Bob Williams-Findlay is a disabled activist with experience inside the public and third sectors. He argues that there is more to the Big Society than meets the eye.

“The writer’s mission is not to report but to struggle; not to  play the spectator but to intervene actively” Walter Benjamin

Introduction

Over the past eighteen months I have been investigating what lies behind Cameron’s “Big Society” and the differing responses towards it. In this piece I’m not taking a neutral stance; my starting position is from the perspective of a disabled activist who has also worked inside both the public and third sector. From the outset I want to make it clear that I reject the idea that the “Big Society” is simply a fig leaf to mask the impact of the savage cuts taking place at both national and local levels. I also refuse to view it as a simple, crude gimmick which has little importance, and I certainly don’t see Cameron abandoning it without a huge fight, as indicated by his statement concerning his mission in politics made on February the 14^th 2011.

In my opinion many sections of society would be disarming themselves if they were to ignore this project. So what the hell is it all about? Well, if I wanted to sum it up in a sentence, I would argue it is a distorted vision of a world where Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass goes head on with George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. (1) The significance of this image isn’t immediately obvious and many would suggest I’ve turned the whole thing upon its head. However, I want people to have patience with me; granting me time and space to explore the Big Society narrative and the various interpretations.

Nothing is as it first appears

Before discussing the idea of the Big Society itself I want to outline how I intend to approach the subject. In my opinion there are key concepts that need to be understood and brought into play. I believe that by setting the scene it is then possible to see that Big Society isn’t altogether something new; that it hasn’t suddenly emerged from out of the blue. This approach will also allow me to challenge some of the ideas surrounding the Big Society.

The first concept I will explore is the notion of hegemony. A commonly accepted definition of hegemony is that it describes ‘… the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its advantage; or more broadly, that cultural perspectives become skewed to favour the dominant group.’

Robert Cox explains how Gramsci developed the notion of hegemony from a historical perspective:

“In northern Europe, in the countries where capitalism had first become established, bourgeois hegemony was most complete. It necessarily involved concessions to subordinate classes in return for acquiescence in bourgeois leadership, concessions which could lead ultimately to forms of social democracy which preserve capitalism while making it more acceptable to workers and the petty bourgeois.” (2)

Understanding this was not enough for Gramsci because through this perspective he recognised the need to enlarge his definition of the State.

“When the administrative, executive and coercive apparatus of government was in effect constrained by the hegemony of the leading class of a whole social formation, it became meaningless to limit the definition of the state to those elements of government.To be meaningful, the notion of the state would also have to include the underpinnings of the political structure in civil society.” (3)

Gramsci thought of these in concrete historical terms – the church, the educational system, the press, all the institutions which helped to create in people certain modes of behaviour and expectations consistent with the hegemonic social order.

Later I will be looking at this definition of the State and hegemonic social order in relation to Thatcher’s comment on “there’s no such thing as society” and Cameron’s Big Society project. Meanwhile there is another aspect of hegemony which is of crucial importance to our discussion. Gramsci offers us the notion of transformismo which refers to a process whereby potentially counter-hegemonic ideas are absorbed to make these ideas consistent with hegemonic doctrine.

Cox offers a good example which I believe can be directly linked to Cameron’s project. He writes:

“The notion of self-reliance for example, began as a challenge  to the world economy by advocating endogenously  determined autonomous development. The term has now  been transformed to mean support by the agencies of the  world economy for do-it-yourself welfare programmes in the  peripheral countries. … Self-reliance in its transformed  meaning becomes complementary to and supportive of  hegemonic goals for the world economy” (4)

Cox spoke about the meaning of ‘self-reliance’ in peripheral countries in 1983, however I would suggest the testing ground was in the heart of capitalism itself much earlier and I intend to reference this to Alinskyism (*) – the same doctrine that underpins the Big Society.

Disabled people have witnessed, first hand, transformismo,through the ‘transformation of meaning’ in key concepts such as: ‘community care’, ‘disability rights’ and ‘independent living’. Again, I will argue that the debate around the Big Society  has to be understood within these terms; especially with regard to the different ‘stakeholders’ –  both within the state and civil society – who are offering a myriad of ‘interpretations’ as to what the Big Society actually means to them.

In providing this backdrop I am urging disabled people and others who are fighting the cuts and opposing the ‘Big Society’ to proceed with caution; we are entering a world where ‘nothing is as it first appears’.

