The big question – which one must face as a primate (ape) is: “Social-IQ” / “Society-IQ”: can humans as a group and even as a bigger group of millions still behave intelligently?
Hunting Mastodon (ancient elephants, “natural prey” of humanoid primates, TOO BIG to be hunted by an individual with a spear) is one thing – but taking care of a whole planet is a much larger thing.
Are humanoid primates able – to play even as “big teams” of millions / are they able to work peacefully / successfully / behave constructively together – or not?
Does it only work in small teams / on small scale?
(democracy in Switzerland and Iceland is way more alive than in EU / USA)
And what does this depend on?
What environment is needed to make it work?
Is it a culture “thing”?
It is pretty clear to me – that this has to do with the presence or absence of consciousness and empathy.
Why should a person when he/she is born in Cuba – studying medicine – earning 60-USD (official unit of trade for the economic zone of North America and their partners, without guaranteed equivalent (like gold)) and 10,000 CUP (currency unit of Cuba’s economic zone without guaranteed equivalent (like 1L of Rum)) – be honest – eat vegetables instead of meat – drive bicycle instead of a car – and stay in Cuba if he/she could earn 6000 USD in New York or London or Malta or some other western country?
Why should he/she not move to “more Dollars”?
Sounds harsh – but I think the problem with Marx was – that he did not study psychology – enough.
The psychology of people seems to be pretty egoistic if you live in capitalism – and i wonder if this is the “natural state” and if Marx massively underestimated this (species wise self destructive) factor.
More US-Dollars means more “access” / more “rights to access” of the trading zone – more access to the resources of this planet – to buy more CocaCola and IPhones – if that is – what makes happy and gives life meaning. (probably not… it is the beginning of even more problems that did not exist in the first place X-D)
has the revolution failed?
one thing first – after the collapse of Cuba’s biggest trading partner – the Soviet Union – it was expected that Cuba would experience famine.
It did not.
Today Cuba has one of the most innovative health care systems and Cuban farm 100% biologically (which means more manual work… but that would be not bad to obese USA and EU citizens).
So no it has NOT completely failed.
Often South American countries look towards Cuba as the “role model” – because they kept their independence from the US-Dollar to this date and nobody died of hunger.
500.000 children could still be alive right now – if Iraq would produce it’s own medicine.
The prices of goods and salaries are adjusted by the government.
There are two currencies to further separate Cubans from foreigners.
Cubans get paid in a currency that is for Cubans only.
With that currency you can purchase goods at government set prices.
The thing is, the government doesn’t really have that many goods to sell in those prices so Cubans usually have to resort to the black market or the free (as if for foreigners) market which have prices closer to international values.
Cubans don’t live through the month with their salaries.
They have additional sources of income that are usually shady or outright illegal.
Doctors get gifts all the time from patients to get better attention.
Farmers are legally bound to sell their whole products to the government, but they usually sell some on the side to get more income.
Some other workers steal food or small stuff from their workplace to get by.
Inspectors usually get bribed to turn a blind eye, so they get their extra from this. It’s all very shady and corrupt, but it’s part of the Cuban life.
The point is, though, that because the economy is centralized, Cubans get access to cheap products, but are also paid very low wages.
Die grosse Frage – die man(n)/Frau sich als Primat(Affe) stellen muss ist: Social-IQ / Society-IQ: Sind Menschen fähig – auch als “große Teams” erfolgreich/konstruktiv zusammen zu arbeiten – oder nicht.
Mir ist schon klar dass das etwas massiv mit Bewusstsein zu tun hat.
Warum sollte ein Mensch, wenn Er/Sie in Kuba zur Welt kommt – dort ein Medizinstudium ableistet – sich mit 60-Währungs-Einheiten der Handelszone Nord-Amerika ohne garantierten Gegenwert (USD) und 10.000-Währungs-Einheite der Handelszone Kuba ohne garantierten Gegenwert (CUP, Cuban Pesos) im Monat (ein sehr guter Verdienst in Kuba aber nicht in New York oder London – zufrieden zu geben?
Warum sollte er nicht “mehr” Dollars?
Klingt hart – aber ich denke Marx hatte die Psychologie des Menschen – und dessen scheinbar sehr ausgeprägten Egoismus – nicht ganz auf dem (Bild)Schirm oder hat diese grob fahrlässig unterschätzt.
Mehr Rechte auf globale Ressourcen und die daraus produzierten IPhone-Güter haben? / Einfordern?
Welche Art von gesellschaftlichem Betriebsystem wäre nötig?
When Governments – almost globally – are dependent on the flow of money they can’t print – what do you think the “governmental intervention” into this system will look like?
They will be very market driven – market means: whoever has more money get’s his way.
Then we are at a point where democracy is “ad absurdum” (does not make any sense anymore).
A tax fraud that is going on over almost a decade – with advisors to the gov coming from a bank – politicians signing the advice into law – making things even worse.
Does privatization of health care system pay off in terms of:
cost-effectiveness/efficiency/better quality of service for the patience – or is it yet another privatization-trap?
Where costs go up and quality goes (even further) down?
A Lesson from Canada: – if you want to increase inequality: keep going!
