An inquiry into contemporary social evil
When the Joseph Rowntree Foundation launched its inquiry into the nature of 21st-century social evil in 2007, the current financial crisis was a distant cloud on an otherwise tranquil seeming horizon. While astute readers of the financial weather predicted trouble ahead, for most the previous decade of stability and growth, combined with apparently very real increases in wealth for the many, created an environment in which ease and comfort seemed the dominant forecast.
The political debate was about how to divide the rewards of wealth, not whether they would still exist. The growth in public expenditure, financed by the growing wealth of the majority, predicated on historically low levels of taxation, seduced many into believing that financial storms were a thing of the past. The inquiry itself gathered responses from a wide range of people, including focus groups for voices which are usually unheard, and resulted in the publication of a book, pulling together the threads of this discussion, in June 2009.
Different voices, shared message
How could it be that at a time of great wealth, during a period of unparalleled comfort and ease, that some people were able to express discomfort and unease? Was it just a form of social pessimism? Or did the respondents actually identify something more disturbing, more rotten than was generally identified?
Two years later the paradox seems much easier to understand. The previous period of rapid growth created anxiety and unhappiness precisely because, as it is now so very clear, the former period was both unsustainable and unjust. Unsustainable because it quite literally could not be sustained. Long before toxic debt, fat cats and newly-fashionable austerity became the clichés of our time, the respondents to this piece of work were drawing attention to the greed, the individualism, and the collapse of community that they witnessed. Was this just nostalgia, and a perennial British discontent, or was it a more deep-seated recognition that the previous weather was, quite possibly, too good to last? Was it perhaps recognition that the price paid for this unsustainable accumulation of wealth was being paid by those least capable of paying it, and the costs were felt by every abandoned community, every neglected child, every lonely pensioner?
The previous boom was unjust because the rewards were distributed in a way that impoverished many, and benefited only a few. The unequal distribution of rewards had coarsened public life, left individuals feeling powerless and made communities into places of conflict, uncertainty and contested aspiration.
As we move through a damaging recession, the voices of those who responded to the Foundation's call for views about the nature of modern social evils seem to be the forecasters among us. Derided as perpetually bemoaning the loss of a previous Arcadia, they now seem both more perceptive and more insightful. In their regrets about the nature of community, the privileging of the individual and the primacy of greed, they seem to have prefigured a national conversation of real resonance.
The post recession world
What will the post recession world look like? The social evils debate started by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggests that there is not simply an appetite for a debate about it, there are also some clear parameters for those who wish to engage with it. This debate has unearthed a longing for serious engagement with politics and public policy. It has revealed an earnest desire to grapple with the big underlying questions, and a palpable sense that in a time which seems to be dominated by celebrity culture and superficial response, there is actually a willingness to engage with the big serious questions of our time.
This changing political discourse can be witnessed at community level.
Across the country as people wrestle with the challenges brought by the need to mitigate climate change, they are forming groups to reduce consumption, share costs and contribute to a more sustainable community. As they face the realities of demographic change, with more people in need of care and support within their communities they are pooling efforts, developing neighbourliness and working in different ways to offer support. From allotment societies to arts centres, conservation groups to internet cafes, housing co-operatives to car clubs, civil society is showing itself to be adaptive and resilient. It is demonstrating that it is a product of a more serious, more engaged political discourse that is willing and able to respond to the challenges of the 21st century.
Contemporary social evils were defined by the respondents as a decline in values, and over dominant affluence and greed. In identifying evils in this way, they also pointed, very clearly, to the possibility of a new discourse that celebrates the common good, strengthens shared responsibility and values the needs of the many more than the temporary desires of the few.
Julia Unwin CBE is Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. She is a member of the Ethics Committee at the University of York and a governor of the Pensions Policy Institute.
