Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Steve Hilton needs pregnant pause for this thought

Steve Hilton is a Coalition Government policy pioneer who, so it is said, is trying to transform  the old style top-down government (so natural to the likes of Gordon Brown and most preceding prime ministers) into the Big Society (aka: localism, grass rootism). This means: 
that we do what we want to do
in the way that we want to do it
and not what or how according to an official.

The 'we' though is to include nearby people (localism) so we are moving  towards the best sort of 'considerate' anarchism :  abolition of government and organisation of society on a voluntary, co-operative basis (Concise Oxford Dictionaery11th Ed.). 

Very much the theme of the book: The Free Lunch Fairness with Freedom  Read some of it  & buy one: http://the-free-lunch.com/thebook/lookInside.html

Hilton has got recent bad press for suggesting that maternity rights for women working in small firms should be scrapped. Strange this. Suggesting a reform that adversly affects the individual voter:  pregnant women. Most probably this is a silly idea. 

Why not start with the banking monopoly? The Richard Werner YouTube interview on Banking for the Big  Society  explains that Big Society banking needs lots of little local banks. Let's have a reform discussion on this. The idea will benefit small firms who will get easier access to credit, which will help pregnant workers in their job seeking, and in using their votes. Trouble is that the big banks (just about all we have at the moment) are highly inefficient at getting local credit directed where needed. Reform would challenge their future profitability so not much hope of willing reformers there. But surely there are more voters in favour of reforming big banking as we now know it, than voters working in banks?

The Free Lunch is a source book for Big Society ideas. It exposes vested interests such as banks and bureaucracies; favours networks of relationships among citizens rather than hierachies of the powerful, and hopefully avoids getting up the noses of pregnant women.

posted by Charles Bazlinton

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