Retracing one’s steps can be both frustrating and dangerous - frustrating when you are looking for something and not quite sure what it is; and dangerous if you discover things about yourself that might better be left concealed. I’m stuck in the 1970s – exploring how a few of us managed to develop a “social inclusion” strategy whose vestiges can still be seen in Scotland almost 50 years later - and not sure whether what I’m exploring are tools of change or changing contexts or changing perceptions (not least my own)
My original idea had been to list some of the texts I’ve found useful in thinking about how to undertake planned change – covering my life both as a political reformer and, from 1990, a neutral consultant. But then some material demanded to be included in the list, such as Gilding the Ghetto – the state and the poverty experiments (CDP 1977), which had been important voices as we drafted “Social Strategy for the Eighties”. And so I threw away what was an overly technical list and replaced it with one which tries to identify the books which influenced my generation – which was, of course, a younger one than my colleagues in the Region.
Our focus at the time was thoroughly pragmatic – it was what precise steps we should be taking as a Council to show that the strategy of urban deprivation Strathclyde Region had approved in 1976 was meant to be taken seriously. Our audience was clear – mainly the teachers, policemen, engineers, social workers who formed our 100,000 strong staff. These were the people we had to convince – both that we were deadly serious and with the message the document contains about the need for change.
Bear in mind
that we no longer had a government
sympathetic to our endeavours. Margaret Thatcher had started in 1979 what
was to be an 11 year reign. But Strathclyde was not one of the overtly leftist
councils which aggressively flaunted its opposition to government policies. We
played a very different game and were assisted by a sympathetic Scottish Office
and Ministers such as George Younger and Malcoln Rifkind
And it was shortly after the launching of the Strategy and combining my academic and political roles that I brought together a diverse collection of officials and councillors of different councils in the West of Scotland, academics and others to explore how we could extend our understanding of what we were dealing with – and how our policies might make more impact. It was a regular monthly forum called “the urban change network” and it was probably the single most effective thing I ever did. I still have the tapes of some of the discussions – one, for example, led by Professor Lewis Gunn on issues of implementation!
So, for what it is worth (in my case a huge amount) here are the messages my generation had been absorbing up to the point of publishing the Social Strategy in 1982.
The Open
Society and its Enemies- Karl Popper The book which made the biggest
impact on me and to which I owe my scepticism….A lot of it (particularly the
sections on Plato, Hegel and Marx) went over my head – but its assertion of the
importance of subjecting assertions to tests of evidence has stayed with me my
entire life…..
The Future of
Socialism- CAR Crosland (1956) the key revisionist text for the UK left in the 20th century…
The
End of Ideology– Daniel Bell (1960) the author who introduced us to post-industrialism
The
Death and Life of American Cities Jane Jacobs (1961)
On
Becoming a Person - Carl Rodgers
(1961) The figure who most clearly expressed the mood and feelings of my
generation….
The Fire Next
Time - James Baldwin (1962)
I absorbed at the time more the poetic than the political message
Silent Spring– Rachel
Carson (1962) The first environmental book!
In
Defence of Politics– Bernard Crick (1962) Along with Popper, the book which
changed my life!
Capitalism and
Freedom- Milton Friedmann (1962) I may not have agreed with it but I had to
recognise its power
The Feminine Mystique–
Betty Friedan (1963) Interesting that it took almost 15 years for de Beauvoir’s
message to find wide expression….
Unsafe at any speed-
Ralph Nadar (1965) the first sign of the new consumer power
Modern
Capitalism – the changing balance of public and private power– Andrew
Shonfield (1966) legitimising the mixed economy
Dilemmas of Social Reform – poverty and
community in the US by Peter Marris and Martin Rein (1967) which I treated
as the bible
The New Industrial State
– JK Galbraith (1967) The only author to get 2 books in the list reflects both
the importance of the subjects he dealt with – and the accessible and wryly
humorous style of his writing
The
Costs of Economic Growth – EJ Mishan 1967. A book so in advance of its
age…..
The
Active Society– Amitai Etzioni (1968) A book whose importance I was aware
of without having the tenacity to read……
Deschooling Society- Ivan Illich (1970) One of several Illich books which made me sceptical of organisational power…
Future Shock– Alvin
Toffler (1970) The first of the books which alerted us to the scale of the
change underway in our societies.
Beyond the Stable State – Donald Schon (1971) No book made more impact on me than this one whose core arguments I vividly remembering listening to on the family radio as Reith Lectures in 1970…..This when I became seriously interested in organisations…..
Rules for Radicals; Saul Alinsky
(1971)
The Limits to Growth–
Club of Rome (1972)
Small is Beautiful –
Ernst Schumacher (1973)
The
Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism– Daniel Bell (1976) one of the first
books to talk of post-industrialism
Gilding the Ghetto – the state and the
poverty experiments (CDP 1977) No wonder the Labour government regretted opening the Pandora's box of community development!
Orientalism–
Edward Said (1978) The book which made us aware of our eurocentrism
The Breakdown of Nations – Leopold Kohr (1978) A personal favourite….which somehow
made more impact than the earlier “Small is Beautiful”
The
Culture of Narcissism– Christopher Lasch (1979) which first drew
individualism to our attention
Urban Political Analysis – the politics of collective consumption Patrick Dunleavy (1980) which forced me to grapple with neo-Marxist analysis
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