the apparatus of the State

versus the apparatus of the community. In the days of pre-democracy, "noblesse oblige" was the instrument the ruling classes used to keep a community together. In return for peace, order and goodwill, the better off looked after the less well off - that was their contribution to community and their insurance for their privileged position. The irony of post-Nazism, post-Fascism and post-Communism ideologies is that the democratic regimes have become more bureaucratic and the central governments more signitficant in the lives of people now than when these democratic regimes were competing against the now-discredited State-elitism-in-practice regimes.
Anonymity, individualism and resignation from community responsibility on the one hand and on the other, the social conscience demand that someone else other than me look after the social welfare sector required that central government become even more centrist. User pays and privatisation were attempts by government to get out of the lives of people but personal greed in the private sector has required that government continue its role in regulation and therefore it is still in our lives only much more so than ever.
So how can communities reclaim their heritage and sense of worth?