I am sharing a thoughtful post by Pam Bickell from her Notes Along The Path blog. She lives in a Land that has been largely privatised and mentions the effects it has had on the population and I am now living in a Land that has had what she is proposing, but has chosen to privatise and move into a capitalistic model with disasterous results for the society. Risk Capital Companies are now buying schools and taking over part of the health care and elder care. They operate under what I call the Wal-Mart or Target system and for those who know of the Wal-Mart or Target model, you will know exactly what I am talking about.
All I will say is that the private model is no better than the social model. Neither function very well, but this is mainly due to State, County and Townships maintaining their non profit status while at the same time demanding greater profits. A few at the top get high salaries and very generous pension benifits while cutting workers salaries, laying off people, and even using free labour funded by the state through their various flim flam social and work programs, not only supplying free labour, but giving private companies and non-profit organizations a bonus of 5,000 swedish crowns per month to take in the unemployed and handicapped in the guise of helping them. From my experience Socialism is every bit as corrupt as a Capitalist system. Having lived in both worlds, I see little difference.
There have been a number of scandals in the schools and in the health care system of late. Both are systems imploding upon themselves and nobody seems to know what to do or will take responsibility for the imposed destruction of an entire culture. There is now a show on Swedish TV called, The World's Best Shit Schools looking at the Swedish Schools. When Swedish school children were asked what 800 divided by 100 equals, only a small per cent gave the correct answer. When the Program Leader asked the same question in a Chinese school, 100 % knew the correct answer.
When Swedes discuss these hot topics with me, I calmly say, "What do you expect? When the private companies come into the Swedish market place , they hire the same people as before from a public system that no longer functions, so what do you expect? There is much talk about the need for good teachers and health care workers, but where will you find enough people with a good education, good skills or a good work ethic that have gone through the worlds best shit schools? They have never been properly trained to handle stress, take responisbility, or deal with the consequences for their actions.
So, in conclusion, the quality of any system depends on the quality of the people. Unfortunately, we live in profit driven societies in which money and image is more important than the quality or the reality of our everyday lives. This creates conflicts and a multitude of mental, emotional and physical problems with a majority of the population lacking the knowledge or the skills need to reverse the decline and what some believe to be a total collapse of our capitalistic model.
Now, to read Pams thoughts , plus the thoughts of two economists on this subject, please click on the link below. I understand her American perspective, after living in it for the greatest part of my lifetime.
http://notesalongthepath.com/2011/12/14/non-profit-based-health-care-and-education-systems/
7 comments:
Hi Mike,
If I'd thought that through, I would've realized it would end up with the same abuses. I've always thought of non-profit organiza-tions as the key to quality, but as large as the needs of the health care and education systems are,without people with values running them, it all turns out the same. This is very sad news. Have you thought of any solutions? Thanks for posting my piece here.
P.S.--I'm going to post your post at my blog, in answer. It's important for everyone to know.
Our son was homeschooled until 7th grade, when he was offered a scholarship to a Friends' school --Quakers have a long tradition of fine schooling. Unfortunately he found himself surrounded by very wealthy aggressive atheists who were first class bullies.
Teachers were great, though. He got to study Dante in 8th grade & thoroughly enjoyed it.
The high school curriculum had not one dead white male in the literature offerings in any grade. We withdrew him and he began high school at a small rural academy which provided bus service. Some children rode an hour each way daily in order to avoid the mental and cultural vacuum of public schools. In many cases, their parents struggled to pay tuition.
The teachers at private schools do not have to be accredited in the ruling norms of pedagogy -- norms which have long been discredited outside the ivory towers who profit from promoting them.
However, these teachers knew their material and expected the students to show respectful attention. Most of them did.
He was taught AP biology by a retired biology professor, formerly the head of his department.
His government class was taught by a retired military man who'd been all over the world.
Shakespeare was lovingly rendered by one of those classicly spinsterish women who live to teach. She was a refugee from the public school system.
For statistics and French he was able to attend a local private college for free. A long-standing agreement the school had with the college to offer subjects not given at the school itself. Later in college he got credit for these, but they didn't count toward his hours for graduation.
The French professor at this college was very liberal so he honed his proficiency in order to tell her in French why she should read Frederic Bastiat.
You can read the arguments for a moral capitalism (once well-known in England via the Quakers)at the Acton Institute. This post, with views on London, was done earlier this month:
Letter From London
BTW, look up the Bastiat info there. He leaned heavily on the English economists of his time, particularly Richard Cobden.
There is a place for capitalism in a moral society.
Thanks for coming by our blog.
Hello Pam:
Well, here the Sweden the head of the Red Cross was caught red handed stealing 5 million swedish crowns from the general fund and there are weekly scandals of Politicians at all levels embezzling money as well as not for profit organizations abusing public funds.
One of the Top politicians in my Township has a debt of 45 million swedish crowns in his personal live and he is allowed to handle taxpayer money. Of course, the bigger boys above him have complete confidence in him. Would you trust a man like this with public funds?
If you could read Swedish, you would find that the Swedes can compete with any nation in the world when it's comes to corruption by public officials and the abuse of taxpayer money.
The social controls are so strong that few will speak up. When the common people are given small hand outs they are not likely to rock the boat and risk punishment when the big boys & girls are stealing at a high level.
Just the tip of the ice berg of corruption in Sweden.
Take care,
Mike
Policy makers job is very important.
nice thoughtful post.
Hello Dymphia:
Thank you for the thoughtful comment and the link to, "Letter from London."
Best wishes,
Mike
I'm adding this link to these comments:
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=6222523
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