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talkpoliticsIt was fondly imagined by socialists of the previous centuries that once we raised the level of income of the Workers and eradicated poverty that every sort of social ill, from disease to crime, would disappear with it.
In the UK, we did have a Socialist Government, once, that was into the idea of universal health coverage, and indeed, i put forward a programme that included health and housing, and the Workers incomes rose, and TB was all but eradicated.
But the link between good health and good position in society remained. industrial illnesses were still common , and legislation came in to protect workers in the workplace. And the legislation had the desired effect.
But, as someone who has worked in industry as a Health and Safety Officer, and a Union Rep, I have to say that the biggest problem in my day was not just the bosses, but often the worker themselves.
Ok, we issue ear muffs to guys who work in a noisy environment, but there was extreme reticence to wear them in some cases. A lot of guys went to rock concerts and even at home, they turned up the headphones to the max. I read an article saying that the Royal Navy was having trouble recruiting recruiting sonar engineers, because the hearing levels of the younger generation was not as good as they used to be. You can lead a horse to water, the saying goes, but you can't make him drink.
Smoking is one of those issues that impacts the working class really hard. Smoking falls off as social scale rises. So, the higher someone is on the social scale, the more likely they are to be a non smoker. And nobody disputes the fact that smoking is bad for one's health - but many people still smoke.
Different places do different things around this issue. we all agree that smoking is bad, and people shouldn't do it, but then we come up against the fact that many will say "Ok - I know it's bad for me, but I ~like~ a ciggie. what has happened to Personal Choice, huh ?"
In the UK, one cannot smoke in public places unless in the open air. So lighting up in a bar or a concert hall will usually get you thrown out..
I can recall the days when smokers were allowed their own areas, but not any more. Even places of work are now ' no smoking zones', as non smokers like me insisted that we didn't want to suck in second hand air pollution.
But there are jobs in tobacco, and taxes on it too. So the government has not got around to treating tobacco like marijuana just yet, and probably never will. it seems that for many, a smoke is a part of their culture and they are loath to give it up. Public education can only go so far, it seems.
An attempt has been made to turn the UK into a place like Europe -with cafes open 24 hours, and people doing discreet and sociable drinking in bars. Sadly, the police report that it hasn't happened. Instead of a wave of drunkenness hitting the street at closing time, there is now a constant stream of drunkenness coming into public spaces, bringing violence onto the streets and comatose patients into casualty.
As someone who works in public transport, I see it all the time.
On the Continent, specifically in Switzerland, I see smoking in bars, but no drunkenness. The continentals often have lower rates of teen pregnancy, too. Again , it seems to be about Social Attitudes. In the UK, we have had to ban drinking in the park. No longer can one open a bottle of wine in a London park and enjoy a picnic with friends. The alcohol ban does enable police to remove winos and quickly, but the deeper underlying problems of why men of working age are sluoching in parks and spending money on cheap booze remain unaddressed.
At the other end of the scale, a place like Singapore still has public floggings for people who commit acts of vandalism like doing graffiti or damaging property. Some socialists I know recoil in horror - but in a land where people get severely punished for dropping litter, and where the sale of chewing gum is banned, well, you don't see windblown trash everywhere. Is it worth it, or are draconian punishments to high a price to pay? I wonder what people who have been there make of the place.
So, if you are from Europe or somewhere else, how does your society cope with smoking , with drink and drunkenness, and other issues where Personal Choice comes into conflict with Public Interest? Can anyone from Singapore give us their take, please?
In the UK, we did have a Socialist Government, once, that was into the idea of universal health coverage, and indeed, i put forward a programme that included health and housing, and the Workers incomes rose, and TB was all but eradicated.
But the link between good health and good position in society remained. industrial illnesses were still common , and legislation came in to protect workers in the workplace. And the legislation had the desired effect.
But, as someone who has worked in industry as a Health and Safety Officer, and a Union Rep, I have to say that the biggest problem in my day was not just the bosses, but often the worker themselves.
Ok, we issue ear muffs to guys who work in a noisy environment, but there was extreme reticence to wear them in some cases. A lot of guys went to rock concerts and even at home, they turned up the headphones to the max. I read an article saying that the Royal Navy was having trouble recruiting recruiting sonar engineers, because the hearing levels of the younger generation was not as good as they used to be. You can lead a horse to water, the saying goes, but you can't make him drink.
Smoking is one of those issues that impacts the working class really hard. Smoking falls off as social scale rises. So, the higher someone is on the social scale, the more likely they are to be a non smoker. And nobody disputes the fact that smoking is bad for one's health - but many people still smoke.
Different places do different things around this issue. we all agree that smoking is bad, and people shouldn't do it, but then we come up against the fact that many will say "Ok - I know it's bad for me, but I ~like~ a ciggie. what has happened to Personal Choice, huh ?"
In the UK, one cannot smoke in public places unless in the open air. So lighting up in a bar or a concert hall will usually get you thrown out..
I can recall the days when smokers were allowed their own areas, but not any more. Even places of work are now ' no smoking zones', as non smokers like me insisted that we didn't want to suck in second hand air pollution.
But there are jobs in tobacco, and taxes on it too. So the government has not got around to treating tobacco like marijuana just yet, and probably never will. it seems that for many, a smoke is a part of their culture and they are loath to give it up. Public education can only go so far, it seems.
An attempt has been made to turn the UK into a place like Europe -with cafes open 24 hours, and people doing discreet and sociable drinking in bars. Sadly, the police report that it hasn't happened. Instead of a wave of drunkenness hitting the street at closing time, there is now a constant stream of drunkenness coming into public spaces, bringing violence onto the streets and comatose patients into casualty.
