Opportunity Society
In his speech to the Labour Party conference last month, Blair argued:
The 20th century traditional welfare state that did so much for so many has to be re-shaped as the opportunity society capable of liberation and advance every bit as substantial as the past but fitting the contours of the future.
In a speech to Demos and the IPPR on the opportunity society this week, deliverered at Beveridge Hall, he has expanded what he described as a ‘grand vision’ of #a true opportunity society replacing the traditional welfare state’.
The core of his argument is that extended social mobility requires still further radical reform of public services:
In the first two terms, we have successfully made radical improvements to the existing 20th Century welfare state and public services; and we have begun to alter its structures.
But now, on the foundations of economic stability and record investment, the third term vision has to be to alter fundamentally the contract between citizen and state at the heart of that 20th Century settlement; to move from a welfare state that relieves poverty and provides basic services to one which offers high quality services and the opportunity for all to fulfil their potential to the full.
Just as we have moved from mass production in industry, we need to move from mass production in what the state does.
At the centre of the service or the structure has to be the individual.
They have both the right and responsibility to take the opportunities offered and to shape the outcome.
The role of government becomes to empower not dictate.
The nature of provision - public, private or voluntary sector - becomes less important than the delivery of the service the user wants.
In place of rigidity and uniformity, comes flexibility and adaptability.
And there need to be new and imaginative ways of funding some of the services that, though universal, must be funded on a sustainable, progressive basis.
All of this requires an inversion of the state/citizen relationship, with the citizen not at the bottom of the pyramid taking what is handed down; but at the top of it with power in their hands to get the service they want.
In many ways this sounds very much like an attempt to articulate in popular langauge the notion of a ‘post-Fordist’ welfare state. Indeed, Blair invokes the notion of modernism during his speech and implicity attaches it to the Beveridgian welfare state:
There is no better place to make the case for an opportunity society than here in Beveridge Hall. [...] This Senate House, a great modernist creation of its day, is a supreme testament. Beveridge had a hand in its creation, and was adamant that it must not be a replica of the middle ages.
The picture he paints of the Beveridgian welfare state is of an appropriate - but now outmoded - response to the (now unfamiliar) social problems of the time. This is classic third way rheotric, though he makes the interesting observation that while Beveridge was an educationalist (Director of the LSE for much of the inter-war period) his legacy is relatively minor in this field.
Blair then goes on to outline the key challenges that need to be met in order to deliver his opportunity society:
1. employment - ‘we should not rest until everyone who wants a job has a job’. Central to this is reform of IB. A target too of an employment rate up from 75% to around 80% - 1.5m more people in work.
2. lifelong learning. ‘ Lifelong learning is not only central to our education policy, it is central to our employment policy, central to our economic policy, central to our policy for extending opportunity to all those out of work, and central even to our pensions policy as it enables more older people in their 50s and 60s to acquire the skills and opportunities to remain in work’.
3. childcare and work/life balance. ‘In no respect has society changed more - and more for the better - than in the role of women and opportunities for them to work and lead fuller lives. [...] Our third term commitment is to develop universal good quality affordable childcare for children aged 3-14 shaped around parents and children’s needs. This is not applying to everyone a standard state-run nursery system, but providing parents with a real choice between the public, private and voluntary sectors, including nurseries, playgroups, expanded provision in primary schools, children’s centres and childminders’.
4. help people provide for security in retirement. More to come after the various commissions have reported, but hints that those working longer will be rewarded.
5. public health. ‘Striking a balance between advancing public health, and not interfering unduly in lifestyle choices, is never easy; but there is general agreement that we could do more to tackle smoking and obesity in particular, promoting the health of teenagers as much as of older people’.
6. law and order in a changing world. ‘ It means also a wholly new infrastructure to protect our security - through ID cards and the electronic registration of all who enter our country. Once established, this will reduce the costs of crime and illegal immigration and it is a classic example of the modern acceptance that a citizen has duties as well as rights’. Tough measures on ASB and drug abuse too.
7. Housing - ‘pressures on housing mean that it is now a major barrier to opportunity, particularly for those trying to get into the housing market for the first time. Our forthcoming housing strategy will show how we provide new pathways into home ownership as well as improving social housing.’
Of the agenda, he says ‘ All of it united by a recognition that the modern world demands new solutions to the new challenges. All of it based on a belief that today people want the power to change their lives in their own hands, not those of an old-fashioned state and government. All of it pervaded by a strong commitment to the values of social justice, equality and opportunity for all’ and argues ‘I believe it is as compelling a vision, for Britain in 2004, as was that of Beveridge in 1942‘.
The latter rings particularly hollow - this is hardly the five giants. But then, to be fair, this is hardly 1942 either and the mood of the times is quite different. What is particularly interesting is that Blair clearly feels the notion of a ‘welfare state’ now lacks popular appeal and, if anything, is tainted with notions of ‘welfare dependency’. As a lecturer in social policy I would beg to differ, but I can see where Blair is coming from. However, even if he is right on this one, the notion of an ‘opportunity society’ hardly seems to excite either, implying few rights other than the right to work hard and tying justice too firmly to the idea of meritocracy.
