Elderly care, neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism…

Mats Thorslund.

In a discussion on elderly care in Sweden last night a professor in Social Gerontology Mats Thorslund said that the question “What care without dignity is” wasn’t interesting in the commission of inquiry concerning what care with dignity is. He had tried to raise this question with no response (whatsoever?) from the others in the committee (except from one person?).

Someone also spoke about that by redefining the needs (in this case the needs of elderly people) the politicians can get around the laws.

Here an article about that the old people’s needs in elderly care aren’t governing. And here about class differences in elderly care. See how the sociey is meeting old people's needs. More about Mats Thorslund and what he does (all those linked texs are in Swedish).

And once again, the more unequal society the worse the health not only among the poorest but through the whole society, due to the stress through the whole society. More equal societies work better.

Is the solution to go back to old time’s class differences? Should we rethink everything in the society? Is this with elderly care a symptom on something in the society and the whole world?

Neoliberal dreams are crashing…

A Swedish blogger writes in a blogposting about ”The [neo]liberals Dreams are Crashing, One After the Other” that she thinks [neo]liberalism is a preliminary stage to fascism. What she has been thinking on then is that with the inequality concerning living conditions that automatically follows from such a competition and let-go-politics that is practiced now and as the [neo]liberals are cherishing, people will soon vote for pure fascists.

Or the liberals themselves will go more and more in that direction to get voters from neofascists. And it’s exactly this we see many examples of already, above all concerning the hardened attitude against immigrants.

However, now we see yet another road away from a democratic disposition to a fascistic, as the economic let-go-economy can take too. The more you cut the taxes, privatize and try to create what you assert is freedom and freedom of choice, the worse and less free things become for more and more people, while the elite is drawing away from all other people.

The result will inevitably become more criminality and more corruption in the society. In that situation the state’s countermove will become to introduce more control, more control of most things.

The leader for the Liberal Party in Sweden, Jan Björklund, has been forced to confess that the free schools haven’t been functioning as the liberals thought when they initiated those almost twenty years ago. He doesn’t care especially much if some get much worse education than others or what the segregation in and between the schools is carrying with it.

But on the other hand he doesn’t think it’s good that schools are competing about students with giving them better and better grades/marks (something many was warning for when the free school system became introduced), as seem to have been the case. So now a new control system has to become created!

Comment: and what do those control system cost? And do they lead to a greater and greater freedom quite ironically? And we have also got much more moralizing towards certain groups (from people getting on their high horses).

Citizens have become more and more efficiently controlled.

“We have to protect ourselves against terrorism”

one say, but what one actually mean is to protect the rich establishment from the “social unrest” one is anxious about and that is produced because of living segregation, unemployment, worse school-education etc. etc.

Even though more control hasn’t been a very important question for the liberals you are maybe forced to introduce more control in one privatized area after the other (Addition August 21: and the strange thing is that Swedish liberals are against control!!! Contradicting - and confusing! Do they know what they are talking about? And what is freedom actually? Note: Swedish and American liberals aren't really the same!?).

The march into fascism continues she thinks.

“Safeguard the rich’s freedom, control and toe the line for the rest.”

A commentator to this posting writes that in the liberal utopia nothing is under democratic control, the only control that is left is the capitalistic. As liberalism reduces the part of the society that’s under democratic control, the liberalism is always approaching fascism.

He thinks the capitalism is organized top-down; i.e. a total control of the society. Because the institutions that used to be democratically organized aren’t democratically organized anymore.

He thinks grades or marks only are keeping the middleclass under its arms, so he propagate for no grades or marks.

He also writes about “a simpler and more secure life.” That the biological reason why we get together in groups/societies is twofold; reproduction and security. Those are the evolutionary advantages the society gives. A society that doesn’t create security for its citizens has no raison d’ètre, because it doesn’t fulfill the basic demand on a society.

All other values a society can convey are meaningless for the organism; they are most often just metaphysic constructions.

But security can become connected with metaphysic constructions as freedom. Because if you aren’t secure you aren’t free either, and then you suffer under the fear’s and anxiety’s coercion. Therefore it’s only a seeming freedom the liberals are aiming at, but instead they get a society where all are imprisoned by fear and anxiety for the future, poor as well as rich.

Why don't neoliberals love public health?

[Updated in the text July 27].

“... I think this is an important question at issue!”

the former director-general for the Swedish National Institute of Public Health Gunnar Ågren writes in the last blogposting from his time at the National Institute of Public Health.

