David Cameron Exposes Breakdown Britain - Road to the Middle Class

So much so that traditional Tories have been completely put off by him. But he has brought the Tories into a lead over the Labour Party in the opinion polls for the first time since the early 1990s, whatever that is worth.

His strategy has been to appeal to the secular metropolitan voters who have deserted the Conservative Party for the Lib-Dems, the center party in Britain. He wants to make the Conservative Party acceptable to voters who have bought into the idea, bruited in the left-wing media, that the Tory Party is the “nasty” party. As we know, metropolitan secular elites are the most enlightened people in the world, and it will certainly help the Tories if “enlightened” people decide that the Conservative Party is no longer beyond the Pale for “people like us.”

But now the Conservative Party is starting to put rubber on the road, and the most clear sign of this Breakdown Britain, an interim policy report lead by former party leader Iain Duncan Smith. A summary of the talking points can be found here (pdf).

Breakdown Britain is a devastating report of social disintegration in Britain. It is like Charles Murray’s Losing Ground on steroids. It contains the following sections:

Breakdown Britain - an interim report on the state of the nation
Volume 1- Economic Dependence and Worklessness
Volume 2 - Family Breakdown
Volume 3 - Addictions
Volume 4 - Educational Failure
Volume 5 - Consumer Indebtedness
Volume 6 - Third Sector

By “Third Sector” the Conservatives mean the non-profit, social enterprise sector that is neither business nor government. In his introduction of the report Conservative leader David Cameron openly attributed F.A. Hayek as the inspiration for the focus on the Third Sector. He said:

To me those 700,000 [non-profit] organisations prove that there is such a thing as society. It's just not the same thing as the state. The term "the third sector" was first coined by the liberal economist Friedrich von Hayek, the intellectual guru of Thatcherism. In Law, Legislation and Liberty Hayek wrote that "it is most important for a healthy society that we preserve between the commercial and the governmental sector a third, independent sector."

This is a vital distinction that conservatives have been trying to bring into the public square for the last half-century. When we say “society” we do not just mean “government.”

It is worth noting that Michael Novak in The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism also writes of three sectors, the political sector, the economic sector, and the moral/cultural sector. And we can assume that he is talking about the same thing.

If you take a look at the talking points link you can find some pretty horrifying statistics.

8.2 million people in the UK have an alcohol disorder and over a million children are living in homes with alcoholics.

Some 10.7 million people in Britain suffer relationship problems as a result of debt.

Levels of giving [to charity] among the wealthier members of society are surprisi ngly low.

Children from white working-class backgrounds are the most under-performing ethnic group [in school]; just 17 per cent of disadvantaged white boys attain 5 or more A*-Cs at GCSE [i.e. graduate from high school] compared to a 56 per cent national average.

This sort of comprehensive policy analysis by a political party is impressive. You can see its purpose.

Firstly, it is setting up the idea that the Conservative Party is thinking seriously about the problems of the British nation.

Secondly, it provides a narrative, a framework of thought, for Conservative Party activists and politicians, and also conservative opinion makers in the media.

The contrast with the U.S. Democratic Party, just restored to power in Congress couldn’t be more clear. Democrats have done no thinking in the past twelve years when they have been out of power in Congress. The results will start to show up rather quickly in 2007.

Is David Cameron for real? It is beginning to look as if he really is. We are far too severe on good honest chaps like Ebenezer Scrooge who refuse to celebrate Christmas, writes Spengler.

[Dickens'] Scrooge is a vicious caricature of the Puritan position. Considering that America is the last Christian nation thanks in large measure to the accomplishments of the Puritans, we should reconsider Scrooge's point of view.

Christmas is a children’s celebration and Puritans, like “[t]he Jews[,] are too old to play at being children, and always have been.”

But Christmas is not just a time for childish joy, it is also a time when we remember the poor. And the Puritans, with their devotion to work, have something to teach us in that department as well. It is faith and work and enterprise that ultimately helps the poor.

But maybe you are not inclined to listen to the advice of the Puritans. You can, if you prefer, learn instead, as Thomas Sowell writes, from the studied unwillingness of progressives to show an “interest in economic history or in economics in general.”

Progressives show a remarkable interest in doing something about disparities in income and in ending poverty, but they resist what we might call a rational or empirical investigation into the actual record on eliminating poverty.

For instance, in the last twenty years the people of India and China have made startling progress in eliminating poverty.

An estimated 20 million people in India rose out of destitution in just one decade and more than a million Chinese per month have risen out of poverty. But have you heard any progressive intellectuals explaining how such a dramatic change for the better came about?

On the contrary, they are mounting an attack on Wal-Mart, a corporation heroically dedicated to selling the products of Chinese workers in the US retail marketplace at Always Low Prices, Always.

Progressives are in the business of complaining and denouncing — as a prelude to seeking sweeping powers to control other people’s lives, in the name of curing the ills of society.

The last thing they want is to discover and discuss how millions of people rose out of poverty by entirely different methods, often by freeing economies from the control of people with sweeping power over other people’s lives.

Er, yes. Because progressives insist on doing for people what they ought to be doing for themselves. And progressives insist on doing it using other peoples’ money.

So how are a million Chinese a month rising out of poverty? The world wants to know.

But the great question remains, for Puritans and for progressives. What have you done to help the poor? Today.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches… they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Class War

In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

Conservatism's Holy Grail

What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Drang nach Osten

There was nothing new about the Frankish drive to the east... [let] us recall that the continuance of their rule depended upon regular, successful, predatory warfare.
Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

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