{"id":6715,"date":"2010-08-23T17:59:44","date_gmt":"2010-08-23T21:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=6715"},"modified":"2010-08-23T17:59:44","modified_gmt":"2010-08-23T21:59:44","slug":"britain%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98big-society%e2%80%99-gamble-may-be-the-best-hope-of-shrinking-big-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/6715\/britain%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98big-society%e2%80%99-gamble-may-be-the-best-hope-of-shrinking-big-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s \u2018Big Society\u2019 Gamble May Be the Best Hope of Shrinking Big Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unless you\u2019re looking for it there isn\u2019t much stateside coverage of the political revolution going on in Britain under the country\u2019s Coalition Government.\u00a0 The stories that to poke through, however, are well worth the read, as is this article<\/a> in today\u2019s Christian Science Monitor<\/em>.\u00a0 A sample:<\/p>\n

The final sight \u2013 and this is the most difficult to see \u2013 is the coalition\u2019s attempt to create a \u201cbig society,\u201d or a bolstering of social groups, charities, and entrepreneurs to step in as government withdraws from much of its role. The best example of this altering of Britain\u2019s social fabric are preparations to enlist 16-year-olds into national volunteer service.<\/p>\n

The big society is Cameron\u2019s vision, one that assumes people are ready to shed decades of dependency on London and step in to help others.<\/p>\n

The concept could be almost as difficult as the biggest of the budget cuts, due in October, which will test the coalition\u2019s finely woven political compromises. And will the private sector be ready to fill the holes left by the cuts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, the biggest gamble in the Coalition Government\u2019s plan to reduce the size of England\u2019s central bureaucracy isn\u2019t the \u201caustere\u201d budget reductions or even the controversial referendum to change a century\u2019s worth of election law.\u00a0 It\u2019s whether Prime Minister David Cameron\u2019s \u201cBig Society<\/a>\u201d program can inspire enough of the private sector to step into the social services breach created by the receding government.<\/p>\n

American conservatives and libertarians have long said that private charity and other civil society institutions are much better at creating a social safety net.\u00a0 With Britain\u2019s budget forcing policy makers into decisions they would never dream of implementing in good economic times, now is the moment for limited government types to seize the opportunity to deliver a better, more efficient version of the social safety net.\u00a0 Otherwise, liberals and socialists will be quick to remind voters of all the needs that went unaddressed when government grew \u201ctoo small.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unless you\u2019re looking for it there isn\u2019t much stateside coverage of the political revolution going on in Britain under the country\u2019s Coalition Government.\u00a0 The stories that to poke through, however, are well worth the read, as is this article in today\u2019s Christian Science Monitor.\u00a0 A sample: The final sight \u2013 and this is the most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[602,1754,405,1138,1755,1295,926,1137,867],"class_list":["post-6715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-big-government","tag-big-society","tag-britain","tag-bureaucracy","tag-civil-society","tag-coalition-government","tag-david-cameron","tag-freedom","tag-private-sector"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6715"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6718,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715\/revisions\/6718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}