PHM-Exch> "How Poor is Poor? (3)

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Alison Katz katz.alison at gmail.com

Just a couple of remarks on "satiation point (that there is some level of
GDP per capita at which further growth stops increasing life satisfaction)."
I think at PHM we need to look at the determinants of human happiness/life
satisfaction very carefully, in relation to Health for All and the necessary
“challenge to powerful forces” as stated in PHM's People’s Charter for
Health.

 Firstly, (and I think we all agree about this) *growth has no relationship
to happiness or life satisfaction.* These are different dimensions. We are
surely referring, more precisely, to the satisfaction of basic needs (food,
water, shelter, safety) which are ALSO on a different dimension. However, *the
satisfaction of basic needs does not make people happy or satisfied either:
they are simply the essential platform* for happiness. They ALLOW human
beings to start to satisfy other higher, equally human needs (emotional,
social, intellectual, spiritual, etc) and to do more than just survive.

 Unlike the fulfilment of basic needs, the fulfilment of these higher needs
(I believe) ARE related to human happiness and satisfaction.

 The satisfaction of higher needs is to some extent affected by political
and social arrangements nationally and internationally (another huge
discussion). But luckily human beings, left to their own devices, with their
basic needs satisfied, have their own fantastic inner resources to explore
and enjoy life and derive happiness and/or satisfaction.

 If only capitalism would leave them alone to take advantage of their own
wonderful devices! But alienating and stultifying capitalist systems of
production and distribution produce and distribute misery and
dissatisfaction (and very restricted lives) rather copiously to the majority
of the world's population, through exploitation and appropriation of their
human and natural resources.

 I will not elaborate further but reproduce below a section from an article
which addresses the question of capitalist systems, human nature, human
fulfilment and the most profound alienation of people from their essential
selves. I think it is the same issue. See in particular the fourth paragraph
below highlighted in red.

* **Ethical cleansing of human nature and society **

One aspect of neoliberal ideology that is rarely addressed and yet is
fundamental to human health and wellbeing is the distortion (and distorted
view) of human nature and human society. People are seen as isolated
individuals whose sole concern is getting ahead in competition with, and
therefore at the expense of, others. Studies in social psychology and moral
development - and our own lived experience - reveal a vast array of other
concerns, centred above all on social relations, within family and community
but extending to a concern for humanity in general and often to all life on
earth. Huge propaganda efforts in what has been aptly termed “ethical
cleansing” have been required to persuade people, against their better moral
judgement, that even very large inequalities are not only inevitable, but
natural and acceptable. In fact, people have a very keen sense of what is
fair and unfair and, when the connections are explained to them, they are
uncomfortable with the idea that their relative comforts are achieved
through exploitation of others far away.

 Despite constant references to individual freedom, creativity and talent
apparently unleashed in the global free market, people are reduced to
individual consumers and/or producers (or are excluded from all
consideration) and are valued only to the extent that they fulfil these
narrow roles. This stultifying restriction of human potential is maintained
through control of the media by a handful of TNCs, increasingly repressive
measures to stifle dissent, economic stranglehold by TNCs over all spheres
of human activity and of course internationally, through all the usual means
available to imperialist powers. Various policies of governments of the
so-called “free world” are dangerously close to being qualified as
totalitarian and fears of fascism are far from hysterical.

 The notion that “respect” for individual freedom is greater under liberal
regimes results from confusion between individualism and individuality. The
former refers to a focus on self and has no particular relationship to the
freedom to be oneself.  By and large, individual freedom and personal
fulfilment only start when people can reliably meet their basic needs for
health, wellbeing and physical security.

 To suppose that people must compete in the free market to meet basic needs
in order to enjoy individual freedom or find fulfilment is to reduce life to
survival – which indeed is precisely what capitalist development has
achieved for 80% of the world’s population. The whole point about meeting
basic needs through public services, for example, is that it allows people
to get beyond mere survival in order to explore and enjoy their unique,
highly individual, life on earth, while it lasts. There is nothing remotely
“individual” or “free” about lives devoted - or rather wasted - to the
tedious and exhausting struggle for existence, against the impossible odds
of capitalist imperialism.

 *Katz, A. Prospects for a genuine revival of Primary Health Care - through
the visible hand of social justice rather than the invisible hand of the
market. Part II. *International Journal of Health Services*, Volume 40,
Number 1, Pages 119-137, 2010.
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