Daaaamn right!....
So what I am attempting is to bring forward the observation that in our society there is this intense push to privatise and 'transactionalise' everything. I think I have blogged previously (my existential crisis...one of many, but of the few that actually pass my rational barrier, and make it out to the bloggosphere. Oh, well, 'sharing is caring') about my concern.
However, this particular subject is beginning to crop up everywhere on my radar: NHS privatisation, outsourcing of jails (what the....?), education (old news I admit) etc. And finally, I recently read this on a twitter post, which I paraphrase: should teachers begin to see their students as consumers of their service?
Now, I am a capitalist, I am not blind to the fact that human nature necessitates a personal profit driven motive to progress (i.e. higher levels of hygiene, if we need a basic measure for progress, as an off hand example). However, there are certain things which should never be subject to a transaction. For example, the communist mindset is ideal for a happy, cohesive, functional family. It's normal for the family mantra to be: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". I am glad mum and dad never expected us to earn our way, and pay rent while my sis and I were freely pooping in our nappies. The communist slogan is frankly a beautiful sentiment, and works well within a family setting (and why we may all hate/love to bits our families) but it just doesn't scale - as a couple of social experiments have demonstrated. AND...by this same token, just because capitalism works so well on a large societal/civilisation scale, does not mean that capitalism scales down. It must be admitted, acknowledged and respected that certain services are the product of the generosity of human nature (which capitalism by definition does not consider, but this doesn't mean this generosity of spirit is non existent).
Admittedly, this generosity I speak of is easier to imagine in the case of a teacher/student relationship, and not so much between a criminal and his/her jail warden, but what I am trying to say is that there are certain 'services' of a society which should remain run by the state. Yes, I agree that state run services suffer from gross inefficiencies, these should be addressed, but with a surgeon's scalpel, not a butcher's cleaver.
The outcome of these trends of gross capitalisation, is that when student's are asked why they did not fill out an assessment/survey form for a class at the end of a semester reply that it is not in their interest to contribute to the betterment of the class, as in a few years time, it is possible that new graduates from the same, but now 'better' class will be their competition in the market place. (True story. Courtesy of a friend.) This deserves a capitalisation of WTF larger than I can get in this font. This thought process is so poignantly a product of capitalism, it will serve these students well on the stock exchange. But to live a life of such emotional miserly is to never live - to redefine the human condition. <- Yeah, yeah... I am being sentimental, but then I'm not an emotional capitalist.
So what I am attempting is to bring forward the observation that in our society there is this intense push to privatise and 'transactionalise' everything. I think I have blogged previously (my existential crisis...one of many, but of the few that actually pass my rational barrier, and make it out to the bloggosphere. Oh, well, 'sharing is caring') about my concern.
However, this particular subject is beginning to crop up everywhere on my radar: NHS privatisation, outsourcing of jails (what the....?), education (old news I admit) etc. And finally, I recently read this on a twitter post, which I paraphrase: should teachers begin to see their students as consumers of their service?
Now, I am a capitalist, I am not blind to the fact that human nature necessitates a personal profit driven motive to progress (i.e. higher levels of hygiene, if we need a basic measure for progress, as an off hand example). However, there are certain things which should never be subject to a transaction. For example, the communist mindset is ideal for a happy, cohesive, functional family. It's normal for the family mantra to be: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". I am glad mum and dad never expected us to earn our way, and pay rent while my sis and I were freely pooping in our nappies. The communist slogan is frankly a beautiful sentiment, and works well within a family setting (and why we may all hate/love to bits our families) but it just doesn't scale - as a couple of social experiments have demonstrated. AND...by this same token, just because capitalism works so well on a large societal/civilisation scale, does not mean that capitalism scales down. It must be admitted, acknowledged and respected that certain services are the product of the generosity of human nature (which capitalism by definition does not consider, but this doesn't mean this generosity of spirit is non existent).
Admittedly, this generosity I speak of is easier to imagine in the case of a teacher/student relationship, and not so much between a criminal and his/her jail warden, but what I am trying to say is that there are certain 'services' of a society which should remain run by the state. Yes, I agree that state run services suffer from gross inefficiencies, these should be addressed, but with a surgeon's scalpel, not a butcher's cleaver.
The outcome of these trends of gross capitalisation, is that when student's are asked why they did not fill out an assessment/survey form for a class at the end of a semester reply that it is not in their interest to contribute to the betterment of the class, as in a few years time, it is possible that new graduates from the same, but now 'better' class will be their competition in the market place. (True story. Courtesy of a friend.) This deserves a capitalisation of WTF larger than I can get in this font. This thought process is so poignantly a product of capitalism, it will serve these students well on the stock exchange. But to live a life of such emotional miserly is to never live - to redefine the human condition. <- Yeah, yeah... I am being sentimental, but then I'm not an emotional capitalist.