My own personal journey of distrust of the Big Society began with my political and social experience gained from being a disabled person, an activist, and someone who has had senior responsibilities within the public and third sectors. Nevertheless I still felt ill-equipped to deal with the ‘interpretations’ flowing from the Tories, the mass media and sections of the third sector. Therefore I undertook some research and came across: Expand+The silencing of radical democracy in American community development: the struggle of identities, discourses and practices, written by Akwugo Emejulu. (5)

Having read Emejulu’s paper I felt I could finally assemble all the pieces of the jigsaw I had begun to collect. In employing ideas from this paper I had to first acknowledge that history doesn’t merely repeat itself; that

Emejulu was addressing specific social and political issues from within a particular moment in time, a different nation to ours – one that had no welfare state to dismantle. Nevertheless what stood out in the paper was the description of the conflict between three defined ‘discourses’ – the Democracy discourse, the Power discourse and the Poverty discourse. Within this paper I cannot do justice to Emejulu’s argument, therefore I am merely signposting to areas where debate needs to take place.

Emejulu sees the ideas, language and practices of community organizers in the Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating Committee (SNCC), the dominant militant organization within the Southern Civil Rights Movement, as representing the Democratic discourse. I would like to suggest that to some extent the liberal-left tendency within British society who are “…in favour of mutualism, to ‘double devolution’, to ‘neighbourliness’” – according to the Independent – are hoping the Big Society will go down this route and, as a consequence, they are preventing themselves from seeing the real route that is being planned. Grass roots democracy and the growth of social movements such as the Disabled People’s Movement would fit into this type of paradigm – so the Big Society could look quite attractive from this perspective if rose tinted glasses were worn.

Peter Osborne, Chief Political Commentator of the Independent, in The Big Society will never be built on the cheap, concludes:

“The Government seems to think that the Big Society can be built overnight, and that all it needs to do for the construction to begin is to cut back the state. The Big Society, voluntarism, civic engagement – or whatever one wants to call it – needs to work in conjunction with an empowering state. It cannot be a replacement.” (6)

I disagree; the whole Big Society project is about replacing the existing role of the state – especially the welfare state – thus transforming the relationship between society and the state itself. Osborne, in my opinion, get’s the Big Society project wrong from the beginning by claiming:

“… the Big Society was a repudiation of Thatcherite ideas  about society, a recognition that we are not merely atomised families and individuals, but part of a community, and that such ties should be nurtured.” (7)

Is it really a repudiation of core Thatcherite ideas or is it a re-articulation of them in light of the changed political landscape created by neoliberalism? Before I attempt to answer my own question, I will stick my neck out and state that I believe too much emphasis has been put on Thatcher’s idea that we are merely ‘atomised families and individuals’ at the expense of viewing the context in which she made the remarks. Let’s consider what she actually said:

“I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand ‘I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!’ or ‘ have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!’– ‘I am homeless, the Government must house me!’ and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing!” (8)

Is it not the case that within this quotation the nature of ‘society’ takes on a specific meaning? Here Thatcher is looking at the relationship between individuals and the state through the prism of ‘the welfare state’. Is what she said any different to what Ian Duncan Smith said when introducing his radical welfare reform bill? He stated:

“In delivering these reforms this Government will forge a  contract with the British people, providing help for those who need help, support for the unemployed to find work and fairness for the taxpayer. Or, as Tony Blair once promised but didn’t deliver: a hand up, not a hand-out. “(9)

Consider this “hand up, not a hand-out” offered by both New Labour and the ConDem Government – is it not constructed around self-reliance and individual responsibility? So returning to Thatcher’s comment about ‘society’, she went on to say:

“There are individual men and women and … there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation” (10)

In my opinion this isn’t articulating that we are merely ‘atomised families and individuals’ – there should be no sense of community; but rather it is maintaining the classical link between “charity” and “welfare” that has historically laid the foundations of the modern welfare state. It is there within the Poor Laws and Beveridge – the articulation of the “undeserving” and “deserving poor” – it was also the foundation on which the binary opposites ‘disabled’ and ‘able-bodied’ were established. I will return to this point later, however, in the meantime I will develop the view that neither the Big Society project nor the current welfare reform policy are a repudiation of core Thatcherite ideas. To my way of thinking the link between 1987 and 2011 can be seen in Thatcher’s articulation of the role of the welfare state:

