PubMed · 11994638
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Ernesto Martén. 2002. Solidarism.. https://doi.org/10.1097/00006534-200205000-00068
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The likely impact of applying the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to higher education are examined. GATS aims to "open up" services to competition: no preference can be shown to national or government providers. The consequences for teaching are likely to be that private companies, with degree-awarding powers, would be eligible for the same subsidies as public providers. Appealing to the inadequate recently introduced "benchmark" statements as proof of quality, they would provide a "bare bones" service at lower cost. Public subsidies would go: education being reduced to that minimum which could be packaged in terms of verifiable "learning outcomes". The loss of "higher" aspirations, such education of critically-minded citizens of a democratic and civilized society would impoverish the university's research culture which demands honesty and openness to public scrutiny. Most university research is substantially supported by public subsidy. Under GATS discipline, commercial providers of research services could be entitled to similar public subsidies. Publicly funded fundamental research would fade, leaving university research totally dependent for funds upon the good will of industry and commerce. Present problems, such as the suppression of unwelcome results and the use of questionable results to manipulate public opinion, would considerably increase. The public would lose a prime source of trustworthy knowledge, needed in political discourse, legal disputation, consumer protection and in many other contexts.
Worldwide the greatest effects on the health of individuals and populations results from environmental degradation and social injustice, operating in consort. This paper describes the national and global causes and health consequences of these phenomena. Causes include overpopulation, pollution, deforestation, global warming, unsustainable agricultural and fishing practices, overconsumption, maldistribution of wealth, the rise of the corporation, the Third World debt crisis, and militarization and wars. Consequences include increased poverty, overcrowding, famine, weather extremes, species loss, acute and chronic medical illnesses, war and human rights abuses, and an increasingly unstable global situation that portends Malthusian chaos and disaster. Because of their scientific training, and due to their privileged socioeconomic status, physicians are in a unique position to recognize these phenomena and to act at all levels, from interactions with their patients, to volunteerism, to service and intervention in areas of great need, to direct political activism and involvement. Specific suggestions for action are discussed.
As opposed to scientific psychiatry, social psychiatry draws its resources from sociological sources and must continuously adapt its self-image and concept of action to changes in society. Sociological analysis of the present describes dramatic changes in society, which also have consequences for the subject's mastering of everyday routines and formation of identity. As opposed to neo-liberal promises of sheer limitless new opportunities, respectable interpretations of current times describe an ambivalent process that by far does not positively effect all groups in society, and in fact increases the danger of social exclusion. Exclusionary processes particularly affect persons, who do not fulfill the new requirements of hyper flexibility, mobility and allround fitness. Justifiably the question arises whether these requirements themselves induce the destruction of personality. This brings up the question if there is an alternative to the neoliberal view of humankind. This paper picks up the idea of a civil society centered on an individual and recalcitrant subject.