He thinks the first cut-off point is about whether you shall look upon health as a human right or as a commodity. If you see health as a human right this also implies an obligation to see so all get this right through common measures.

Unfortunately it becomes more and more common with a market-thinking around health where we buy more or less qualified achievements to improve our health in the same way as we, depending on income, can choose to buy shoes or shirts of different qualities and prize-levels.

The second cut-off point is about the view on the market and its ability to solve basic distribution problems and thus health problems too.

This is not a new discussion. Already in the childhood of industrialism dogmatic market advocates were inconsistent with prohibitions against child workers, industrial welfare (safety) and sanitary reforms because this would disturb the supply of labor.

Luckily there were sensible politicians, often influenced by a pressure from below, realizing that protecting laws and a better hygiene in fact was something that promoted both social and economic development.

Unfortunately the blind faith in market forces has come back in today's more globalized world, even though it has gotten a certain blow the last weeks (the financial crisis).

The National Institute of Public Health (in Sweden) is seen as a trade barrier or disturbing element in the market Ågren says.

Reform politics [today] is sometimes synonymous with lifting welfare and protection legislation away.

There is a blind faith in that (parts of) the market wealth shall trickle down on the poor and sick too.

As has become clear for instance by data presented in the Marmot Commission report there is no indication that this theory is right.

On the contrary the evidences for the opposite connection is valid.

Basic welfare, a good education system, basal health care and a good public health means that more people can work, leads to that the productivity increases and the international competitiveness increases.

The third and last cut-off point is about the individual contra the society and the state. A row of health risks lies beyond the individual's control and possibility to take responsibility for. Air pollution, poverty and income inequality are only a few examples on health risks lying beyond the individual's control.

The Institute of Public Health has been seen as something implying guardianship from authorities and something that deprives people from their possibilities taking responsibility for their own life and health.

My comment: But – this institute has never forced any individual to anything?? Maybe forced public authorities? Just come with advices to individuals to which they can take whatever attitude they want?

Ågren continues: Of course the ones representing the public health interest have nothing against that people are taking responsibility, on the contrary, this is praiseworthy (fantastic and something great) but there are limitations in possibilities for taking responsibility for the health.

My comment: Yes, there are things lying beyond individuals' possibilities, but there are also a lot of things we CAN do!!! Something I think Ågren agrees to too. As the Institute does.

And I also wonder, why are some people paralyzed in these respect? And why are some don't caring and taking all sorts of risks, even enormous, challenging risks? However I have my ideas about this.

What can we do about this? What shall we do about this? Shall we do something about this?

I don't think any of those attitudes are irreversible though. We aren't born in this way. We CAN recover from this (but sometimes with a lot of hard work and struggles - and pain). But the best would be if we could prevent them in the first place, by treating our kids with greatest respect! Listen to them and meet them respectfully.

In reality the break through for democracy in Sweden largely was about that representatives for non-governmental movements conquered seats in parliamentary congregations on local, regional and national levels and forced through social protection legislation, a restrictive alcohol policy, ban on child labor, basic industrial safety – mostly in opposition to those in power who used to refer to the individual's freedom because they in their privileged position didn't have any greater needs for protection laws.

How well said! How many with money and power in this world havent' been interested in NOT loosing their power position, even though they retorically speak about freedom? What would actual freedom be? Freedom of choice etc. be?

Ågren thinks that this antagonism still holds.

Just as well as there shall be individual freedom there shall also be rights to create a loyal society with the democracy as tool where people don't have to become exposed to unnecessary health risks and where all have the same rights to best possible health.

There is still a lot to do. Our era's great health risk is the unequal distribution of power, nature resources, access to health care, education, money and influence/ascendency, something we see globally AND in our own country and that deprive many human beings from many healthy years that could be used to pet cats, see grandchildren, read good books, grow roses or why not fight for social justice.

Yes, can all people do this in this world? Do all people have those choices? Does it always have with their lack of responsible taking to do? Or with things beyond the possibilities that are presented for them in the society where they live? Can all people do this in our own western societies ether? Who can and who can not, and why?

Ågren retired last fall and here is his farewell speech (in Swedish).

And here a blogposting by Ågren on "The Globalization Board – a neoliberal think tank.” About the Globalization Board.

Also read the article "Equality of What?" by the British researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett and Paul Krugman in "Why markets can't cure healt Care."

Expressions mirrors values, more equal societies almost always do better – mind the income gaps...