“… I think, one of the tragedies in which many of the benefits  we give, which were meant to reassure people that if they  were sick or ill there was a safety net and there was help, that many of the benefits which were meant to help people who were unfortunate— … That was the objective, but somehow there are some people who have been manipulating the system and so some of this help and benefits that were meant to say to people: “All right, if you cannot get a job, you shall have a basic standard of living!” but when people come and say: “But what is the point of working? I can get as much on the dole!” You say: “Look, it is not from the dole. It is your neighbour who is supplying it and if you can earn your own living then really you have a duty to do it and you will feel very much better!” (11)

The foundations for current policies are here. However many things have  changed since Thatcher’s Woman’s Own interview in 1987. Within classical Thatcherism as the authors of The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 1970s Britain point out, is the motif of ‘the enemy within’. Captured within this motif is the underlying dread of multiculturalism and moral panics around crime and disaffected youth culture . Each of these was to be vividly brought to life, firstly through the riots in places such as Bradford and Oldham, but more significantly with the aftermath of the first Iraq war and 9/11. (12)

Added to the perceived ‘social crisis’ that Cameron has constructed through “the Broken of Britain” we also have the global economic crisis that developed at the beginning of the 21^st century which was deeper and more significant in terms of the needs of Capital than the one witnessed during the1970s. I would suggest that this chain of events has impacted upon social relations within UK society to such an extent that all three of the major political parties have a consensus – namely, civil society needs ‘policing’ in a completely new way and the role of the state must also change.  Although the parties agree on what the task in hand is, they have differing ways of managing it. Cameron presents the Big Society as the alternative to the ‘big government’ approach – often portrayed in disparaging terms as ‘the nanny state’ – thus boldly asserting:

“The Big Society is our positive alternative to Labour’s failed big government approach, and it runs consistently through our policy programme. Our plans to reform public services,  mend our broken society, and rebuild trust in politics are all part of our Big Society agenda: these plans involve redistributing power from the state to society; from the centre to local  communities, giving people the opportunity to take more control over their lives.” (13)

It is this notion of the redistribution of power that has caught the eye of political commentators and others who have been taken in by its ‘attractive possibilities’. I hope to show why I believe this to be an illusion, a sleight of hand, not what it seems. Crucially, I believe the shift that will take place will do so because Capitalism cannot maintain hegemony through ‘welfarist policies’ – the demographic changes within society, its diversity, all add up to mean that both the market and the needs of Capital are under threat.

Without wishing to be too simplistic or reductionist, I cannot ignore the fact that the development of Germany’s fascist state saw disabled people scapegoated and among the first social groups to be eliminated after a negative propaganda campaign. The previous Government and the current one have seen their ‘welfare reform plans’ supported to the hilt by a Tory press that has employed both language and imagery not unlike those used by the Nazis. I am raising this point here because, just as the Poor Laws of the 14^th century saw a need to define “disabled” and “able-bodied” in a time of financial crisis, I believe David Freud, who has served both Labour and the Conservatives, is on a similar mission. The imposition of tough medical tests for “disability related” benefits and the Blue Badge Scheme are designed not just to reduce public expenditure but are part of an ideological shift to redefine who should be viewed as “disabled”, “deserving”, “vulnerable”, etc. This itself is very much a part of the process of changing the nature of social relations within society.

Let us be clear: changing the social relations within society; dismantling both the welfare and local state by creating competitive markets involving the private and third sectors cannot be done without a massive upheaval. The Government are anticipating a backlash from public sector unions however; what they remain unsure of is how their “re-structuring” will be received by various communities across the UK. It is within this context I wish to place the Big Society debate.

From policing the state to policing society?

What is useful about Akwugo Emejulu’s paper is that it focuses on:

“… the changing discourses and identities of community development in the United States from 1968 to 1975. Community development is a political and social process of collective education and action to achieve self-determination and social justice for marginalized groups.” (14)

This community development, of course, takes place in a nation without a welfare state; this is in stark contrast with the 21^st century UK, where we are witnessing the dismantling of the welfare state, and marginalised groups are having to face up to taking the brunt of the Government’s policies. However what is revealed by Emejulu, and is therefore of significance to my argument, is that over an eight year period the sense of self and the way community development articulated and understood ideas of radicalism, equality and social justice were transformed. I believe the Big Society project is trying to prevent the need for this kind of transformation to take place, and it is doing this by ensuring that ideas similar to those found within the Democratic discourse do not take root over here.

