(3) Social Dimension

"But to think the post-bureaucratic age is just about the internet is like thinking the industrial age was just about the steam engine.

It wasn't - the steam engine was just one of the discoveries that enabled a cultural change to sweep the nation.

It's the same with the post-bureaucratic age.

The internet is just the technological dimension of the social and cultural change that is promised by the post-bureaucratic age.

You can see the nature of the change we want in the phrase itself...

...literally going from a bureaucratic world, where the old methods like regulation, laws and diktats allow elites in Westminster to control other people's lives...

...to a post-bureaucratic world, where instead of government telling people what to do or forcing them to do it...

...people themselves have far more power and control over their lives...

...and where we achieve change by trying to influence people by going with the grain of human nature.

So it's about giving power to people.

And it's about showing an understanding of people, in how we make policy and design government and public services.

So the post-bureaucratic age is just as much about behavioural economics as data transparency, about social pressure as internet protocols, about communities meeting in a neighbour's front room as in an online chat room.

It's about understanding that you can make doing the right thing more appealing through incentives like money.

You can make it even easier for people to do the right thing by removing obstacles or hassles from their path.

And you can apply gentle social pressure by making it clear to people that others - their friends and neighbours - are already doing the right thing.

This simple understanding of what makes people tick - distilled into the right policies - is going to have a massive impact on what government does and how it does it...

...enabling us to achieve so many more of the economic, social and environmental goals at much less cost.

In a nutshell, it will enable us to make things better without spending more money...

...to improve well-being while helping our economy to grow."
CONTEXT(Help)
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The Post-Bureaucratic Age »The Post-Bureaucratic Age
PBAge.org Conference Participants »PBAge.org Conference Participants
David Cameron's PBAge.org Speech »David Cameron's PBAge.org Speech
(3) Social Dimension
Influence people to change by going with the grain of human nature »Influence people to change by going with the grain of human nature
People themselves have far more power and control over their lives »People themselves have far more power and control over their lives
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