The Norwegian blogger Sigrun writes that ”Words (or expressions) mirrors values”, in my amateur translation:

”The researchers and psychologists Hilde Eileen Nafstad and Rory Blakar have counted words that have become used in Norwegian newspapers the last 25 years. They mean that the individualism has exploded since 1984.

The word 'greediness' has increased with 200 percent. But this word is used in criticism of the phenomenon greediness too, so it isn't easy to say what sort of value the use of the word reflects, I think.

Exactly the same can be said about the use of the word 'consumer-society,' which has increased with 100 percent.

That the word 'user' has increased with 60 percent I don't think is strange at all. It has replaced 'recipient of service' in geriatric care, 'client' in social care and 'patient' in psychiatry.

The researchers say that it looks as there is a value change in the opposite direction since 2005. 'Moderation' and 'modesty, diffidence' are mentioned as examples. I would have preferred a renaissance for 'solidarity', which is 60 percent less used today than 1984.

'Moderation' and 'modesty' are individual projects for members of a fat middle class while 'solidarity' has with care of the less fortunate for ones eyes to do.”

Many believe this, but I don't agree. 'Solidarity' is significant for ALL people, in all societies and in the whole world, I think (much) more equal societies (than we have gotten the last 25 years all over the world) are beneficial for ALL people, rich as poor.

See the blogposting “Mind the income gap" about research that resulted in the book "The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better.
Article from TV2 in Norway.

Addition in the evening: Sigrun also writes about "Discourse analysis". That the objectivity conceals the many alternative possibilities for us and are a result of power.

Power is therefore a prerequisiote for to understand the world because it limits a great number of meanings and excludes alternative ways to see the world.

Something a psychiatrists knows she writes.

As a sociological or social critical notion (Foucault) discourse refers to an institutional thought out (??) way of thinking. The discourse idea brings out that it is a context between the forces in the society as they are materailized in institutions, in the language and in the individual's acknowledgement.

Discourse in such a meaning is closesy allied (bound) to different theories about power, where to be able to define discourse often is placed on equal footing with to define the reality itself.

About discourse analysis in Wikipedia.

See “Community and care work in a world of changing ideologies.”

Research on why more equal socities almost always do better...

See the book "The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Socities Almost Always Do Better" by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett .

They have also created the site The Equality Trust.

A review of this book and a seminar with the two authors on their findings:

Or listen here.

Addition May 14: Also see the publication "Mental Health, Resilience and Inequalities":

"Joint report with WHO Europe which demonstrates how poor mental health experienced by individuals is a significant cause of wider social and health problems, including:

• low levels of educational achievement and work productivity

• higher levels of physical disease and mortality

• violence, relationship breakdown and poor community cohesion

In contrast, good mental health leads to better physical health, healthier lifestyles, improved productivity and educational attainment and lower levels of crime and violence.”

Addition May 15:

"When a big kid hits a little kid, we call it bullying.
When an adult hits another adult, we call it assault.
When the adults in a family hit each other we call it battering or domestic violence.
When an adult hits a child we call it discipline."

Motive forces…

If the only motive (propelling) force is money what society, workplaces etc. does this create? Are we making a better job with this motive force (something power and career people "firmly" believe is a drive for all people)? I wonder if (all) people are only driven by money as the main motive force? But all people need and are entitled to live a decent life.

Is this motive force (money) a good motive force for making a good job? Are we making a better job when we are rewarded with more money than our colleagues? Are we making a better job today then we did earlier (when we didn’t have individual salary or wage)? I don’t think I do. And maybe that has reasons.

What happens when people realize that they have been striving for something that will probably never occur? That they are trapped in a life where they have to work till they fall dead down? Is this freedom or slavery (serfdom)? A modern form of serfdom and slavery?

How will they react if and when they realize that other people at the same time retire at an early age (in their fifties for instance) with a much higher material standard?

How do they react when they realize that if you land in different life circumstances it hasn’t with competence to do? Or does it have with competence to do?

Is the society encouraging sound drives in people I also wonder?

And the people in power are loyal to each other (networking).

If one generalizes: loyalty, solidarity is something women devote themselves to and are interested in, men compete instead. But I don’t think we are born this way.

The grassroots are caught by helplessness and resignedness (but from where do those feelings originate? So would it be possible doing something about them?).

What would sound drives be?

Society is encouraging unsound forces in people I would assert. And this leads to the kind of inequality we see all over the world. Leads to the enormous cleavages between people.

