We should look to create value in our communities to keep our economy competitive. Rupert George argues that the shift to a low carbon economy, can offer us social, as well as environmental sustainability.
The impact of the supermarket chains upon the fabric of our national life challenges many notions we share about the free market. The Sustainable Communities Bill is aimed at tackling some of the issues that are a result of a small number of powerful companies dominating the UK food industry. The Bill has cross party support, scepticism about how the “free” market operates is no longer the preserve of the left. Even those on the right whose belief in the free market is ideological are beginning to look for new ways to interpret their core beliefs. As I love to keep mentioning David Cameron thinks that social enterprise can perhaps take on the supermarket chains.
We cannot just rip up the global market because it doesn’t suit us. We do however need to find better ways of ensuring that the fabric of our society isn’t eroded through the forces of competition the globalisation brings. Social enterprise taking on the supermarkets in a mature market is a little romantic. We cannot start to change the rules if we choose to demonise particular industrial sectors, especially if this is a response to success. Where would are inward investment go, if the investor is worried that success will be punished. We can slant the rules a little to give social enterprises a good go of it. Community owned assets are a great way of giving communities some sustainability and control. The Village Retail Services Association facilitate the creation of community owned shops, allowing communities to keep the fabric of their lives together where the free market can’t deliver. Traditional businesses aren’t profitable in these villages.
However what we really need if we are going to create structures that protect communities within the free market, are new markets, new sectors. In an immature market, we can create the right conditions for partnership between private sector, public sector and social enterprise that allows for the development of community owned assets.
These assets can be used hold communities together. The Irvingstown Trust plays this role, whilst avoiding being in receipt of public money. It has invested money borrowed from a commercial bank to invest in its community. It is a model for a community to work entrepreneurially with the free market to sustain itself. The roots of the organisation itself lay with the desire of the town's business people wishing to protect the market they do business in.
Communities that function, that are bound together and without the agency of a heavy taxing interventionist state, clearly have a huge competitive advantage in a globalised economy. Able to attract inward investment through the stability that cohesive communities can bring without the burden of high rates of taxation. Low crime rates alone are fairly significant for many businesses, social enterprises don’t just benefit “communities”, they benefit the entrepreneurs, businesses and even the large corporations doing business within a community.
The obvious example of something that an entrepreneurial society could have latched onto in the recent past for community benefit is the role of Internet Service Providers. The role that social enterprises can play in delivering services that aim to break even rather than turn a profit, could have played a huge role in challenging digital inclusion and in the process making the UK better prepared for the twenty first centuries globalised knowledge economy. That opportunity has passed, BT has done good work on digital inclusion, it’s a pity that one of their routes to market for broadband wasn’t a partnership with social enterprise. However I doubt that the option was ever presented to them.
Grameen Bank has moved from micro credit into the mobile phone business. They have applied the logic of seizing upon a new market, where a social enterprise can compete to bring community benefit. The other new market they are operating in is renewable energy. The renewable energy market in the UK is immature, it is the obvious option currently available.
British Gas is already appears to have been helped by our interventionist state to get into this market. This isn’t much help to our communities or the UK’s long-term competitiveness. So please don’t to start to raise objections that it is anti-competitive for Government to support social enterprise. The State already seems to favour big business over small business time and time again. This is anti-competitive and it doesn’t help our communities at all. Perhaps this is why Tory hand on heart free marketeers don’t have a problem with the Sustainable Communities Bill.
Grameen Bank doesn’t manufacture mobile phones, so please don’t to start to raise objections based upon this being a romantic notion. It is about at what points in the value change social enterprise will be competitive in a market.
There are a host of benefits social enterprise can bring including training a workforce and a low entry point on price to ensure the rapid take up of the technology. However at the end of the day a huge swathe of renewable energy will be generated within our communities. Why shouldn’t our communities take control of the value that this power generation represents?
