The Royal Society of Edinburgh 2012 Reith Lectures the Rule of Law and Its Enemies: Civil and Uncivil Society Professor Niall Fe

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The Royal Society of Edinburgh 2012 Reith Lectures the Rule of Law and Its Enemies: Civil and Uncivil Society Professor Niall Fe The Royal Society of Edinburgh 2012 Reith Lectures The Rule of Law and its Enemies: Civil and Uncivil Society Professor Niall Ferguson Thursday 28 June 2012 Report by Jeremy Watson As Ken MacQuarrie, the Controller of BBC Scotland, said in his introduction of this year’s Reith lecturer, Professor Niall Ferguson is an academic whose work encompasses the “great sweep” of history. But it was to a small and less historic part of the Welsh coastline that Ferguson took his audience for the starting point of his exploration of “civil and uncivil societies.” Ferguson explained that a decade ago he had purchased a house on the coast of South Wales in a rugged, windswept area that reminded him of his native Ayrshire. He had chosen the location because it was beside the sea but there was a catch. The once pristine beach in front of the property was “hideously” strewn with rubbish. Thousands of plastic bottles littered the sand and rocks and plastic bags fluttered in the wind. Drinks cans lay rusting in the dunes. Dismayed, he had asked locals who was responsible for cleaning it up and the reply had been the council. On realising that was unlikely to happen, he had set out, with black bin bags, to clean up the beach himself. However, it was too big a job for one man. Then, Ferguson said, it had happened. He asked for volunteers in exchange for lunch and they achieved modest success. The real breakthrough came when he made contact with the local Lions Club, a charitable organisation of which he had never heard but which he found out dedicated itself to good causes. It brought organisation and, as a result, the shoreline was transformed. That had taught him the value of spontaneous community action. A dumping ground had been turned into a beauty spot again. How many other places could be transformed like this, he thought? His series of lectures, he continued, was aimed at opening up “black boxes” and tonight’s was labelled “civil society.” Properly understood, civil society is the realm of voluntary associations and institutions established by citizens with a non-profit objective. These could range from schools to clubs dedicated to the whole range of human activities. The RSE, for example, exemplified civil society at its best, as it was independent societies such as the RSE that played a large part in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. At an individual level, there was a time when the average Briton or American was a member of a large number of societies, but this is no longer the case. But, Ferguson asked, how can the nation flourish without a vibrant civil society? Without civil society, society becomes uncivil, with antisocial behaviour becoming a problem for the State. And Ferguson added that he wanted to cast doubt on the notion that the new social networks of the Internet were in any way a substitute for the type of community network that helped to clear his beach. The French writer Alexis de Tocqueville declared that nowhere had the principle of association been more successfully applied than in America. But even there, Ferguson argued, associational vitality is in steep decline. His Harvard colleague, Robert Putnam, has studied decline between the 1960s and the 1990s, finding that attendance at public meetings on town or school affairs was down 35%, service as an officer of a club or organisation was down 39 per cent, membership of parent–teacher associations was down 61% and membership of bowling leagues down 73%. In fact, most organisations which had once brought people together in the US are in decline. And there is a wider effect, with 2 some academics arguing that the decline in both secular and religious organisations is the cause of widening inequality in the US today. And if there is a decline in the US, Ferguson asked, what hope for Europe? The facts speak for themselves. The final Citizenship Survey for England in 2009/10 makes for “truly dismal” reading. Only one in four people were found to be doing formal voluntary activity once a month - and that was usually a sponsored activity. The percentageof those people who informally volunteered at least once a month – to, for example, help an elderly neighbour – was down from 35% to 29%. Charitable giving is also in decline. So what is happening? Putnam puts it down to the growth of technology – first TV and then the Internet – sucking the life out of traditional associational life. But Tocqueville believed it was not technology but the State, with its seductive promises of “cradle to grave” care, that was the real enemy of civil society. But can the growing omnipresence of social media have any effect on nurturing a civil society? Ferguson thinks its effectiveness is exaggerated. Facebook, for example, allows people to share opinions on whatever they like. But take its role in the Arab Spring. Colonel Gaddafi was not overthrown in Libya because he was “unfriended”on Facebook, Ferguson said. If he had “poked” his Facebook friends about his beach, would it have been cleared in the same way that contact with a network of effective strangers allowed? He doubts it. To see how right the “wise old Frenchman” was, Ferguson challenged his audience to count the number of clubs they are involved in. He said he is involved in three, gives to two charities, is the member of a gym and supports a football club. He is most active, however, as an alumnus of the educational institutions in which he was taught in his youth – Glasgow Academy and Magdalen College, Oxford. He also gives time to the places where his children are being educated and the university in which he teaches. And why is he so partial towards these independent educational institutions? In his opinion, the best institutions in the UK today are its independent schools, and the one educational policy he would like to see adopted throughout the country is be a significant increase in private educational institutions, along with an attendant increase in the bursaries that allow children from poorer backgrounds to attend them. This is not to say there is no need for State schools. There is no doubt that over the last 100 years or so, the expansion of public sector schools has been a good thing. They have produced a literate, numerate and more productive workforce. But there is a need to recognise the limits of public monopolies in education. It is private schools that are now setting and raising standards across the world. That does not mean, Ferguson said, that he is advocating either independent schools or state schools – there is room for both – only that a mix of the two would provide meaningful competition. Would Harvard be Harvard if it were nationalised? The answer is emphatically no, he insisted. In the UK, the opposite has happened, with the universities essentially reduced to agencies of the National Higher Education Service. But, Ferguson argued, the UK’s universities still charge less than they should, even with the recent increase in tuition fees. The result? Most UK universities are in a permanent state of financial crisis. Only seven made it into the recent Times league table of the top 50 world universities, yet the UK boasts some of the finest secondary schools on the planet. This is because mediocre “free” State schooling has incentivised the emergence of a really good private system. Change is taking place, but predominantly at present in England, where, ironically, the policies are being pursued by a Scotsman. Conservative Education Secretary Michael Gove has picked up ideas from a former “Fettes lad”, Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, which 2 3 involve turning failing schools into self-governing academies. Numbers have gone from 200 to approaching half of all secondary schools, with some showing what can be done when the “dead hand” of the local council is removed. Even more promising, Ferguson contended, is the new breed of “Free schools” being set up by parents, teachers and others. Not selective, they remain State-funded, but they have introduced higher standards of discipline and learning. In Scotland, they are conspicuous by their absence, yet they are part of a global trend in which “smart” countries are jettisoning state education monopolies and allowing civil society back into education. Ferguson argued that many other countries – even some regarded as bastions of welfare state provision - are much further forward in their recognition of the value of independent schools. Numbers have soared in Scandinavian countries such as Sweden and Denmark. In Holland, two-thirds of students now attended independent schools. Today in the US, there are 2000 “Charter” schools – publicly funded but independently run – providing choice in education to around two million people in some of the poorest areas. They do better, Ferguson said, because they are both accountable and autonomous. Despite the advances made in England, Ferguson argued, there are still further steps to be taken, even by Michael Gove. They would be to increase the number of schools that are truly independent in terms of funding, and truly free, in terms of being able to select pupils by ability. There are no such inhibitions on private education elsewhere – in countries such as Sweden and Brazil, or India and parts of Africa. The problem in the UK is not that there are too many private schools but too few, and if their charitable status is removed there will be even fewer. At present, only 7 % of British teenagers are privately educated, about the same as in the US. The reason why Asian pupils are excelling internationally, Ferguson maintained, is because 25 % of pupils in Macau, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan are privately educated.
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