Not sure if I'm talking to myself on this list these days but why break the
habit of a lifetime...;-) !!!

Anyhow, I was just musing on the core message of community currencies in a
participatory society which is about 'helping people to help themselves' through
valuing the work people are willing to do and encouraging reciprocity.

I believe that the UK's 'welfare state' constructed in the aftermath of the
second world war was a very great achievement in that the generation that
created it vowed not to go back to pre-war conditions where a majority lived in
poverty. They put in place the machinery to combat what its chief architect
William Beveridge called the five giants of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor
and Idleness. Although these words themselves may sound a little paternalistic
and quaint now, the sentiment behind them was true and so we created the
National Health Service, universal education and a plethora of other social
services which have done great good in their time.

The problem was the 'law of unintended consequences' in that these nationally
planned and financed services gradually eroded self-help, reciprocity and
localism, so that we have large numbers of people now practising 'learned
helplessness' in order to get the attentions of well-meaning but stressed
service professionals trying to manage and ration scarce resources.

The challenge now is to balance out the 'safety net' of provision by the state
with programs that draw out peoples' potential to help themselves. Maybe this
is a search for an integration of traditionally 'left' and 'right' political
solutions to 'wicked' modern problems?

So, let's create structures and processes through which people can learn to
combat Giants Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness for themselves!

Any anoraks who wish to study the history of how Britain's welfare state was
constructed might like to look at the excellent 'The Five Giants' by Nicholas
Timmins, Fontana, 1996



John Rogers
Cydlynydd Prosiect
Project Coordinator

Sefydliad Arian Cymunedol Cymru
Wales Institute for Community Currencies
Ty Aneurin Bevan Aneurin Bevan House
40 Stryd y Castell 40 Castle St.
Tredegar Tredegar
Blaenau Gwent Blaenau Gwent
NP22 3DQ NP22 3DQ

Ffon/Tel:
01495 712925
0781 5155127

E-bost/E-mail: john.rogers@...

Y Prosiect Partneriaid gan Prifsygol Cymru Casnewydd, Plant Y Cymoedd ac Time
Banks UK, rhan-ariennir gan yr Cronfa Ddatblygu Ranbarthol Ewropeiaidd
A partnership between University of Wales Newport, Valleys Kids and Time Banks
UK part financed with European Regional Development Funds.


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