From Fabian Society to the Big Society: A Comparative Analysis of the Politics of Recession in the United Kingdom

Abstract

During the Great Depression of the late nineteenth century, the United Kingdom experienced an upwelling of grassroots political movements that sought to correct the problems of the recession and work towards a more just society. These movements were of many ideological convictions, but shared a common goal of societal reformation and social justice. By contrast, the current economic recession that began in 2007 has provoked a response from the current Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government that has involved the partial dismantling of the British social safety net. Under the aegis of the "Big Society", the United Kingdom is undergoing a top-down program of government cuts and governmental devolution that is the reverse, in both methodology and objectives, of those movements that characterized the late Victorian period.