Another example from my previous career struck me this morning as I reflected on some thoughts matched with something I’d seen on social media which led me to conclude – there are some things that should not be treated as money making ventures but as service to the community with profit a distant issue.
The example from my career in economic development was the issue of outsourcing public sector responsibilities. Under the Blair/Brown government from 1997-2010, the public sector was increasingly encouraged to outsource its activity as a means of providing ‘efficiencies’. Cuts by anyone else’s measure but let’s not get into the semantics. Nothing was off the table. This was a mantle also taken up by the Tory/Lib Dem Coalition Government that ran from 2010-2015 and kind of became enshrined in public sector behaviour thereafter. There were always two main problems with this. One, the public sector is not very good at negotiating with the private sector and so major contracts ended up in situations where the tail was wagging the dog. They also didn’t build innovation into these contracts and they went on for far too long without sufficient break clauses. The second is that there are aspects of what the public sector does, if not most of it, that should not be done for profit. Examples such as the care of vulnerable children and adults and the care of the elderly. The roads contracts and refuse contracts are often not very well conceived or executed, and arguably given that it is taxpayers’ money forking out for this it shouldn’t be profited from. But there is no moral or any other argument for the monetising of the care for society’s most vulnerable. When we create avenues for profit we create markets. And when we create markets, we create a reason for determining that people ‘need’ what you are selling. No one wants to create a market for vulnerable children and adults particularly. Then when the inevitable conclusion is reached that the only way to claw out a profit margin is to reduce the quality of service…therein lies the problem. I am not criticising the carers, many of whom do an amazing job. But they do it on a wage that is a pittance in conditions that are unpleasant in the extreme all for the relentless drive for profit. It does also attract those, unfortunately, who are prepared to exploit those they are caring for.
When the focus is profit, however, how much do we think those ultimately running the service, and profiting, care about these issues?
Someone I know posted something on social media that really struck me. That the provision of food has become less about feeding humanity and more about making a profit. And that when this inversion happens, the health of the population becomes much less important. If it is important at all. Now, I would argue that our health is our own responsibility. But, when we are peddled ‘healthy’ foods that turn out to be the exact opposite (low fat, full of sugar for example), how many of us have the degree in science to work out exactly what is going into these products? Who knew that sugar was as dangerous as it is, even in moderation? Who knew that it was in so very much? Who knew that tinned tomatoes legally only have to have just over half their content made up of…tomatoes? Who knew that the tin cans they are contained in are usually coated inside in a plastic that is toxic? A plastic that is used so the acid put into the process doesn’t corrode the tin (if it corrodes tin, what does it do to us?!). There was me thinking that making my sauces from scratch was healthy and so I used these items, only to find I have exposed myself and my family to toxins. I removed the excess sugar and salt and replaced them with toxins. Great. The fact that these food producers have created an obesity crisis does not bother them one jot, they continue to encourage it. The new fat jabs proliferation is potentially a business risk, but only if people can afford them. In the UK, the rules have just changed to include those with heart disease, but initially they were provided on the NHS only for those with Type-2 Diabetes (which the drugs were originally intended for). I imagine in the US, the rates of people who can afford them is low in relation to those who really need to reduce their weight. So, their weight continues to expand. Put it this way, I don’t see the queues at the fast food Drive Thru’s getting any smaller.
Again, when their focus is profit how much do we think those ultimately running these companies care about these issues?
And then I thought about utilities and the cost of them. About water, gas, electricity. All the things we require to live in a modern world, essentially. To survive in the instance of water. And I think – why are businesses making a profit from these? Because, again, when the focus is profit the last thing any boardroom is worried about are the customers themselves. Only their ability to pay. And that is getting increasingly difficult with people being forced to choose between food and heat. Rent or mortgage and warmth. Choices no one should be forced to make because of profit. And the boardrooms where innovations into cheaper energy sources are vetoed because of the pursuit of profit over the ability to make utilities cheaper for people.
Again, how many of these boardrooms care that the elderly, for example, are freezing in their homes in the winter or the parent(s) going without food so the children can eat and be warm?
The other victim of the profit above all else mentality is the environment. Because profit at all costs is more important than protecting nature. More important than caring for the very thing that nurtures the customer base.
Now, I am no far left socialist or communist. I am a tree hugger but I’m not a believer in taxing the wealthy more because it simply doesn’t work as history tells us. I’m not necessarily advocating the nationalisation of utility industries because my recollection of when they were nationalised in the UK is one of neglect, decay and shortages.
What I am advocating for is that we, the public, stop tolerating being the means by which this money is made in the way it is made. Yes, allow business to make money by all means, but for business to do so in service of the community. In service of the population, not at its expense. For business to place the welfare of the communities they serve at the heart of their mission, make surplus not profits. To be accountable to those communities that they serve and not to become so huge that no one really knows who ultimately owns them.
Maybe it’s about the creation of non-profit organisations for those areas that depend on a sense of humanity such as the sectors above. Community-centred organisations where the surplus is returned back to the business so it can invest in innovations to make care, production, generation cheaper and better. Where people are paid a fair wage and care is at the heart of the business. Where the health of the population is the central concern. Because it isn’t necessarily the case that any government of the day is the body to ensure any of that happens. Boardrooms certainly aren’t with their relentless drive for greater and bigger profits, squeezing the fruit until it runs dry.
Let that be a part of the social innovation that we need in order to move into a new era with hope, positivity and unity.
Louisa Simpson 