the Not Monday debate: which would you choose, democracy or an NHS?

[SenoraPostrophe]

back by popular demand! (shitemum asked anyway). the Monday debate, and it's not even Monday.

anyway, I thought about this the other month when Fidel castro stepped down. There was a lot of debate at the time about democracy and the lack thereof in Cuba. But most of the people talking (the ones I heard anyway) were from the US. they don't have a proper health service in the US, where they have an excellent one in Cuba.

so my question is this: Citizens of the US have the freedom to vote for their leaders. They do not have the freedom to be (necessarily) treated by a doctor, unless they are insured or rich. Who is the more free?

I do think there may be an alternative to democracy. obviously dictatorship isn't it, although some dictators have done good things in their early years in power. the problem is that power corrupts after time, so I suggest the whole of parliament is appointed on 6 year terms (with the terms not coinciding, so some legislators have experience) at random, like jury service.

I think it would be much better.

Democracy, because at least then one has the chance to change the system and introduce an NHS-style system.

I think it was Churchill who said "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

Even if you had a benevolent dictator, power would tend to go to their head in the end and they'd go mad or become very, very cruel. And the next one might not be so benevolent.

Although I'm sure if I ran the country I could sort everything out, of course! Vote edam for dictator... um, I think my slogan needs some work.

Gosh, interesting question. My immediate knee jerk feeling is the NHS since the US model of no pay = no treatment is anathema to me. OTOH, democracy means the people theoretically get a say in a lot of other things that affect daily life. Like voting for parties on the basis of their policies re transport and education and so on.

However, given that I think democracy as it operates in the western world isn't very democratic then I am going to say NHS. There, sorted!

Ah! Had only read OP but see that wise women have said similar about democracy being a bit undemocratic these days. Iraq being particularly relevant.

[stands slack-jawed on the sidelines watching the clever people talk]

Thanks Señora!

It's one of those questions where you feel obliged to turn into an old bollocks and say "what, precisely, do you mean by democracy? And what, precisely do you mean by 'the NHS'?" - which means, hmm, bloody good question.

So. What do I mean by democracy. Is it the same as freedom? I don't think it is. So what is democracy? It is about being able to vote and to have that vote counted. Unfortunately where your choices of who to vote for are almost limited to 'faceless guy with red tie', 'faceless guy with blue tie' you do wonder what choice the people are being given. (And bear in mind 'demos' means something more like 'citizen' than 'person', hence how you could argue denying women the vote was not contradictory since women were not demos .. sort of self-fulfilling, you're not in our club therefore you don't get to vote).

What is the NHS? Is it a service in which all healthcare is free at the point of delivery? What about social care? Where does it begin and end? Should no-one pay for any healthcare, ever, even if it's botox or a boob job?

I think at the moment we have a creaking, virtually-non-functional NHS and we have a creaking, virtually-non-functional democracy. If I have to choose what to fix first I say NHS.

lol at tribpot and her defining of terms before arguing. did you get a 1st?

anyway. the other option is that voters get to vote on policy, as well as on the politicians. they vote in who they think will do the job best, but they also get to say what they want on key policies. would work on minimum wage, PFI, Iraq, but not on capital punishment (apparently)

Errr ... I did. But that was more about bamboozling examiners with statements like "in considering the cultural significance of the gaucho in Argentina, it is important to compare and contrast with the similar role of the samurai in Japan". Now, actually that's true, but none of my examiners knew that, they were just so gobsmacked by my self-assuredness that they thought it must be true and marked me accordingly! (Trib's life skill learnt at uni was the art of blagging).

Also I revised a book called Pedro Paramo. Everyone in the book is dead. Everyone in the book talks about death constantly. So I revised "Death In Pedro Paramo". My lecturer manages to write an exam question which is not about death in Pedro Paramo. I am forced to bring in Greek mythology (god knows how) to defend my case, and it works. She even told me how impressed she was afterwards, how embarrassing.

However, after all that digressing, I agree, how do you make it so that voters can vote more often than once every four/five years? That isn't how it was in Athens you know ... We seem to regard referendum as a dirty word, I don't know why.

I don't hold athens as the high point of democracy actually. only a very small proportion of the population could vote after all.

I think the reason referendum is a dirty word is because politicians think that if "their" side loses, they are lost. eg on the europe issue - if we voted against the treaty where would that leave the politicians who support it? (I don't see why it will affect them, but the press will have an opinion. as they always do). plus of course, the majority is sometimes wrong - eg on capital punishment (apparently)

(impressed at your blagging btw, tp. I blagged the wrong things I think)

NHS, without a doubt. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't really imagined the full horror of sitting with a child vomiting blood and knowing that there's absolutely nowhere you can get them help because you're unemployed or uninsured or just too poor.

I think there are some fairly serious flaws in democracy as it is practised and understood, not least of which is that half of the population is below average intelligence. I think that it's fundamentally wrong that Noam Chomsky, who has spent his life thinking deeply about politics and society, should get the same vote as Dave From The Pub who thinks that everything in the Daily Mail is true and that Poles are taking all our jobs and women are getting a bit too uppity for their own good now they've got jobs. Or, as happened in the last US presidential election, that Iraq was responsible for September 11 and not our jolly Saudi mates.

