The Big Society may well come to mean government ‘on the cheap’ – after all, it’s probably the only type of government we can afford at the moment. It may also turn out to just be ‘volunteers doing stuff for nothing’ as one perceptive member of the public put it on the six o’clock news last night. Or Cameron could end up ditching the idea, overwhelmed by great waves of public apathy and indifference.

But it could turn out to be a turning point, a great big libertarian stick in the ground, the (big) opportunity we’ve all been waiting for. In the face of tough economic times, and harder ones ahead, perhaps this is just what some of us need: the chance to measure ourselves against the ‘good’ that we do, rather than the money we make. Maybe there is more to life than just paid work (important, of course, though that is – volunteering won‘t pay the bills, after all… that‘s kind of the point). Life could, in fact, also be about mucking in, helping out, improving your immediate surroundings, your ‘neighbourhood’. Less: petitions, letter writing and criticism, then, more: DIY, direct action and ‘doing stuff for nothing’.

Whether it works or not will probably come down to the detail – principally, will people really get the chance to make a contribution, or is this the kind of devolved power that comes with a huge number of bureaucratic, and financial, strings attached? And, convinced as I am, by the argument that power should rest, as far as possible, with the individual, Edmund Burke’s line about paying undue attention to a vocal minority should give us some pause for thought. After all, one man’s Community Organiser is another man’s opportunistic political adversary. But for all that, if the Big Society is to mean anything then it does, ultimately, have to be about decentralising power – if it doesn’t then all that talk about letting people take more control over their lives will just end up sounding like the kind of stuff politicians always tell us when they‘re scrabbling around for the next Big Idea.