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Social policy and development
Fine, Ben
Fine, Ben
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finelong.pdf
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Abstract
"The relationship between the economic and the social has ever been theoretically uneasy. The result has often been a hardening into one of two extremes. As perceived by neo-liberalism, the economy is best left to the market and, at most, the social is a necessary evil, required to oil the wheels of commerce. In contrast, the alternative stance is to emphasise both micro and macro market imperfections and, thereby, to understand the social as an essential means to correct them. I suspect and welcome that the intellectual, ideological and policy mood is currently swinging away from the first and towards the second position. One indicator of this is the extent to which the social, often previously rounded up in the notion of civil society , has increasingly been seen both as an instrument and a goal of economic and social policy. Nonetheless, a casual reading of any area of such literature, accompanied by a modicum of critical thinking, suggests a number of cautionary tales. First, understandings of civil society are often unthinkingly transposed from the west to the rest of the world, both for conceptual purposes and for ideals to be emulated. This involves a double displacement in that the initial application of the notion tends to neglect a recent history over the past century in which western society has been far from civil. In addition, in this light, false perspectives from one world are universalised to others, reflecting the longstanding tradition of understanding development as attaining the idealised status of the developed. Second, civil society has been regarded as a panacea, a source of positive-sum outcomes, if only appropriately organised, embraced and participated in by its citizens. Consequently, it is hardly surprising that it tends to be viewed through rose-coloured spectacles, with the economy and systemic power set aside in deference to democracy and good governance. Rather than seeing civil society as a site of, or focus for, underlying conflicts, the latter melt away as mutual benefits flow from collectivism and cooperation. In short, civil society and social revolution sit extremely uncomfortably side-by-side. Third, a corollary or summary of the two previous points taken together, civil society is recognisably complex and diverse, not least because it is the outcome of associations, organisations, institutions, networks, cultures and so on that have been forged out of equally diverse and complex interests and conflicts. Just as generalisation in unwise, so is the indiscriminate application of abstract concepts drawn, however adequately, from specific case studies."(pg 1)
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2002-07
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With permission of the license/copyright holder