Is social mobility more important than communal stability? If it is enhanced while the mass state is preserved, what benefit is there to the community when none really exist? (See FPR discusssions on "meritocracy.")
With social mobility in the UK remaining at the level it was for those born in 1970, and the inequality gap haemorrhaging the aspirations of those at the bottom, a radical rethinking of public policy is needed. In fact, one could go even further and suggest that in order to address the problems of intergenerational deprivation and institutional disadvantage that compounds the lack of opportunities for too many children and young people in the UK, a shift of perspective is needed. Whereas many of the past policy solutions designed to tackle these problems were focused on individuals, new set of measures has to operate on the level of groups and communities as well as individuals.
For instance, the Pupil Premium has been heralded as the central policy tool to address the problem of underachievement for underprivileged students. While it presents a valuable policy intervention to help students from poor backgrounds to get into better schools, it simply does not go far enough in addressing the root causes of disadvantage. Indeed, the effect of the Pupil Premium, as well as many other policies targeted at improving social mobility, set out to move a small number of individuals up the social ladder, but leave their communities behind. Rather than individuals, 'the little platoon we belong to in society' should become the level targetted by policy makers to answer the challenge of social mobility. In order to tackle the problem of intergenerational disadvantage we need a new set of policy measures and a new 'Burkean' approach.
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