EcoLogics

The following news make headlines in the Guardian today:

‘Ministers are planning to force GPs to improve their performance by posting patients’ comments about them on an NHS website, the Guardian can reveal. […] [Health Minister Ben] Bradshaw told the Guardian that he wants the site to do for healthcare what Amazon has done for the book trade and Trip Adviser for the travel industry: providing positive and negative feedback, warts and all, from consumers’(1).

Bradshaw’s comparison speaks volumes of the ideology that drives New Labour. New Labour’s promised land—what we might call ‘Amazonia’—is ostensibly a place where a combination of the internet’s panoptical eye and the rule of metrics works in the best interests of one and all. Alas, in this promised land, as in the (online) Amazon, the real order involves what Marx once described as commodity fetishism: the process whereby the seemingly magical qualities of goods—or in this case, of services— conceal the human exploitation that sustains their production. The value of human labour in the NHS, as in Amazon or any other organisation, cannot be reduced to the kind of populist measures being proposed by Bradshaw.

It is no coincidence, in this sense, that less than two weeks ago, the Times revealed that Amazon has a draconian policy when it comes to disciplining its workers—not least on matters relating to its workers’ health. According to the newspaper,

‘Amazon…employing thousands of casual workers in Britain to fetch and package items under arduous conditions. An investigation by The Sunday Times at Amazon’s enormous warehouse in Bedfordshire has found that workers were:

– Warned that the company refuses to allow sick leave, even if the worker has a legitimate doctor’s note. Taking a day off sick, even with a note, results in a penalty point. A worker with six points faces dismissal.
– Made to work a compulsory 10-hour overnight shift at the end of a five-day week. The overnight shit, which runs from Saturday evening to 5am on Sunday, means they have to work every day of the week.
– Set quotas for the number of items to be picked or packed in an hour that even a manager described as “ridiculous”. Those packing heavy Xbox games consoles had to pack 140 an hour to reach their target.
– Set against each other with a bonus scheme that penalises staff if any other member of their group fails to hit the quota.
– Made to walk up to 14 miles a shift to collect items for packing.
– Given only one break of 15 minutes and another of 20 minutes per eight-hour shift and told they had to notify staff when going to the toilet. Amazon said workers wanted the shorter breaks in exchange for shorter shifts’(2).

On the day when the King’s Fund is reporting that the NHS is ‘fast losing its compassion‘, Bradshaw’s comparison is at once richly ironic, and no doubt deliberate. The world of Amazon is the world of New Labour, if not vice-versa; the party, which is reportedly now led by Peter Mandelson, has become synonymous with the kind of neoliberalism that is embodied by Amazon’s practices, and which underpins the financierism that has led to the current economic disaster.

This ideology must ultimately lead New Labour to lose power. Most people in the party probably know this, but their leaders up and down the country are so utterly beholden to a clientelistic relationship with big business that they are unable to change political course. The corruption of the party is now arguably so absolute that the government is about to squander a golden opportunity for a change in direction—a change that would have been made possible by the collapse of the banking system, and by the need to engage in a de facto nationalisation of the sector that has pushed hardest for neoliberal policies.

The only question now is whether the Liberal Democrats will be able to regain a semblance of authority—an authority lost with the election of Nick Clegg as party leader—in order to exploit a hung parliament. In the absence of this, the New Conservatives will only be able to offer more of the same—they too, are the advocates of the kind of Neo-Darwinian jungle that is destroying the very fabric of our nation.

By way of two postscripts:

1) Since when does a government minister champion a private firm?

2) We may be stuck with New Labour for the time being, but we do have a choice as to whether to use Amazon.

References

1) ‘Patients to rate and review their GPs on NHS website’ in Guardian Online, December 30, 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/dec/30/doctors-rating-website-nhs, viewed December 30, 2008.
2) ‘Revealed: Amazon staff punished for being ill’ in Times Online, 14 December 2008, http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article5337770.ece, viewed December 30, 2008.

News just in: the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the New Labour government’s de facto policy of keeping DNA samples of individuals who have been acquitted of any wrongdoing is in breach of the individuals’ fundamental right to respect for the private life. Here is an excerpt from the ruling:

“The Court noted that cellular samples [so-called DNA samples] contained much sensitive information about an individual, including information about his or her health. In addition, samples contained a unique genetic code of great relevance to both the individual concerned and his or her relatives. Given the nature and the amount of personal information contained in cellular samples, their retention per se had to be regarded as interfering with the right to respect for the private lives of the individuals concerned.

In the Court’s view, the capacity of DNA profiles to provide a means of identifying genetic relationships between individuals was in itself sufficient to conclude that their retention interfered with the right to the private life of those individuals. The possibility created by DNA profiles for drawing inferences about ethnic origin made their retention all the more sensitive and susceptible of affecting the right to private life.

The Court concluded that the retention of both cellular samples and DNA profiles amounted to an interference with the applicants’ right to respect for their private lives, within the meaning of Article 8 § 1 of the Convention.

The applicants’ fingerprints were taken in the context of criminal proceedings and subsequently recorded on a nationwide database with the aim of being permanently kept and regularly processed by automated means for criminal-identification purposes. It was accepted that, because of the information they contain, the retention of cellular samples and DNA profiles had a more important impact on private life than the retention of fingerprints. However, the Court considered that fingerprints contain unique information about the individual concerned and their retention without his or her consent cannot be regarded as neutral or insignificant. The retention of fingerprints may thus in itself give rise to important private-life concerns and accordingly constituted an interference with the right to respect for private life.”(1)

Anyone interested in considering the implications of this decision may wish to read EcoLogics’ post titled ‘A Social Ecology of the Buccal Swab; or When Gattaca Came to the UK‘

Readers may also wish to read EcoLogics’ critique of Lord Justice Stephen Sedley’s intevention in the debate concerning the DNA database in Lord Justice Stephen Sedley’s BBC Interview: The Confusion of Powers

References

1) Extract from the European Court of Human Rights judgement in the case S. and Marper vs. the United Kingdom. You can read the full judgement and press release here.