As someone who works in public transport, I see it all the time.
On the Continent, specifically in Switzerland, I see smoking in bars, but no drunkenness. The continentals often have lower rates of teen pregnancy, too. Again , it seems to be about Social Attitudes. In the UK, we have had to ban drinking in the park. No longer can one open a bottle of wine in a London park and enjoy a picnic with friends. The alcohol ban does enable police to remove winos and quickly, but the deeper underlying problems of why men of working age are sluoching in parks and spending money on cheap booze remain unaddressed.
At the other end of the scale, a place like Singapore still has public floggings for people who commit acts of vandalism like doing graffiti or damaging property. Some socialists I know recoil in horror - but in a land where people get severely punished for dropping litter, and where the sale of chewing gum is banned, well, you don't see windblown trash everywhere. Is it worth it, or are draconian punishments to high a price to pay? I wonder what people who have been there make of the place.
So, if you are from Europe or somewhere else, how does your society cope with smoking , with drink and drunkenness, and other issues where Personal Choice comes into conflict with Public Interest? Can anyone from Singapore give us their take, please?
(no subject)
Date: 14/10/11 10:16 (UTC)That said, screw getting arrested for having gum. I'll take some dirt on the streets so long as I can walk them freely.
(no subject)
Date: 14/10/11 10:34 (UTC)You have to remember that I work in Transport, and I have seen a woman lift her little kid up off the platform and down onto the tracks so that the little toddler could pick up mummy's mobile phone.
No, really - that is is how thick some people are. But when their complete lack of any nous impacts others- well , what then? How other people in other places cope with ' undesireables' and what gets counted as such is my main concern, here.
(no subject)
Date: 14/10/11 15:41 (UTC)OMG.
(no subject)
Date: 14/10/11 11:26 (UTC)To discourage drinking where large groups of people meet (concerts, festivals, sporting events), we just charge $14 a beer. Rich, dedicated drunks can handle that. Poor, dedicated drunks have to take a chance and smuggle a flask in. Everyone else loads up on pills [Jenkins, Everybody that doesn't Drink Takes Pills, pg. 38]
Where I am, I can't buy alcohol before noon on Sundays - which sounds dumb to complain about - because it's just 1/14th of the week - but I don't see how it would conflict with public interest.
(no subject)
Date: 14/10/11 15:18 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14/10/11 16:13 (UTC)But what happens when kids of 10 and under start buying booze and going comatose on it?
or when factory workers in the munitions factories are rolling into work half drunk?
I mean , it was things like this that got Britain to legislate , back in the First World War.
Today, it is the cost of keeping the A&E open to deal with so many drunks, and also the cost of alcoholism to industry in lost production that bothers us. Society gets hit by this and other stuff, and reaches for the law. i don't know that this always works, but it is what happens.
(no subject)
Date: 14/10/11 19:41 (UTC)Of course there are - that is how and why we have our current legislation . I just want to rebutt the argument that it isn't socieitys job to deal with it- Society had to in the past and did.
how it deals with the current situation , though , is another question .
(no subject)
Date: 14/10/11 20:07 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14/10/11 16:13 (UTC)Once upon a time in old Sweden (turn of the 20th century), workers were in part payed wages in booze, fortunately a left wing movement called "the folk learning" educated the working classes on what was good and encouraged change, so that tradition was abolished. But culturally, workers of certain hard or dull jobs needed to be "sedated" by some stuff on their free time in order to cope at work. I believe this is still the case, but that tv, gambling or whathaveyou depending on culture takes care of it. And also, job situations are often not quite as gruesome as they were. But there is still a strong cultural pattern going on in many countries.
Prohibiting this won't work in general. Some cultural habits which affect the surrounding, such as smoking, can be restricted, but in general, the only thing which will change cultural patters is understanding them and creating new patterns, just like the folk-movements of Sweden once did.
Long vacations and a sense of societal mobility and possibility are in general what make people with dull or hard jobs stay and be somewhat happy, and less prone to bad cultural habits.
In Sweden teen pregnancy is extremely rare - but schools put a lot of effort and money into sexual education and access to free birth control and protection from STD's.
I cannot say this enough, it makes wonders with information and positive encouragement which is continuous and organized. Again, Sweden has *very* low numbers on teen pregnancies and STD's.
(no subject)
Date: 14/10/11 18:37 (UTC)That issue's been around as long as tobacco had. James I hated the stuff, and wrote one of the first anti-smoking screeds in English. On the flip side, he lamented that he couldn't ban it, because he couldn't forgo the tax revenues.
(no subject)
Date: 15/10/11 00:03 (UTC)One way my country tries to deal with some of these issues is sin taxes. Especially the one on tobacco products. But in others, it's handled at the corporate end. For example, if you flat out refuse to wear ear plugs on the production floor of my workplace they don't tolerate it. They fire you.
(no subject)
Date: 15/10/11 08:47 (UTC)Some Americans think that Socialism = tax the rich and give it to poor people, then we are all ok.
Er, this is not how Socialism got started, and although Marx tried taking it there, it is not where socialism is today. Yes, there are people who cling to Marxist dogma, but it is being abandoned as more and more people focus on the ideas of workers co ops and democratic representation at lower levels.
The world needs more Singapore
Date: 15/10/11 02:11 (UTC)Re: The world needs more Singapore
Date: 15/10/11 08:50 (UTC)