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We no longer want a level playing field for social enterprise
It seems as is if some sort of political consensus has emerged. The continued upward redistribution of wealth, perpetuated by mainstream capitalism is squeezing almost everyone; the exception is an ever smaller minority – those within the significant asset owning classes – households with generous pension pots, mortgage-free, sizeable homes or city based apartments, share holdings and investments.
Over 40% of households fear they will not be able to afford their energy bills. Unemployed people are forced into working for Megacorp for weeks and months without any tangible return for their unpaid endeavours, let alone wages. An increasing number of housing estates across the UK are approaching depressing new heights of worklessness and those very organisations that have traditionally been expected to patch up some of our society’s worst failings are facing the brunt of public sector budget cuts and donor fatigue.
The continued funnelling of wealth in an upward direction, with ever greater gusto, threatens the ever-more threadbare fabric of our society – something evidenced by an ever growing army of research into quality of life and citizen happiness. Whilst many of our leaders tut loudly at the spiralling inequality within our society and call glibly for better business practices, the ideas for genuine reform are at best disappointingly modest and at worst intentionally vague.
Even if, and its a big if, growth returns to the European and American economies anytime soon, unless we can remodel our economies and generate a form of capitalism which is incentivised to share wealth and reduce negative impact, then growth alone will not help repair the societies in which we live and equip our communities and housing estates to become prosperous, sustainable, aspirational or fair.
The UK has attempted to ape social and economic policy originating in the US for decades, an article in today’s New York Times quoting a report published by United States Census Bureau perhaps provides an insight to our country’s future unless we take bold and radical strides to reform capitalism and the continued concentration of wealth. The report shows that 100 Million US citizens, more than 1 in 3, are now ‘deep poor’ ‘poor’ or ‘near poor’.
As many of us that have worked in economically challenged communities know poverty is not just about the lack of money. As Michael Harrington (author of the landmark book The Other America) observed in 1962 “Poverty should be defined psychologically in terms of those whose place in society is such that they are internal exiles who, almost inevitably, develop attitudes of defeat and pessimism and who are therefore excluded from taking advantage of new opportunities.”
We need to shift quickly, through tax breaks and through education and reward new radical forms of fair, responsible and wealth redistributing capitalism, we must re- invigorate the connection and moral responsibility our business leaders have and insist on a better understanding of, and commitment to our society. Incentivising a new generation of business models is not an immediate solution but tackling the trends that undermine our vision of how a civilised society can function should be the only game in town right now.
Giving shareholders the opportunity to veto extraordinary executive pay, calling for more employee share ownership is better than nothing and is a welcome small step in our direction but neither of these measures alone will address the systematic disfunctionality built into ‘free market capitalism’. For many years, the social enterprise movement has campaigned to level the playing field so we can compete in the market place fairly with our big corporate cousins; we continue to be discriminated against by commissioning frameworks, tax incentives and access to finance. In my view a level playing field is far too under ambitious for our sector given the lessons learned during the ongoing economic crisis; If the government and opposition are really serious about reforming market based capitalism then tipping the playing field in our collective favour is the only long term solution to our social and economic woes and offers the only hope to tackling the ever greater divisions and an ever growing gulf and detachment between rich and poor.
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2 thoughts on “We no longer want a level playing field for social enterprise”
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There’s one fundamental place to start; where the transformation of free market capitalism will resonate most. Utilities.
What greater social need can there be than fair and affordable access to water, heat and light. How can the maximisation of profit for personal gain be the main driver of business in this arena. If this Government really wants to show it can affect change in the economy, take the personal profit out of power and enable Social Enterprise to compete on a level playing field in the direct provision of Utilities.
Hear! Hear! And you can add “waste management” to that list of “community utilities”. I run a large recycling nonprofit in the USA, and it is clear that “the free market” is not going to green up our community life-support systems. It’s time to carve out a few “low risk/low reward” market activities, like utilities, from the personal gain playing field and create a new “community gain” marketplace with a fence around it.