Very excited to hear of David Cameron's commitment to innovative models of ownership in his speech on the post-bureaucratic age yesterday - especially with a major body of work on planning and innovation in the post bureaucratic age on ResPublica's event horizon. A few key sections of the speech are reproduced below.

"...a thread that runs through so many of our plans is to create that sense of possibility by making ownership easier. In some cases, this means helping individuals. We are currently looking at ways to give everyone, especially the young and those on modest incomes, the chance to buy shares in the state owned banks at a discounted price. Just as the 'Tell Sid' campaign of the 1980s attracted more than two million first time shareholders in the newly privatised British Gas, we want to create a new generation of shareholders in the 21st century...

"...But more often than not, we know it's far easier for people to club together than work alone - so we also want to encourage collective ownership. Co-operatives are brilliant ways in which people can come together on a voluntary basis and run their own business, providing anything from food, banking or insurance at affordable prices to their local community...

"...Last year, we announced our Community Right to Buy.This policy will turn upside down the relationship between communities and the market or the state. Whenever a publicly or commercially-owned community building or amenity faces closure,from libraries to parks, post offices or pubs,local people will get the first option to buy it, protect it, run it, own it and keep it open.As long as they can raise the money and can show they'll be able to run it efficiently and effectively.And as long as they are not-for-profit, with extra money re-invested in the asset - it's theirs...

...And just last week, we announced plans to give every public sector worker the chance to set up employee-owned co-operatives.This means that everyone working in a Job Centre, in the NHS, in social work - whatever - will have the chance to take over the service they provide, become their own boss and be free to offer the public a better service. So instead of government controlling every aspect of public services in our country and our professionals feeling like some drones in a giant machine being told what to do and how to do it, we will say: "here's your budget, take ownership of the service, and if you deliver it better and more cheaply, you can keep some of the savings".This is as radical for our public sector workers as the right to buy your council house for our families. And it's a vital way of increasing ownership in the post-bureaucratic age..."

This is an exciting agenda for anyone who cares about spreading ownership more widely. While we have argued that the Conservatives' thinking on the post bureaucratic age is at times too evangelical and pays too little attention to the possible pitfalls, there can be no doubt that tying the issue of ownership into the vision of a world beyond bureaucracy presents us with a powerful statement of ethos for our nation. The ambient conditions for communities to organise themselves can only exist when we are augmented by an enabling state that is committed to empowering us - its clients - through trust; and that is committed to sensible, much-needed deregulation in respect of those small groupings, voluntary associations and sustained human interactions that breathe meaning into our lives. Further, there is a growing body of work on how these ambient conditions must be right to realise this vision, that draws heavily on complexity studies that map the way that, for example, quorums of biolumiescent bacteria work best for the host organism with the right enabling biostructure.

Consider, that it is moreover encouraging to see the Conservatives invoke in their discourse concepts that we at ResPublica support and have proposed. (Note: the story behind the Conservatives' radical proposals on getting mutuals to transform the public sector can be found here. Phillip Blond's article arguing for a 'community right to buy' can be found here, with a good commentary on the actor-network of the idea here.)

So far, the Conservatives have made the running in arguing for the conditions for what we at ResPublica have referred to as The New Centre Ground. Will the other major parties keep up?

UPDATE: lots of emails inquiring more about complexity studies and bioluminescence. It is a fascinating area of inquiry. Here is a link to a really good talk on this by Bonnie Bassler for TED.