The pain is massive in the Brittish/English health system:
and it also starts to grow in other European countries – especially those with harsh austerity meassures (Greece, France but Germany also where privatization of health care is in full throttle with e.g. investors buying private practices as an crisis secure investment or US-Mars buying 2000 pet health care doctor pracices and now also goes shopping in Europe)
“University city the British on: A senior doctor has announced there, chemotherapy treatments for cancer patients would have to be rationed because the hospital has too few qualified nurses” …
“The news also struck the death of a senior citizen in the English seaside resort of Clacton, who died last week after having to wait four hours for an emergency ambulance at her home.” On New Year’s Day, a patient who had suffered a stroke in the city of Portsmouth had to stand for seven hours Another patient reported a gynecological examination on a crowded hospital corridor on the BBC because no room was available. ”
“The NHS, founded 70 years ago and” free “for patients, is considered by millions of Britons, despite its weaknesses, to be the proudest achievement of their welfare state” …
“In light of disaster reports from hospitals” (chronically underfunded as in Cuba XD) “, a debate has begun on reforms that would be virtually revolutionary for Britain: the introduction of an” NHS tax “, the proceeds of which will be used to finance health care only. In fact, this would be a change of system – away from tax financing, towards a contributory state health insurance. ” …
“It is largely undisputed among experts that the huge health service, which is one of the largest employers in the world with around 1.5 million employees, not only needs to become more efficient, but also needs more money.” …
The British model would thus still be similar to the highly controversial “Citizens’ Insurance”, for the introduction of which in this country, the SPD has advertised in the explorations with the Union parties. The Social Democrats want to oblige all citizens to join such a unitary insurance. …
“The hard state austerity measures in the United Kingdom in recent years has left deep marks, not least in the health care system.” …
“In terms of infant mortality, the UK has fallen from seventh to 19th place in the EU in 25 years, 40 percent fewer nurses and 30 percent fewer doctors than in Germany.
This is also due to the fact that too few specialists were trained for cost reasons. Healthcare spending is a quarter lower than in Germany. If you can afford it, you can get private health insurance, but nine out of every ten Britons rely on the NHS alone. ”
“In 1972 the Yukon Territory became the last jurisdiction in Canada to adopt the Medical Care Act, which set up a system to provide hospital and physician care to all Canadians.1 Before then, the Canadian and US health care systems were similar. Both were partly public, partly private, partly for profit and partly nonprofit. Both also left a great many citizens uninsured
The costs were also about the same — a little over $300 per person in 1970 — as were outcomes. At that time, life expectancy was about a year longer in the United States.2
But with the implementation of Canadian medicare, the 2 systems rapidly began to diverge in all respects.”
The US (health care) system became more and more costly, leaving increasing numbers of Americans — now about 46 million people (15%) — uninsured.
In 2005, expenditures were twice as high in the US as in Canada — US$6697 per person v. US$3326 in Canada.3
37% of Americans reported that they went without needed care because of cost, compared with 12% of Canadians.3 …
life expectancy of Americans is now 2.5 years shorter than that of Canadians.2 …
contrary to popular belief, people in the US do not receive more health care services. They visit their doctors much less often and spend less time in hospital than Canadians do (Table 1). Per population, there are also fewer nurses and hospital beds in the US, although there are slightly more doctors and many more magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) units.5,7…
“health care is distributed not according to medical need but, rather, according to the ability to pay”
Privatisierung des Deutschen Gesundheitssystems: (nicht nur Krankenkassen, sondern auch Krankenhäuser und Arztpraxen)
rentiert es sich? Gesellschaftlich? Wird es günstiger und die Servicequalität besser?
Oder handelt es sich um eine weitere Privatisierungsfalle? (Mit steigenden Kosten und (noch weiter) sinkender Qualität?)
A Lesson from Canada: – wenn man die Ungleichheit weiter befeuern möchte: weiter so!
15% aller Amerikaner sind nicht krankenversichert.
37% können sich keine ärztliche Behandlung leisten.
Wie sieht es aus in USA und Kanada?
“1972 wurde das Yukon-Territorium das letzte Land in Kanada, in dem das Medical Care Act verabschiedet wurde, mit dem ein System geschaffen wurde, das allen Kanadiern die Versorgung von Krankenhäusern und Ärzten ermöglicht.1
Bis dahin waren die kanadischen und US-amerikanischen Gesundheitssysteme ähnlich teils öffentlich, teils privat, teils gewinnorientiert und teils gemeinnützig, beide haben auch viele Bürger unversichert gelassen
Die Kosten waren ebenfalls ungefähr gleich – etwas mehr als 300 US-Dollar pro Person im Jahr 1970 – und die Ergebnisse.
Zu diesem Zeitpunkt war die Lebenserwartung in den Vereinigten Staaten etwa ein Jahr länger.2
Mit der Einführung der kanadischen Medikamentenentwicklung begannen die beiden Systeme in jeder Hinsicht rasch voneinander zu abweichen.
Das US-amerikanische Gesundheitssystem wurde immer kostspieliger, so dass immer mehr Amerikaner – jetzt etwa 46 Millionen Menschen (15%) – nicht versichert waren.
2005 waren die Ausgaben in den USA doppelt so hoch wie in Kanada – 6697 USD pro Person gegenüber 3326 USD in Kanada.3
37% der Amerikaner gaben an, dass sie aus Kostengründen auf die notwendige Pflege verzichten mussten, verglichen mit 12% der Kanadier.3
Die Lebenserwartung der Amerikaner ist jetzt 2,5 Jahre kürzer als die der Kanadier.2
Entgegen der landläufigen Meinung erhalten die Menschen in den USA nicht mehr Gesundheitsleistungen.
Sie besuchen ihre Ärzte viel seltener und verbringen weniger Zeit im Krankenhaus als Kanadier (Tabelle 1).
Pro Einwohner gibt es in den USA auch weniger Krankenschwestern und Krankenhausbetten, obwohl es etwas mehr Ärzte und viele weitere Magnetresonanztomographen (MRI) gibt.5,7 …
Gesundheitsfürsorge wird nicht nach medizinischem Bedarf, sondern nach Zahlungsfähigkeit behandelt”
500.000 children could still be alive right now – if Iraq would produce it’s own medicine.
