Transcript Is Capitalism good for our health?

Global Capitalism 1980-2012
• Underpins & maintains inequities
• Growth of large corporations
especially financial sector making
profits out of speculation with money
• De-regulation in the interests of
greater market profitability
• Cut back to public services,
Privatisation of essential services
• No signs of ecological responsibility
in face of the hunt for profits
maximisation
Global Capitalism 1980-2012
• Environmental costs transferred
to low income countries
• Creation of consumer demand
(advertising) and unhealthy
products
• Social safety nets dismantled
• Capture the total benefit of
productivity gains for owners
and managers
• Shift the tax burden from
financial speculators to working
people
Global Capitalism 1980-2012
• Creation of consumer demand
(advertising) for unhealthy
products
• Big Pharma blocks access to
essential drugs
• Exerts massive political power
in international agencies and
with national governments –
lobbyists, donations, controlling
media and agenda setting
Corporations are not accountable
• Need for more social, environmental and health
equity impact assessments on activities of global
corporations
• Tax avoidance is rife – in Australia from 1962-3 to
2002-3 the ration of revenue from individual and
other withholding tax to company tax changed
from 2:1 to 3.8:1
• No global treaty to control their behaviour
• Their lobbying power is huge influence on
governments around the world
Tobacco
• Shows us the complete
immorality of some global
corporations
• History of concealing
evidence on link with lung
cancer
• Fighting government
action – e.g. sueing
Australian measure to
introduce plain paper
packaging
• Moving business to low
income countries
Youth smoking in Indonesia
Over the last 20 years or so, the rate of children smoking in the
US has halved and in Australia it's fallen even more but in
Indonesia it’s tripled in less than 10 years. The national children's
charity says big tobacco and the Government are equally to
blame and it’s planning to sue both, using Ilam as one of its case
studies.” ABC 7.30 Report 20/06/2012, Reporter: Matt Brown
Inter-related crises
Ecological and climate
crisis
Financial
crisis
Unfair global economic
and political system:
• Excess wealth,
• Over-consumption
Health – inequities,
chronic disease,
Social crisis – high mental
illness, isolation. Lack of
community and solidarity
Manufacturing consent (Noam Chomsky)
• Idea there is no alternative to model of economic
growth
• Notion that inequities are part of the natural order
• Socialism derided rather than learning lessons
from past and developing better forms
• Media owned by large corporations and work to
create a world safe for capitalism
• Alternative visions are subjugated and derided
Idea that inequities are part of the natural
order and that people who do not do well
are in some way deficient.
This has been a constant theme in human
history to justify inequities such as :
•
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Slavery
Subjugation of women
Colonialism (White man as superior)
Excess wealthy – the deserving wealthy
Social suffering, lateral violence
Undermining solidarity
What’s to be
done?
Will we be able to shift our political, economic and
social systems and create democratic states not
dominated by profits and which respond to
people’s needs and are ecologically sustainable?
Role of PHM
• Critiquing the current
order – we do this
well – speaking truth
to power
• Global health watch analysis
• Using analysis to
imagine a better
world
People’s Charter for Health
• Sets out an alternative
vision of a world not
dominated by profit but by
the needs of people and
the environment
• Updated in Cape Town
Call to Action
Increased civil society
protest and questioning
of global capitalism
Demanding corporate accountability
Demand corporations pay fair
tax and are held to account for
environmental impact
Need to imagine alternative economic
systems……….
• “Consume less and share better” (Kempf, 2008)
• Rooted to local communities and the peoples’ lives within
them and a sense of obligation to local communities while
being globally responsible
• Establish worker controlled enterprises
• That support and enhance people's mental and physical
health and the natural environment
• Supports Marx’s vision of “the rich human being” which
will undermine social suffering, lateral violence and build
solidarity between people
Structures to regulate capital and protect people’s
health and well-being
• Governments that regulate economic systems for
health, equity and the environment & tax for
health & well-being
• Global governance for human rights and public
good – including global taxation regimes
• Create conditions for local democracy and
exercise of citizenship, protection of rights of
citizens to protest
• Support poor communities to develop skills,
capacities and abilities
• Other means of measuring progress – Happy
Planet Index & Gross National Happiness will
lead to different things that are valued
If we succeed the key indicator is
easy – the children of the world
including Africa will live in
environments that enable them to live
healthy, sustainable and flourishing
lives!