pluralized societies also seems a significant contemporary concern of Durkheim’s. As for the actual form a Durkheimian anti-Big Society policy itself would take, Durkheim would respond that ‘the sociologist’s task is not that of the statesman’ (Durkheim, 1984: l), instead:

Once the existence of the evil is proved, its nature and its source, and we consequently know the general features of the remedy and its point of application, the important thing is not to draw up in advance a plan anticipating everything, but rather to set resolutely to work. (Durkheim, 1952: 359)

Footnotes

Notes

Author Biography

Matt Dawson currently teaches in the sociology department at the University of Glasgow after recently completing his PhD at the University of Sussex. This was a critique of the dominant ideas within late modern political sociology from a libertarian socialist perspective, which drew from the work of Émile Durkheim and G.D.H. Cole. He is currently converting this into a book manuscript and has also published articles on individualization and Zygmunt Bauman’s sociological project.

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