I agree on raising the issue of commodification in health cre and in public
industries at large...
Paulo Fidalgo
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Garside" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 11:32 AM
Subject: Re: Another Economics is possible - appeal for volunteers for
Economics stream(s) at the European Social Forum
> Responding to Paula Fidalgo's points, and also in relation to Alan
Freeman's
> second point re alternatives to neo-liberalism, a key issue for us should
be
> the commodification of public service delivery through the introduction of
> market forces. In Britain the government is increasingly taking the more
> back seat role of regulating and contracting out services. This has
> developed particularly in the field of health care and is starting to
unfold
> in my own area of criminal justice. This is anything but a progressive
move.
> By forcing the public sector to compete for delivery contracts with the
> private sector and charities, the public sector and its workers are
degraded
> to the status of being 'just another provider.' It is also far from
> economically efficient to encourage a variety of 'providers' to compete
with
> each other for the government's shilling.
>
>
> Richard Garside
> Director
> Crime and Society Foundation
> 26-29 Drury Lane London WC2B 5RL
>
> 020 7848 1685
> [log in to unmask]
> www.crimeandsociety.org.uk
>
> A project of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, School of Law,
King's
> College London
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: To complement the journal 'Capital and Class' (ISSN 0 309 8786)
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paulo Fidalgo
> Sent: 26 April 2004 21:12
> To:
> Subject: Re: Another Economics is possible - appeal for volunteers for
> Economics stream(s) at the European Social Forum
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Paulo Fidalgo" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: "Alan Freeman" <[log in to unmask]>;
<[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, April 26, 2004 5:58 PM
> Subject: Re: Another Economics is possible - appeal for volunteers for
> Economics stream(s) at the European Social Forum
>
>
> Dear Alan
>
> Sorry to answer so late
>
>
> I would like to raise a theme for discussion on the next forum
>
>
> My main concern relates to public industries and as a physician I am
moslty
> concerned with the public Health care industry.
>
> Until now the state, wich we can classify as a burgeois state, rules
public
> health care delivery as its backyard garden. They control it in a more or
> less tight control from both health care ministers and finance ministers.
> They support costs of health care delivery but do not accept to evolve
the
> system to a more value oriented payment. Wich leads to the perpetuation of
> wage labour in most european public industries and to its profound labour
> product alienation. They also avoid, at least in countries like Portugal,
> that public institutions acquire autonomy, responsability, regarding
> internal organization, development priorities and they donīt accept more
> then symbolic association of health workers to the planning and ruling of
> those public facilities.The sole autonomy a goverment accepts nowadays is
> private health care. Only private capital owned hospitals and primary
> private care centres are aloud to have autonomy. Otherwise I should add,
> public institutions could became more competitive and defeat private
> capitalism in health care. So, for me, health care workers movement and
> educational workers movement are confronted with the goal of achieveing
> autonomy, auto-organization and to acquire eficiency provided the
governemt
> steps back to a more regulating role and conctracting with public
> institutions on a value based (and not cost based) finance system.
> Furthermore, a government that buys health care at its value and do not
only
> porvides money to cover costs, is a prerequisite to negociate a new way
of
> paying labour outside the old wage system and to build a new system where
> people apropriates surplus product, at least a part of it, and begins to
> work for the maximum efficiency of their own institutions. So the
discussion
> leads to the idea that more then better wages is to get rid of the wage
> system of paying labour.
>
> I believe a round table discussion with both trade-unions and policy
makers
> in public industires could be succefully built in the next forum
>
>
> BW
>
> Paulo Fidalgo, Lisboa
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alan Freeman" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2004 10:44 AM
> Subject: Another Economics is possible - appeal for volunteers for
Economics
> stream(s) at the European Social Forum
>
>
> > Dear C&C subscriber
> >
> > In October, the European Social Forum (www.ukesf.org, www.fse-esf.org)
> will
> > be hosted in London The 2003 social forum was in Paris and the 2002
forum
> > in Florence; the Paris event was attended by about 50,000 people. The
> > British proposal, endorsed by the Forum's European Assembly in March, is
> to
> > hold it at Alexandra Palace, probably with spinoff events in locations
> > around Bloomsbury. I think this is a unique opportunity for Capital and
> > Class to promote discussion and activity and link up with sister
> > organisations.
> >
> > CSE's Executive Committee agreed it would be a good idea for Capital and
> > Class to work with sister organisations and prepare proposals for
> activities
> > around a theme something like 'another economics is possible'.This would
> > involve European organisations such as the post-autistic economics
> movement
> > in France, anti-Maastricth currents, EEAPE, etc and also in the UK
> > Association for Heterodox Economics, Radstats, etc.
> >
> > I think there are two definite areas of activity to think about:
> >
> > a space for pluralism: 'official' economics is promoted as a
> uniquely true
> > vision of the world. A plethora
> > of responses have challenged this focusing on teaching
> (post-autistic
> > movement, Cambridge initiative), but
> > also research and publication, more generally on the way that
> 'official'
> > economics suppresses the alternatives
> > (AHE, contre la pensee unique, EAEPE etc). In the UK
> preoccupations are eg
> > the whole RAE process, the Royal
> > Economics Society's refusal to countenance pluralistic selection
> processes,
> > etc. With material like Fred
> > Lee's and David Harvie's I think that CSE has led on this and
> should try to
> > coordinate responses in Europe.
> >
> > an alternative to neo-liberalism: the IMF's policies are openly
> > acknowledged to be a complete disaster. What
> > are the concrete alternatives to structural adjustment? If we
want
> global
> > justice, what should Europeans fight
> > for? What does the global South need to pursue an independent
> economic
> > policy? What is the next step after
> > Jubilee 2000 in the fight against debt enslavement? What
> constitutes a just
> > trade policy? Etc.
> >
> > There could be many more ideas: this is just a first stab.
> >
> > Also, it may well be that other proposals could emanate from Capital and
> > Class eg Labour Process, Argentina, etc. If so, make your suggestions
> known
> > to the XC!
> >
> > Whether a given proposal works or not depends on two things:
> >
> > (1) can you do some work on it?
> > (2) can you interest anyone else in it?
> >
> > The forum process is a grassroots one. On April 1 the forum will be open
> for
> > proposals. To get a good 'take-up', the most important thing is support
> from
> > a wide range of organisations. There are two types of event that we can
be
> > involved in:
> >
> > *Seminars - relatively large, more structured events with
> > simultaneous translation
> > *Workshops - smaller events without simultaneous translation
> >
> > The ESF process as a whole will also set up 'Plenaries'. The difference
> > between Plenaries and seminars is that the Plenaries are organised by
the
> > ESF process but the seminars are self-organised by participants. This
> year,
> > following the Paris experience and the World Social Forum in Mumbai,
there
> > will be a strong emphasis on seminars and workshops and less priority to
> the
> > Plenaries, which will be shorter, less in number, and will contain less
> > speakers.
> >
> > Although there is no formal structure for 'streams' with a succession of
> > connected workshops and seminars, there will be overall 'themes' and
> > obviously, if we find that there are a range of ideas that our sister
> > organisations and ourselves want to discuss, there is scope to make more
> > than one proposal.
> >
> > I'd like to suggest that people contact me if they can offer
> >
> > * suggestions for potential C&C initiatives (preferably
accompanied
> by
> > an offer to work to bring it about)
> > * help on the alternative economics proposal
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Alan Freeman
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