Three years ago I sat on a train from Cambridge to London next to a person with whom I fell into conversation. As I recall he was an accountant. What he was quite sure about was that the state spent far too much. So I asked him what should be done about it and he said that if the old could not pay their way whether on healthcare or social provision then it should be down to their relatives to provide. And what if they had no such relatives, I asked? He shrugged his shoulders. 'Tough' was the response, in a nutshell.
It was a shocking sentiment: I pointed out people would die as a result of his philosophy and his reply was that society could not afford these people and if they could not provide for themselves it was no one else's obligation to do so. You get into some pretty weird conversations when you mention you campaign on tax issues on trains.
I hoped that the sentiment expressed was rare, but I suspected it was not: the man was of a type that was all too readily identifiable. And now that type is unambiguously in power in this country and the NHS is in a funding crisis. No doubt the reaction of the man on the train would be 'well they would say that, wouldn't they?' and 'if only we charged to limit demand the problem would be solved'. I thought of both such things when I happened to stand behind ANdrew Lansley in a queue in a Cambridge coffee shop on Saturday, because this is the NHS he wanted and from which, no doubt, many could profit.
It is not, however, the NHS we need.
And quite emphatically the NHS we're heading for is not national, or about health, or a service. When some will be denied access - whether on grounds of age, obesity, social habits or location - then the National will have gone from the NHS. And health will have ceased to be the priority for care. In which case any service elements will have gone.
The consequences are enormous - perhaps most specially for those about the person on the train spoke with such contempt. For them this might well represent a change to end of life as we know it. And this is only because a government insists it must try to balance the books as if it is a household when it is in fact a sovereign government with the power to create and cancel money to pay for services at will so long as it does not exceed to full capacity of the economy - from which point we are far distant at present.
A fatal culture of cold callousness disguised under a thin veil of economic theory that is dogmatic but based on nothing resembling fact is going to destroy the well-being of millions in this country and cost some their lives. Never say , in that case, that politics does not matter. It's life and death and more besides.
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Mother Theresa once said “In a world where you can be anything. Be kind”
This is all very well but psychologists, biologists and anthropologists are increasingly agreeing that if your primary care giver (and that usually means your mother) lacks the affiliative neurocircuitry (excuse the scientific jargon) to bond with you as a baby then the attachment process gets all screwed up and you end up with sociopaths or semi-sociopaths like the accountant on the train. The less a society recognises the true nature of human beings as the most ultra-social creature to evolve on this planet the more scope for the selfish and greedy Neo-Libertarianism (the use of government to promote ideology and policies for selfish individualism) that currently permeates Western societies and cause so much disfunction and human misery. It will only be a widespread movement to understand the orgins of our ultra-sociality and its potential that will enable change towards a healthier society that serves the needs of all. Included in that understanding there will need to be a greater analysis of the roles played by money and markets and especially its subversion from meeting general well-being.
Well put
But we also know the brain is far more plastic than we used to think, even a generation ago. Some can be made up later. The society and other family members are also essential parts of the process. We exist in relationship.
The case for a compassionate society is not one that we can prove by logical processes alone. There is a point where values over ride other considerations.
James Fowler in 1981, in the USA, wrote his stages of faith. The third level is about blindly following the mores of the group and the needs and beliefs of other groups are denied or ignored. At level four an individual begins to think things out for ones self, although that may just be finding justifications for those beliefs and actions. Fowler writes about two more stages where people establish their own values, accepting input from different sources and acting on those more universal values. The personal ego is downsized and our shared humanity is taken for granted. This we might call spirituality rather than religion. The number of people who get there may be fewer but they have an impact. Something inside most of us recognises it and responds. We have to make it more explicit.
Many of religious groups seem stuck in the lower levels, although we have to cater for those people who function at that level. For some of those, like your man on the train, it is fearful to move out that mindset. Others “may take from me” and ‘how do you do it?’ The Buddhists have a similar concept, that of not ‘grasping’. For example, people who grasp relationships to the extent of checking their partner’s phone for texts, usually throttle the relationship.
Economics is not enough, or as someone said, “Man does not live by bread alone”.
Whilst out walking today my 13 year old daughter and 11 year old son found an injured field mouse and brought it home.
It is now in the cat’s vet box with loads of shredded paper, some food and water and after giving itself a good clean has nested itself in said paper for a good rest. Fingers crossed.
To me this was entirely natural – especially of the younger members of society – who rather than stand by and say ‘How sad’ and then move on and forget about it decided to intervene instead.