In Hong Kong, which is not democratic (and never was - it's nothing to do with the Chinese, the British didn't let them have direct government when it was a colony either), it costs about GBP7 for anything in the hospital system, from having a splinter removed to a heart-lung transplant. Everyone is pretty happy with the status quo. The health system is possibly the best in the world, the schools are excellent, public housing is easy to get even if you're on the lowish side of the average wage. There are some grumblings about democracy but it's really a garnish. No way would anyone swap what they've got for democracy.

Freedom only works for those with money. Give me a truly benign dictorship any day with oddles of free stuff. Even if I were well off and able to take care of myself, I wouldn't want to be surrounded by the have-nots dying all over the place, nor could I be sure that my wealth would last for ever or provide for my descendants.

Give me freedom or death, my arse!

i don't think we do have a creaking democracy and a creaking nhs.

i think we have pretty good both actually and i think we can forget that. i am kept alive for £12 per month ffs ( to me) my daughter kept alive for free!! sure it could be zillion times better - but my god, how very excellent it is now with all its failings.

i don't think that democracy = freedom either but rather a delusion of such.

don't know the answer but dont think we have the shit end of the stick here

i got a new recycling bin through lobbying my councillor - democracy in action before the may elections.

my daughter got hearing aids within a matter of weeks.

sorry to bring this down to personal experiences as its often not helpful as examples as someone else is going to ell you that their whole family died through lack of half a paracetemol in birmingham or something.

must run for a train

We wouldn't have an NHS in the first place without democracy - the post WW2 Labour government was voted in because it promised to change the old order and make things better for ordinary people.

During the war, the middle and upper classes had mixed with the working classes and got to know them at close hand, so the old prejudices and stereotypes had been shown to be false. And the working classes felt very strongly they weren't going through all that just to go back to the previous set-up of entrenched inequality.

I agree the NHS, for all its faults, is pretty darn good actually. The health systems in other countries fuck up occasionally, too. It's just that because we have 'the NHS' whenever something goes wrong it's blamed on 'the NHS', confusing the funding method with performance.

The people here in Nigeria would love to have the 'creaking, virtually-non-functional NHS' that the UK has. Almost anyone who can afford it leaves Nigeria for the UK/US for medical treatment.

They'd quite like our version of democracy, too. However creaky it may be, I have never heard of anyone in the UK who has been stopped from voting because the result in their constituency has already been announced.

swc - but zimbabwe is a democracy. they have elections, although there has been a lot of electoral fraud and intimidation. in the UK, there has been a lot of electoral fraud too (not as much as in Zimbabwe, but a significant amount), and there could be much more if they don't hurry up and tighten up the postal voting rules? when do we become a non-democracy?

ha! A democracy - Zimbabwe??

with 40,000 farm workers having fled their homes after being attacked by "militia" in Army uniform - purely because the farm workers are quite often MDC supporters...

you call this a "democracy"????

"The people here in Nigeria would love to have the 'creaking, virtually-non-functional NHS' that the UK has. Almost anyone who can afford it leaves Nigeria for the UK/US for medical treatment."

I'm sure that's true, but to what extent does that mean those of us in the UK should put up and shut up with what we have, simply because it's better than elsewhere? I've seen children begging in the streets in Mexico, and families (well off ones) living in a one-room house in Soweto, so on that basis, we should all just shut the fuck up and think "thank crap I don't live there". But I don't think it's wrong to want to debate the privileges of the Western world. (a) why do we have them - or freedom - if not and (b) lord knows we're paying for them.

I'm quite sure it isn't the case that taxes are proportionately less where services are proportionately fewer, but taking the Swedish model, I'm also not completely convinced that taxes are proportionately higher where the services are proportionately greater. (Or vice versa, maybe).

I won't debate the NHS on anecodtal evidence because it's too easy in either direction. For myself, I am chained to living in the UK because my dh is dependent on methadone that I don't believe we will be able to obtain in another country (he suffers from chronic pain). Plus I work for the NHS. The original question asked about 'an' NHS, which doesn't need to be the one we have now, I guess.

i am sure we can't use the fact that another country has piss poor health care therefore our is good and we should be greatful

i actually think ours is good

and i am grateful daily

is it the eutopian ideal flawless and serving everyone - no

there is lots wrong with it but lets not foget there tons right with it too.

i think i am saying that if we cant measure against what it isn't in other countries byt the same token we can't measure what it could be either.

any road up my son has a dentist appointment tomorrow - a free one at that.

Oh, I don't think for a minute that those in the UK should put-up-and-shut-up about the NHS, there is always (and always will be, I suspect) room for improvement. But I do think we need to keep a sense of proportion about it, I just don't believe the UK has a 'creaking, virtually-non-functional NHS'.

suedomin just said it much better in 3 lines than i managed in two posts

slurrrrrrrp