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How to live in the 21st Century
Britain's future and the case for real change
Most of us work hard and play by the rules, yet many of us still feel that our lives are missing a solid foundation. We put in the longest working hours in Europe but have almost twice as much personal debt as other Europeans. Our sons and daughters have to wait until their mid-thirties to even begin to afford their own home. The pressures of unchecked consumerism now affect even our youngest children. When a three year old recognises the McDonald’s symbol before they know their own surname, something is going wrong.
High levels of immigration mean some of our communities are changing fast, but supposedly ‘flexible’ labour markets harden divisions between British and foreign workers, and the media and too many politicians resort to the language of fear and division. When pension schemes are scaled back, white collar jobs are outsourced abroad and no one knows how they will deal with long term elderly care, it’s little wonder few of us feel confident about the future.
Half the UK’s population shares just 6 percent of Britain’s wealth, while the top 1 percent own a quarter of it. 11 million people – among them 3 million children live in poverty. The rich and powerful hold out the hope that with enough initiative and hard work we may be able to join them. But their privileges seal them off from the rest of society and ensure social mobility has all but ground to a halt. The very rich have become the new untouchables through the creation of a myth that their massive wealth accumulation will somehow flow to the rest of us, or that if we dare to tax them fairly they will jump ship to another country. As with all myths, there is no evidence that either holds true.
New technology was supposed to liberate us with more leisure. But quality time is the one thing that we never have enough of. What we really crave is more time and space in our lives, so we can tell our children a bedtime story, spend time with family and friends, stop and talk to our neighbours, relax or get fit. A country renowned for its Sunday league football, book groups and pub quizzes increasingly finds itself snatching at precious moments, only being allowed time for those things that turn a profit; work and consumerism. Small wonder that as many as one in six of us will at some time suffer from anxiety or depression.
In many ways we have simply not adjusted to the huge change which saw women entering the labour market rather than staying in the home. This was a liberation that very few people would now wish to see reversed. Women were the glue that held our families and communities together; that glue needs to be provided in new ways. Men and women need to reclaim, share and celebrate these essential caring roles as a central part of being human.
All around us are clear signs of a social recession. Treasured local institutions such as post offices vanish in front of our eyes. Our neighbourhoods are less neighbourly. Crime figures are falling, but we live in fear of violence. Think about one of modern Britain’s most symbolic petty crimes: if children carry a mobile phone, the consumerist sheen quickly wears off, as it makes them a target for attack by people who want the same status such gadgets bring, but lack the financial means to get it. The result is a pervasive sense of fear and suspicion, particularly focused on the young, from whom we demand respect but offer too little sense of hope or belonging in return. In some of our cities almost half of 16-18 year-olds are not in education, employment or training. Sadly, their predicament reflects the values of the world they are born into: those of acquisitiveness, materialism and above all, competitive individualism.
But the glass isn’t always half empty. There are reasons to be cheerful, and pointers to the society we could be living in. We live longer than any human beings in history, and many of us have access to a level of information that our ancestors didn’t even dream about. Not only have women's lives been transformed, but rights have been extended for other groups such as gay people, in a society that in many ways is far more open and accepting. It is undeniable that greater choice and wealth have brought us many things that we value. The last decade has also seen a cultural renaissance, displayed most prominently in Britain’s revived cities. Our musicians, film-makers and artists are world renowned.
Moreover, there remains a spirit at odds with the me-first ways of the free market. Millions of us do voluntary work, involve ourselves in charities and NGOs, and set great store by doing our bit for the environment. Two million of us came together to march against the invasion of Iraq; eight million wore wristbands to show they wanted to make poverty history. In our biggest cities people from trade unions, faith groups and community organisations are pushing for a better deal for some of Britain’s most exploited workers. Quintessentially British institutions from the NHS to the BBC are still founded, for the moment, on a collective ethos which recognises that private interest sometimes has to be held at bay. Even right-wing politicians have been forced to accept that the state of our public services is more important than tax cuts.
The 21st century is creating the potential for people to be empowered as never before. Google puts power at our fingertips. We can converse, share expertise, learn, organise and campaign at the touch of a button. Power can no longer be held at the centre, and is being devolved and decentralised. People are no longer deferential; we won’t take orders without good reason. We want our voices not just to be heard but heeded, not just in formal politics, but in our communities and at work.
But the overriding social and economic story of life in Britain is how the risks of living, surviving and thriving have been transferred from something we do together to something we struggle to do alone. This creates a fundamental paradox: we cannot ensure safe streets, a decent education for our children, secure housing or a sustainable planet through individual action. These challenges, and many more, demand collective action. The issue is how we bring this about.
The last century was defined by a centralised welfare state that put in place a safety-net, stopping millions falling into poverty. Despite huge benefits, this became stifling and unresponsive. Recent years have seen a drawing back of blanket collective provision and the growth of individualised services. Yet much of what we want can only be delivered collectively. This does not mean a return to the old one size fits all centralised state, but neither does it mean embracing the uncontrolled free market. We need to harness the many opportunities that we have in our modern society to build a new collective ethos that gives us choices over the things that matter most: our environment, communities and public services.