RSA Comment



Archive for September, 2010

An Age of Opportunity

Thu 30th Sep 2010No Comments »

Optimism may sound misplaced given that Britain is embarking on an age of austerity.  But Jeremy Darroch FRSA believes that the private sector can come to be seen as a positive force.

Enduring recovery will only come through commercial investment and a positive environment for wealth creation. It is private enterprise that will create jobs and generate the tax revenues that pay for schools, hospitals and other public services.  Private companies will also provide and maintain the hi-tech infrastructure essential to the growth of a successful, modern economy. And private capital will develop the innovations to stimulate consumer demand.

The economic crisis has also given oxygen to a debate not just around what government does, but what it does not do. Many companies already reach beyond the traditional boundaries of their business models; for example, to tackle climate change or encourage healthier lifestyles, such as our own Sky Ride initiative to promote cycling.

So, the squeeze on state spending provides a chance to rebalance economic activity in this country and, as the state withdraws, there is an opportunity for the private sector to prove its value by extending its broader contribution even further. But for too long business has been the bogeyman. It has become accepted wisdom in some quarters that companies are driven only by greed and the ruthless pursuit of profit, caring little for the customers and communities that sustain them. (more…)

The business of family business

Mon 27th Sep 20102 Comments »

Governments are always trying to perform a balancing act between what policy promotes and what economic participation requires. But instead of winning here and sinning there, Stefan Kemp argues that a simple adjustment would deliver more sustainable lives without compromising financial security.

Governments throughout Europe have discovered that supporting families as a top priority on their political agenda: among them national and intra-national entities, such as the British or the German coalition governments and the European Union. The broad consensus is that functioning family structures form a foundational principle of our social world. Families are seeing their renaissance as a target of political initiatives.

Promoting family means the promotion of its content, the core values. Political initiatives inevitably translate into the stimulation of what family embodies; the values implied to family as a social entity. Family is an interpersonal system of lasting responsibilities and succour. There is a degree of inward orientation, gradual change, and unconditional acceptance in pursuit of tasks, such as to nurture, to grow and also to develop self-esteem and to provide fulfilment and meaning.

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Understanding networks and rethinking society

Wed 22nd Sep 2010No Comments »

Steve Broome FRSA looks at how new understanding of how networks work is informing the RSA’s work on drug use and asks what it may mean for the Society.

Understanding networks and rethinking society

How many of your friends drink alcohol? How many might say they used alcohol problematically? What about illicit drugs? Probably a smaller proportion of the people you know take drugs, but perhaps a few have experienced problems with drug use at some point in the life.

For the 160 current and former drug users who took part in the RSA’s User-Centred Drug Services Project survey, answers to these questions are, I presume, rather different to yours. Among drug users in Crawley and Bognor Regis (where the project is co-located), 30 per cent said that all of the people they know use drugs, with most of them using problematically. Similarly, around a third reported that all of the people they know used alcohol, and around half of them had problems because of it. (more…)

Coalition government: an aberration, or a sign of a wider global shift in attitude?

Fri 17th Sep 20101 Comment »

Is the coalition government an aberration or part of a wider global shift where people recognise the importance of relationships in making change happen? David Fraser considers the evidence.

Many commentators, including Ann Treneman – albeit perhaps tongue in cheek – writing in the RSA Journal, regard the UK’s coalition government as an unstable aberration set to collapse in time under its own weight. In their model, we can expect normal adversarial service to be resumed shortly.

But maybe, just maybe, the coalition is instead a sign of things to come and early evidence of a new map of how things are going to need to work. We, the voters, were not mumbling at the election. On the contrary, we could not have been clearer: we want our politicians to work together, to relate effectively both to each other and the wider world, and to bring a balance to our affairs. Perhaps we may all agree with Tony Blair if only on this: “the voters are always right”; we may come to see that the scandal around MPs’ expenses swept away more than just people who worked the system and that the whole adversarial set-up was revealed to be inadequate. (more…)

Lessons of the Greek crisis

Wed 8th Sep 20103 Comments »

Our European leaders took a step too far, too fast when they introduced monetary union argues Anand Menon.

European integration has, in many ways, proven to be an unparalleled success. If its founders, desperately attempting to fashion a system to foster peace between the six original member states, had known that one of the most vexing problems of the early 21st century would be the need to persuade Germany to contribute more troops to foreign wars, their disbelief would have mingled with pride.  Success, however, can breed inflated expectations, particularly when combined with a penchant for misleading historical analogies. The dangers inherent in this were revealed all too clearly by the crisis in the Eurozone.

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Ethical leadership in tough times

Tue 7th Sep 20104 Comments »

Phil Hayes asks how can our leaders survive and thrive under the current conditions in order to provide the ethical, focused and bold leadership we need in our organisations and wider society?

David Cameron has pledged to make Britain “the most family-friendly country in Europe”. Speculation has started on whether he will set an example and take a fortnight’s paternity or a few days off from leading the country. The Prime Minister needs – in the midst of a very tough economic climate and swingeing spending cuts – to show that he is not only capable of leadership, of being tough and taking control, but that he is ‘just like the rest of us’ and an attentive father and husband to boot. (more…)