Say ‘one percent’ to someone from a housing association, and
the face that will greet you is unlikely to be smiling with energy. One percent has become the vexed question of
how associations can find unplanned savings to fill the sudden hole in the
fuselage exposed by the Government’s demand for 1% reduction in social
housing rents to restrict the spiraling costs of welfare. A redistribution in cuts, as one put it to
me. Perhaps the choice of one percent is
purely mathematical, but it’s a phrase of symbolic depth that can offer insights
into the current drama preoccupying minds and budgets.
2006 saw the heir to the Johnson and Johnson fortune release
a film called One Percent. It was a documentary
alerting us to the dangers of a world in which a small group of super rich owned
nearly half of the wealth in America. The
phrase stuck, and by 2015 Sam Wilkin was sharing the low down of how we too
could join the world’s new elite through ‘Wealth Secrets of the One Percent’. The
commodification of the aspiration to ‘make it’ as a member of capitalism’s VIP
class had a catchy name in the new evolution of one percent societies. It’s a trend with many dangers, as outlined
in the stats from the Amex-Harrison ‘Survey of Affluence and Wealth in America’
(2012). The behaviour patterns of the
one percent in the survey suggested a sense of increasing disengagement in risk
taking activity to benefit others, played out against a society in which the one
percent were increasingly vilified by those not in the club (Amex-Harrison,
2012). Part of the Government’s justification
for its ‘one percent’ is that housing associations, with large surpluses, have become
part of their own one-percent style club in the ecosystem of social profits. Only that view is to grossly simplify a more
complex picture. A one percent cut for a
housing association in the top deck might in the end be affordable, by reducing
services and switching priorities; but for smaller organisations, without the luxury
of choice, one percent can mean the difference between running a service and
merely keeping it going. As ever, our approach
to distributing assets and deficits across society ends up deepening existing economic
divisions.
When the cuts are played out, what becomes evident is that
they are the lazy policy tool of a system that has lost an important one
percent in its thinking mind. I refer here
to the 1% genius in Thomas Edison’s famous equation of what should drive our
99% perspiration of doing. A one percent
cut is now defining business decisions in a way that lacks good business sense. We have all the perspiration at the moment
with none of the genius. Sure, savings to
the public purse might be made from reduced welfare costs for social rents, but
the quality of support available to people in welfare will in some cases be
reduced as organisations without capacity cut off limbs to keep crawling. In the long term, that means social savings
today will be stolen back at twice the cost in whatever system we have left to
pay for the carnage of future care for those affected. Why? Because a one percent cut is not a
solution to the question of how best to support people through welfare and what
happens to them; it’s merely a reaction to the aspiration that we should spend
less on doing it.
The important thing is here is the question of
technology. The one percent cut is a
form of economic technology that looks like a hybrid between the Trotter van
from 'Only Fools and Horses' and a surgeon trying to delicately reshape the human
brain with a jackhammer. It’s as lacking in sophistication as it is in ability
to achieve a positive outcome. I use the
term technology here for a reason. The one
percent in Edison’s phrase is very much a different type of technology – the genius to find
the source of thinking and action that can transform what we do; or what entrepreneur Peter Thiel
calls the jump from ‘zero to one’. Applied in our social context, it should be
the one percent that focuses us on the deeper questions of how we do welfare
and how we provide people with access to homes.
I don’t think our welfare system requires either a one
percent cut or a one percent increase; nor do the housing association social
rents linked to them. What is needed is
a different approach to what welfare is meant to be and do; what its outcomes
are meant to achieve; what type of society we are trying to create together;
and how we can make the smartest investment decisions to maximise our
potential. For that to happen, services
need ‘freedom with expectation’ to create the small steps out of our current game
of coping with disadvantages and cuts – the type of ‘one percenter’ sprints,
kicks and tackles which, in Australian rules football, are known to win games. Welfare is fast becoming a losing game that
needs to be revitalised and strengthened with a different carrot and stick.
Should the Government and social good sector wish to trade in the Trotter
van and jackhammer, what and where is the technology to replace it? The
technology of one percent inspiration is not easy to source, partly because our
understanding of inspiration is wholly inadequate to the task. Countless programmes, initiatives and
organisations use the inspiration label, but few have ever properly researched
into the DNA of what inspiration is, how it can be harnessed, and its huge
potential to transform current work. While vast amounts are now written about
theory of change logic models, there is little attention to the science and art
of inspiration. Now is not the time to
buffer up the Trotter Van for one more drive round the policy block, one more
spin in charity’s Nurburgring of funding crashes. We must look into and beyond ourselves for how we can find a different technology to
reimagine our futures. I call that the
technology of Social Inspiration. I can’t
guarantee it will get you a life of wealth, but I’m 99% sure it will find the
one percent we are missing.
The Social Inspirator’s
curriculum is due for release in the early New Year at www.inspirechilli.com
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