And it is this notion of not accepting someone or something’s hard luck and wanting to intervene that I think sets human beings apart from other animals.
The notion of giving something another chance; being concerned about someone or something else’s welfare. I think that those are innate concepts for many of us but not all.
Life is not all about the selfish gene. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that humans are one of the most successful animals on the planet because we work together and support each other. How else would we survive against animals bigger, more numerous and more vicious than us back in history?
Kindness to others has proven just as potent a survival tactic as war and aggression.
Too many of us have swallowed the lies put forward by neo-liberals and other so-called scientists over-extending their remits. And even though I am not religious, the writings of Jesus and Mohammed (as well as provisions made in other faiths) encourage us think of others less fortunate.
We accept how car insurance works but we have difficulty extending that concept into funding the health service for people. Bizarre. We seem to like our cars more than our fellow human beings. But then again, we see a lot of car adverts on TV don’t we?
People think like your accountant because like the pro-BREXITEERS, the UKIP voters and even some on the Left, they have been misled – even now.
I’m proud of my children having a go at protecting a vulnerable little animal down on it’s luck just as I was proud of my then 9 year old son’s tears as he reacted to a beggar whilst on holiday in Trieste (‘Why Dad, why is that woman having to do that’? he sobbed).
Why indeed. Well at least here on this blog we know the answers.
I read Orwell’s 1984 as a boy and it seems to me that rather than a State sponsored dystopia (as portrayed by Orwell), we are now living in one produced by markets instead.
It’s incredible how things turn out. And people have just not got it yet. We must hope that they do eventually get it and at the heart of that epiphany will be people like your accountant – a member of the shrinking middle class – who after having done nothing wrong – will find that he has been working for nothing except to fuel the greed of the top 1%.
No doubt when this happens he will be presented with all sorts of other people to blame – immigrants, sun spots – the disabled bloke down the road. Hopefully he may see through this get angry and seek genuine change. Let us hope so.
PSR
I like the sound of your children
Maybe they reflect their parent’s values
I find my sons a source of inspiration in the same way
And I found it so hard recently when some children in my road found an injured pigeon and knocked on my door and asked me to look at it. Quick examination showed its wing was fractured – and that’s irreparable. But I took it and well out of their sight did what was necessary to end its misery (I’ve owned chickens, one learns to do this). But later I talked to them about the fact it had died without saying why and shared their sadness
Children know stuff adults have forgotten
Richard
Good evening Richard. You’re depressingly spot-on. How long is it going to take before people wake up? It’s a race against time. The entire UK Welfare State is under immediate threat. ‘Neo-liberalism’ is a sociopathic ideology. As Michael Hudson continues to warn – it is an economic parasite that is devouring the host. What seriously puzzles me is why there is not more vehemently strident opposition. It’s not for the lack of academic critique, international pressure groups, even minority political parties. It’s as if the population at large is paralysed in the glare of the powerfully articulated ‘austerity’ TINA headlamps (that’s not a brilliant analogy but you’ll get my drift). As you say, it really is a matter of life and death. What’s the answer?
I am depressed by two things
The first is that not many realise the threat
And that so few who do are willing to talk about it in terms of real life effects and what can be done about them
We need to organise well-informed pub debates; Mothers’ Union meetings; talk to our bellringers or choirs or colleagues at work; anywhere we can talk, we should.
Agreed
Mind you, that’w what Momentum says too
Where I live there is a very good inter-party campaign on the NHS
Adults are hard work in this regard we should be looking at childrens education in matters civic, social, economic and linking it all together.
At least the NHS itself has said that it is insufficiently resourced to hit its targets, so that’s a start.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/10/hospitals-on-brink-of-collapse-say-health-chiefs
The junior doctors would do better to vociferously endorse that message rather than strike.
The government also needs to understand that people who are happy will work much better than those who aren’t, so if we are making people unhappy by not spending our own sovereign currency then, in effect, we are devaluing even what we are spending. Which is just nuts.
The JDs have been saying this, loudly and vociferously, for over a year. The problem is that our government is forcing the NHS into a debate that starts with cuts as a non-choice: 20 billion since 2013 and another 22 billion through the ‘Sustainability and Transformation Plans’ (STPs).
The new contract contains terms that do not name the responsible organisation for longterm employment of staff, which removes doctors (to start with) from employment law and from whistleblowing protection.
This is intentional: this is what US private health commodity companies require for their profiteering. I was born and raised in the US and I’ve seen this firsthand. The great thing about selling the NHS is that the US companies (and their UK counterparts) see government as a cash cow without any public accountablity. It is the ultimate privatising of profit while costing the public more money *without raising taxes*.