In making this statement I am not trying to deny the existence of the established forms of progressive community developments currently underway. I have come across some good social enterprises, community groups and disabled people’s organisations that would fit into the broad framework of the Democratic discourse. However, many of these are starved of funding and might need to alter if they wanted to “benefit” from the Big Society project. Despite the language and hype surrounding the Big Society in terms of ‘grass roots democracy’ and ‘active citizens’ I hope to show that this project is being constructed to be managed from ‘top down’ and will not be allowed to grow from the bottom up. I want to do this by comparing elements of the Democratic discourse revealed by Emejulu with the ideas being put forward by the Tories. In doing this I hope to show how close the Big Society ideas are to ones identified within the Power discourse, especially the ideas and practices coming from Alinskyism.

Inside the Democratic discourse three key concepts were developed:

1.  the construction of ‘ordinary people’
2. the process of decision-making
3. the ability to take collective action

Cameron’s Big Society project is being constructed to head-off any possibility that these three concepts could organically develop within local communities as part of the resistance to not only the cuts but the wider re-structuring the Government is planning. The project has already suffered a number of setbacks in my opinion. Firstly, Cameron I believe was hoping to hit the floor running with this project as soon as he had won the General Election. Having to go into coalition with the LibDems slowed the process. Secondly, I believe the Orwellian nature of this project – its doublespeak – has been lost on many of the Tories’ own back benchers, who cannot grasp its ideological significance. Thirdly, these two setbacks have been compounded by the fact that the reaction to the cuts programme has gathered speed quicker than was expected and involved forces beyond what the Tories might term “the usual suspects” – the trade unions, students and the political Left. Finally, the uprisings that are engulfing North Africa and the Gulf States are offering a beacon of hope to those who are feeling battered by the Tories and LibDems and betrayed by Labour – people power can produce results.

In many ways Cameron’s fears – those he thought he could avoid having – are being realised. Across the UK there are committees against the cuts springing up that cut across interest groups. Social networks, new media forms and inclusive practices are being developed at speed. The propagandist statement: “We’re all in this together” has badly backfired on the Government and now is being used as a stick to beat them with. In my opinion it is possible to see emerging from the campaigns embryonic forms of a “democratic discourse” – the three concepts mentioned earlier have a space where they might be articulated in the months or years ahead – the interest in Disabled People Against Cuts for example has raised issues around inclusivity in campaigning methods.

The threat to a possible Democratic discourse emerging from resistance to these attacks on jobs, services, rights, welfare benefits, etc. still comes from the Big Society project, which I believe is designed to police communities and to create localised “markets” to replace public sector provision. For this project to succeed it is vital from the outset that the “stakeholders” – communities, service users, charities and private and third sector participants – are ‘professionally managed’. The evidence for this approach is contained within the Tories’ outline for building the Big Society:

“So building the Big Society is not just a question of the state stepping back and hoping for the best; it will require an active role for the state.” (15)

The ‘active role of the state’ can be found within the key elements of the Big Society project:

There will be a public sector reform programme “designed to cut costs while improving standards, and to enable social enterprises, charities and voluntary groups to play a leading role in delivering public services and tackling deep-rooted social problems.” It should be noted however that new policies will be introduced “… to provide social enterprises with the start-up funding and support they will need to bid for government contracts or work towards delivering services under a payment-by-results model.”

The Tories’ reform agenda, they claim “… is designed to empower communities to come together to address local issues.”

Let us briefly consider the examples they give in their own words:

“… we will enable parents to start new schools, empower communities to take over local amenities such as parks and libraries that are under threat, put neighbourhoods in charge of the planning system and enable residents to hold the police to account in neighbourhood beat meetings.” (16)

I want to contextualise this by a further quotation from their document:

“Our ambition for the UK is clear: we want every adult in the country to be an active member of an active neighbourhood group.” (17)

It would be easy to dismiss this as the stuff of nonsense; a fantasy world built by millionaire capitalists who want for nothing; a world a million miles from the lives of ordinary people. But Cameron wants to use this “fantasy” as a figleaf behind which will lie his real nightmare world.

Disabled people have had a belly full of those who espouse “empowerment” – it is usually a hollow gesture, a little bit of power reluctantly handed over by middle class professionals. People with power cannot “empower” those who have none – this is still a means of control over their lives. Here I can start to contrast the Democratic discourse with the Power one. Emejulu points out:

“The Democracy discourse seeks to shift the traditional constructions of leaders and followers through a reconstruction of ‘indigenous leadership’ “(18)

What this means is ‘that local movements are structured as democratic spaces for people to self-organize for education and action’ therefore what emerged was ‘group-centred leadership’ rather than ‘leader-centred groups’. Forms of ‘collective leadership’ were developed through diverse and inclusive practices – a recognition of the myriad of barriers community members encountered.

