Following discussion at the recent Public Health Association Conference it became clear that we need a "road map" which give a clearer alternative to the dominant neoliberal paradigm in a manner whcih can guide action at a local, national and international level.
There is a concern that there will be a return to "business as usual" in spite of the opportunities created by the global economic collapse and this is partly due to the lack of an alternative that activists have ready access to and can explain easily to each other and the community more generally. Such a road map could include things like the importance of community controlled institutions, and workers controlled coportations and businesses as suggested at the end of Wilkinson's book - the Spirit Level. It would also need to inlcude key taxation reforms in progresive income taxes, consumption taxes, carbon taxes, the Tobin tax etc. It would need to say something about publicly funded universal education and health care.
It would also need to say something about the types of global institutions that are needed and how to reform the IMF, World Bank etc. There are many more issues. I think it needs to be a type of "Standard Treatment Manual" or "Best Practice Guidelines" for the type of social, economic and political system we need to try to create. It needs to be realtively simple and easy to read and understand - perhaps such a document exists and if so could someone enlighten me? (I am not even sure if this is the right way to use a Blog as this is the first time I have done this.)
When you say "need to say something..and how to reform the IMF, World Bank etc." it seems you are asking for a statement by someone who knows a lot more about international trade and economics than most public health people. People like me (grad student in PH) can only outline a "wishlist" for what we would like to happen, with little idea of whether things are feasible or not. It looks to me as though we need a good blog forum for ideas and methods before we can make coherent, simple statements! For starters, locally, could we get limits on CEO-level salaries based on a multiple of the minimum wage? eg 5 X or 7 X, etc. How can we get big financing authorities to give priority to projects that are more environmentally sound or in the interests of keeping costs down for consumers, when all these authorities want is maximum returns? How can we stop gazumping in projects which might help the community that are squashed by large commercial concerns protecting their potential income streams? [This last one, I know of cases where proposed power stations have had their equipment and money snatched from under them before they could get started by established power suppliers and private merchant bankers. This was done to keep the wholesale price of power on the national grid higher.]See: http://www.aemo.com.au/data/avg_price/averageprice_main.shtml
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