PSR,
You mention car insurance. What do you think about people who don’t have car insurance and then drive dangerously and damage other people’s lives in a negative fashion?
Should the people who play by the rules just suck it up?
I’m not saying leave some people with nothing. But there has to be a way for everyone to pay something so a cost signal is given. An insurance-based system with a very modestly priced, heavily subsidised for the poor, basic policy as a minimum, with small co-pays. Make the co-pays rebateable, but with some administrative hassle required.
It’s obvious really – the rest of the world does something like this.
And that is why the US spends twice as much as a proprtion of GDP on health care than we do for worse outcomes
The only winners are admin, red tape, rentiers and some doctors. But healthcare does not gain by one iota
Oh dear oh dear Mr Numan.
If we as human beings accept that there are others who are less fortunate than ourselves then we also have to accept that some will also not play by the rules – which is also unfortunate but it happens quite rightly as you say. And upon accepting that, we deal with it. People who play by the rules must accept that others don’t I’m afraid. But you are also right in that it needn’t be like this.
An effective and well funded insurance system protects everyone and also reduces the cost to the individual by virtue of the principle of the sheer numbers paying into it. The State could do pensions like this and it would work.
People who break rules are all around us – from those who break rules in the financial sector, in business and yes, people who do not pay their TV license to those who do not pay road tax or car insurance. They exist and they need dealing with. And I repudiate all of them for their actions (since you ask).
All I see is an unwillingess to tackle the problem by stupid politicians who in order to save money create new ways to pay our road tax for example that are easier to get around than before. Or whom refuse to tackle to issue of advertising fast food even though they ‘know’ that obseity is putting the NHS under pressure (when it is actually under funding that is doing this).
That is the issue. With budgets being cut and ineffective means being sought to regulate things these days it is this lack of governance that destroys the principles I advocate – not those who actually get up to mischief who would be more likely caught if there were enough people employed to deal with non-compliance such as the police and other regulatory personnel.
But this is how to marketise everthing isn’t it?
Underfund.
Under resource.
Piss people off – get their consent for change.
Privatise everything.
And then watch the cost go up as the investors (who legally come first before anyone) fix their noses in the money trough afterwards.
I still maintain that a properly managed socialised/collective system of insurance – whether health, car or pension works out better in the end than this individualised nonsense we get from the service sector. For example, if the privatised pension sector is so robust, why did the HM Goverment have to effectively subsidise it to the tune of billions of pounds per year?. Something to do with profit motive fees and management costs by any chance?
As a voter all I want my government to do is look after me, my family and friends and the country itself yet all it seems to want to do is throw us to the free-market wolves and enable them to make as much money out of us as possible.
And I’ve had enough of it.
Maybe a chat about godley sectoral accounting with a smattering of mmt would make him think differently.
Sad to hear such lack of compassion tho.
Nothing to say yet. Later though
The problem is that the right constantly loses the economic argument, but wins the political argument. This is partly because they have a stridently right-wing press behind them, but partly also because they are very good in framing their ideology in terms of superficially plausible and intuitively appealing narratives, such as freedom and personal responsibility. The left needs to adopt these narratives as well, but use them as a frame for a progressive ideology and also needs to find stories which the public can relate to which illustrate the fallacies of neoliberal economic theory. An example of the former is a piece by a Norwegian comic and TV presenter Harald Eia (who studied sociology).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9UmdY0E8hU
A good story to illustrate the latter is Paul Krugman’s favourite, the Capitol Hill Baby-sitting Co-op and I feel that there is more to be pulled out of this story than can be found in existing literature.
The left does tend towards this, but I suspect it is more visceral: the Tories see themselves as lions pursuing a wounded old antelope. The BMA and its allies are too polite by a long way: they can’t believe gents would really behave this way. Meanwhile, Hunt and Stevens and their masters feint, dodge, chase, circle, and chase again, tirelessly. Time to act like bull elephants or water buffalo.
I work on the margins of international development, evaluating projects and programmes aimed at reducing violence, through many approaches. Even in South Sudan, people – mainly women but not always – who quietly and gently reach out to other people can create well-being. If my colleagues in SS had 5% of the resources we in the UK enjoy they would have the capacity to do so much more: yet we have a government and an element in society that wilfully throws away the immense advantage that our civil society gives us. The NHS and the compassion it facilitates *gives us a key element of civil society* we disregard at our genuine peril.
I can’t understand a government that cannot see past the worst, most selfish visions of its electorate.