Using Alinskyism as an example of the Power discourse, Emejulu argues:

“The Self as constructed in Alinskyism is a realist; this non-ideological Self has one belief: ‘If the people have the power to act, in the long run they will, most of the time, reach the right decisions’”. (19)

However, it is important to note here that ‘the Self’ is constructed within Alinskyism through the use of:

“… elitist language and constructing identities that allow for the domination of an rganizer/leader Self and the subordination of the misguided community Other.” (20)

The de-structuring of the local state, the removal of public services and the creation of localised “markets” will have what kind of impact? Polly Toynbee holds the view that:

“Democracy will scarcely get a look in. People can’t choose if services are contracted out. Once contracts are signed, nothing can change. You can throw out rascally councillors or governments, but the contracts will go on regardless.” (21)

But this is how the Big Society will be the “Fig Society”; creating the illusion of democracy, power and control. We are being presented with an idealistic vision of neighbours sat together in order to hear presentations from the Doctors of Death Consortium and the likes of Bupa concerning how they would run the local Health Centre. Of course, sat between the households would be the Community Leader, armed to the teeth with the latest tendering value-for-money jargon filled guidelines. This vision of course is completely false! How many households would see little point in attending? How many would lack the time, energy and means to participate? How long before these neighbours would be written off, leaving just a small band of people accepting of the Community Leader’s goals and buying into the negative descriptions of their inadequate neighbours?

So you think I am being cynical? Emejulu explains:

“If the Other is constructed as passive and ignorant, then it seems that the role of the Self must be constructed as a dominant subject leading the way towards enlightenment.” (22)

It is all too common to see marginalised groups within society withdraw into their own safe areas and as a result find themselves demonised and viewed as “Other”. In the UK, I would argue, there have been two distinct paths for the construction of “Other” in recent years – ‘the enemy within’ and ‘the vulnerable”.  It would be a huge mistake to underestimate the power behind these constructions; they have been used in various forms to both legitimise and criticise the role of the State since the 1970s.  Public expenditure, the benefit system, too much red tape, and the responses to the ‘terror threat’ have all been major mass media stories and examples of ‘moral panics’. Real fears and manufactured ones are now hard to disentangle; there has been much talk of a “Big Brother” society since 7/7 for example. However the idea that a “Big Brother” society can only be constructed through a powerful state needs to be challenged. We must ensure that the majority of the population are not subjected to divide and rule tactics where communities and social groups are played off against one another.

Cameron’s Big Society uses Alinskyism as its template. I believe what is crucial to understand is that in the USA Alinskyism is seen as a radical Left doctrine, one that both Obama and Hilary Clinton subscribe to. It is a mistake however to think “radical” always means progressive or left-wing; Thatcherite policies were “radical” right-wing policies. As I’ve already stated the use of transformismo can be a powerful disarming weapon.

I believe disabled people are more experienced in having middle class do-gooders telling them “what is best” for them, being expected to accept the passive role of being in receipt of charity than most other sectors of society. Whereas the social democratic liberals and third sector organisations might be rehearsing their Oliver Twist roles, disabled people can see the Big Society is a Fig Society and Cameron is standing there buck naked.

My research on the Big Society led me to consider possible connections between Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four? Both books make great play on the use and misuse of language and meaning. When I hear Tory spokespeople talking about the BS I am reminded of this piece of dialogue from Through The Looking Glass:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather  scornful tone,” it means just  what I choose it to mean –            neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.” (23)

Cameron’s Big Society at first sight appears attractive because it speaks of ‘giving people the opportunity to take more control over their lives’ whilst in the same breath destroying many of the local services and resources they rely on. Caught with this use of language and ambiguity of meaning and purpose we have the seeds of what Orwell called “doublespeak”. Some non-disabled people and their organisations might be conned by the language being used and the promise of jam tomorrow – but I would argue many disabled people aren’t as easily taken in.

Day after day Disabled People Against Cuts hears about how disabled people struggle just to exist and manage their conditions or budgets on ever decreasing incomes, while having to plan to overcome new disabling barriers caused by this Government’s policies. We don’t fit into this idealistic vision Cameron’s Big Society offers and I would argue neither do the majority of the population for a host of other reasons.

