Small State. Big Society
Essays on Reforming the State to Create a Stronger Economy and Bigger Society
Author: Ed. Tom Shakespeare - May 19, 2010
The State faces challenges from many fronts in the years to come. The huge fiscal deficit; low and declining productivity; large scale economic inactivity and massive waste in public services are all symptoms of a failing state. This booklet of essays offers a range of lessons and radical ideas for how the state in the UK could work far more effectively to solve these problems.
With a foreword by Dr Anthony Seldon, and with essays from the USA, Sweden, Bhutan and Britain, we learn that doing more with less is the only way to solve the multi-dimensional problems facing this country. We learn that the state will need to become more flexible, more innovative at tackling the root causes of problems, and must give more power and responsibility to people and communities in order to deliver it. Only if this can be achieved will we simultaneously achieve both a smaller state and a bigger society.
What these essays successfully demonstrate is that the ‘Small State, Big Society’ approach is not just a good idea – it is an idea that has been shown to work, and one that offers the only real solution to the many challenges we now face. This absolutely must be the shape of things to come.
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