tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19384577.post819199653981805434..comments2024-03-20T19:23:09.857+02:00Comments on Notes from underground: Health and healing - private profit from public miserySteve Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11283123400540587033noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19384577.post-25049427302492603402007-06-22T01:45:00.000+02:002007-06-22T01:45:00.000+02:00Interesting post. In fact, the point you make abou...Interesting post. In fact, the point you make about the continuity between late apartheid neoliberal experimentation and the post apartheid approaches to the delivery of services like health care and basic services, is often ignored… even by the left. The religious idiom escapes me, but I appreciate the spirit. All I would add is that the political contexts of late apartheid had placed real obstacles to restructuring the economy along neoliberal lines. And here, both sanctions and an increasingly militant black nationalist movement structured the terrain that the botha regime needed to negotiate. In many ways the political transition that began in the 90s begun working to remove these obstacles. And the ANC government has been tremendously successful in this regard. Not only has the private sector in health grown, while the public sector has needed to weather the fiscal crises created by GEAR, but private wards have been opened up in many public sector hospitals. More broadly, the growth of the private sector in health has also increased the costs of providing health care in the public sector…so, for instance, the payment scales for doctors in public sector needs the be structured so that it is competitive with their earning potential in private sector. The introduction of the cold logic of the market into the delivery of health also means that more menial tasks with little market value (like the guys who wash the sheets), either get outsourced, or are consigned to impossibly low pay scales – which, no doubt, is one of the reasons for the public sector strike. The vicious logic of these processes is that further privatisation is seen as the answer to these problems…Okay I’m getting carried away, but while I can see the benefit of the state providing support to non-profit institutions who fill gaps in the public sector, far more crucially important, for me, is for us to grow and improve the public health sector.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19384577.post-15434614203077427292007-06-21T19:28:00.000+02:002007-06-21T19:28:00.000+02:00Scylding, I don't know enough distributivism, but ...Scylding, <BR/><BR/>I don't know enough distributivism, but I do favour forms of "guild socialism", such as the cooperative movement, and things like mutual building societies and life assurance.Steve Hayeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11283123400540587033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19384577.post-40282587892265927532007-06-21T17:25:00.000+02:002007-06-21T17:25:00.000+02:00Steve,What are your thoughts around distributivism...Steve,<BR/><BR/>What are your thoughts around distributivism?Magotty Manhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039164409659890130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19384577.post-87036874920491666432007-06-21T05:56:00.000+02:002007-06-21T05:56:00.000+02:00No, not fascism. We still have a liberal-democrati...No, not fascism. We still have a liberal-democratic constitution, and the government is not trying to reintroduce detention without trial (as, for example, Britain is). <BR/><BR/>The neoliberals would say that political liberalism is not possible without economic liberalism, but I disagree.Steve Hayeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11283123400540587033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19384577.post-84270345744385852262007-06-20T17:27:00.000+02:002007-06-20T17:27:00.000+02:00Well Steve, sometimes I fear that SA exchanged one...Well Steve, sometimes I fear that SA exchanged one kind of fascism with another kind of fascism. Not Cmmunism, as the fear always was. But facism, where the big corporations and the state feed off the people, keeping them just happy enough to be subdued - although I gather that that is not currenly going so well?Magotty Manhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039164409659890130noreply@blogger.com