Emejulu’s description of how the Democratic discourse was marginalised and the role of the Community Leader in Alinskyism led me to a quotation from 1984:

“A few agents of the thought Police moved always among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous…” (24)

No doubt supporters of both the Big Society and Alinskyism will argue that I have completely misrepresented their agendas and underplayed the positive role they both can play in community development. Looking at Obama’s USA however I remain cynical of the ‘social democratic’ nature of Alinsky’s doctrine because Obama, despite his background, appears to be a traditional ‘top down’ politician. I believe the following words of George Orwell reflect the type of ideas found within the Democratic discourse outlined by Emejulu and at the same time demonstrate why I believe the type of Power discourse found within Alinskyism and David Cameron’s Big Society need to be opposed:

“For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away.” (25)

If society is “broken” as claimed by Cameron, then this isn’t down to Labour’s ‘big government’ or Thatcherite claims about the legacy of the ‘Swinging Sixties’, it is the result of class driven policies and practices which serve the interests of Capital at the expense of those who labour. If we are going to change this situation, then we do want people to act, we do want communities to speak on their own behalf, social groups to have the tools to tackle widespread inequality. What we do not want is for these people to be coerced into “making the right decisions” either by necessity or through being led by the nose.

So my opposition to the Big Society is based upon the idea that I believe I share with Orwell; I want to create the conditions whereby it becomes obvious that the privileged minority that currently dominate the social, political and economic agendas have no positive function and therefore they should be swept away.

Conclusion

In this paper I have argued that the Big Society is more than a means of covering up the impact of the cuts to jobs and services. Called into question too was the idea that the Big Society stands in opposition to the Thatcherite notion that “there is no society”. It was suggested that the philosophy of ‘self-reliance’ rather than relying on the State found within Thatcher’s Woman’s Own interview also underpin’s the Tory’s Big Society project.

Some commentators have sought to find some merit in the idea of community development and localised democracy within Cameron’s project. However, I have employed a paper by Akwugo Emejulu to explore how progressive discourses and identities within community development can be subverted in order to maintain the hegemony of the ruling classes. The Tories’ “Big Society” is a formula for dismantling the welfare state, NHS and public sector services and replacing them with localised “markets” where ‘neighbourhoods’ policed by armies of middle class do-gooders and professionals will tell ordinary “citizens” what they need and want. Services will be contracted out to private and third sector companies. Once again, disabled people will be offered charity not rights.

We cannot afford to ignore it – we must fight this last throws of the Capitalist dice or, like Winston in 1984, accept our worse nightmares and learn to love Big Brother.

(*) Saul Alinsky was an American community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern ‘community organizing’ and has influenced the government in the UK, as well as the US.

References:-

  (1) Orwell, G. (1961) 1984,  Signet Classic, USA

Carroll, L. (1872) Through the looking glass, Penguin, London

(2) Cox, R. W. (1996) “Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method”. In R.W. Cox and T.J. Sinclair (1996) Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge        University Press pp.51

(3)  Ibid.

(4)  Cox  (1996) op. cit. pp,63-64

(5) Akwugo Emejulu (2010) “Expand+The silencing of radical democracy in American community development: the struggle of identities, discourses and practices” Community Development Journal, Oxford.  http://www.psa.ac.uk/journals/pdf/5/2008/Emejulu.pdf – accessed February, 2011

(6) Peter Osborne in The Independent – “The Big Society will never be built on the cheap” – Saturday, 5 February 2011

(7)  Ibid.

(8)  Margaret Thatcher, 23^rd September, 1987 – interview for Woman’s  Own – http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689 – accessed February, 2011

(9)    Iain Duncan Smith in The Telegraph – “It’s time to end this addiction to benefits” (The welfare state must have work at its heart, not endless hand-outs, argues Iain Duncan Smith) 16^th       February, 2011

(10) Thatcher (1987) op. cit.

(11) Ibid.

(12) Gilroy, P. et al, (1982) The Empire Strikes Back – Race and Racism in ’70s Britain, Hutchinson/Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies

(13) BIG SOCIETY NOT BIG GOVERNMENT – Building A Big Society – Conservative Party (undated) pp.5

(14)  Emejulu (2010) op. cit. pp.1

(15)  Conservative Party op. cit. pp.5

(16)  Ibid.

(17)  Ibid.

(18) Emejulu (2010) op. cit. pp.6

(19)  Alinsky S. D. (1971) Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for  Realistic Radicals. New York: Vintage pp. 11–12

(20) Emejulu (2010) op. cit. pp.14

(21) Ibid.

(22) Ibid.

(23) http://quotationsbook.com/quote/45047/#axzz1HuQa0inN – accessed February, 2011

(24) http://www.peace.ca/1984.htm – accessed February, 2011

(25) Ibid.