In psychology there is a concept known as agentic living: the idea that we have some sort of agency over our own lives. At heart it is a throwback to the age-old philosophical question: are we determinists who believe we live at the mercy of a fate already written, or do we, as Augustine hammered out, have freewill? On reading Alan Milburn’s excoriating interim report into ‘the moral crisis’ of one million 16–24 year-olds who are not in work or education (NEETs), it becomes obvious there is a sharp dividing line between determinists and those who attempt to exert agentic freewill.