A voice in Sweden, on bonus and retirement scandals and a woman highest up in the labor union movement (Swedish Trade and Union Confederation):

“Wanja Lundby-Wedin is made scapegoat for dissatisfaction, anxiety and indignant feelings that have become ripped open in the paths of the financial crisis. What has she done?

She has as a member of the board for AMF [insurance company, administering retirement money] approved of a ‘juicy’ retirement agreement to a former CEO.

A fact that has been available for reading in the company’s annual report for many years – as a Sverker Sörlin pointed to in Dagens Nyheter [a big newspaper here] but something nobody have breathed about earlier. It has been possible for all those capable of reading from the book to acquaint themselves with these facts [they haven’t been hidden. But I wonder, where have the press and media been? And why haven’t they reported about this? Because they take on the power’s businesses?].

But now, when people are losing their jobs and greedy CEOs are allowed to wind (fawn) and pretend that they are giving up their giant bonuses, then one go for Wanja, who as the chairwomen for Swedish Trade and Union Confederation ought to know better [and yes, in a way she ought to??]. Where all other people have been blind she should have seen. She hasn’t grabbed anything for her own sake, she has only, as all other up there, failed to adjust to a slower speed in a bolting capitalism. For this she is hated and has to become removed while the overpaid capital and trade and industry elite remain sitting biding their time.

Financial crisis, losing ones job and bonuses isn’t Wanja’s fault. Our society’s mentality isn’t her fault. My thought is the more the man on the street shuts him/herself off from the public affairs, from the local politics and doesn’t engage her/himself –in the school and care, in how people are living, jobs and the distribution from the fruits of the society – the distance to those in power, who are power professionals will increase and that’s why we are getting all those things such as bonuses and fantasy agreements.

I think our society is suffering from a political but also trade and union lack of interest and a lack of engagement from the general public.

When people leave walk-over to the power we have gotten a societal climate where the cream of those in power believe they can do whatever they like, because they don’t get any feedback from reality until it’s too late [this was pretty kindly said, quite ironically. Do they care about the man on the street, generally? Of course I think there can be and are exceptions]. And not until fantasy pensions and bonus agreements are known to people, in the gloomy light of a financial crisis, one gets upset and start to tell people off in letters to the press and voting on the net.”

Yes, the power is networking, but what are we, the men and women on the street, doing?

And why?

It has been shown that the social mobility has been greater in the Scandinavian countries (with a strong welfare state) than in countries like Great Britain and USA. See here, here and here (the first two texts are in Swedish, but maybe possible to translate and the third is in English, from New York Times).

My blogpostings have been looking very strange for a long time. But I haven't had time figuring out what it has been about. It looked much better when I started blogging. This has been really disturbing, because actually I care how my blogs are looking. I get the message that my HTML-code isn't accepted... But I have been capable of posting anyway.

Demands and expectations…

…on different people. Are they the same?

Some Swedish voices on current "affairs" here:

”However, the highest up in trade and business get through the criticism gallantly because they have no moral capital to lose.”

“The moral laws in this world look like this: the ones fighting for equality always have to carry a much bigger responsibility than the ones fighting against it [right wing people get through the criticism while left wing don’t. And it’s like this it looks all over the world: you have higher demands on the ones that are supposed to be nice and think on other people. Or rather, lower or no demands on those that aren’t supposed to care about anybody else, or how you express this!?].”

“The very most of the power that is exercised in a society is produced through the economical owner conditions as we know.”

But in this world you put higher demands on those with less power and resources. And it seems to be the same all over the world (the power uses dividing and ruling as a method). Struck me on a bike ride that the Norwegian General Practitioner Anna-Luise Kirkengen talks and writes about power imbalance and what this means. With a few words this means that the one with more power has more responsibility. This doesn't mean though that the one with less power can do whatever he or she wants to the on with more power.

The more money and property you have the more power you have. Pippi Longstocking said something in the style:

“The stronger you are [the more power you have] the kinder you have to be.”

Those who have most money, property, things are they the kindest, nicest, most caring? How have they gotten their money, property, things? With what means?

The Swede Ingvar Kamprad for instance were not there for his kids I think. But he had a wife taking care of them and the home. And she stayed there for him too…

How many men of all the men in this world would back up a woman in that or a similar way? How many women haven’t had to choose between a possible career and a family?

What do we live on this earth for? What and how much should we have to sacrifice?

Addition in the evening: See earlier posting “What sort of self image – and self-esteem? On bonus and compensation scandals…”

It’s more okay when some people are bullies. Then we don't even see it many times?