That is a GREAT question John.
It is similar to the "problem" Singapore raised some 15 years ago (I
think) when the leadership realised that the social imperatives of
20, 30, 40 years ago were now out of date and the new social
imperative was affluence! What do we do when all basic needs are
provided for and social despondency starts to creep in?
Of all the "economic conundrums" I have thought about over the last
20 years, this one still has me stumped.

Robert

On 16 Oct 2006, at 23:03, John Rogers wrote:

> 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
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> Project Coordinator
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