[NYTr] Danger: money - The Guardian

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[An interesting reflection on health, safety and other protections; how
some of these, grounded in the reform movements of the 19th century,
have either become obsolete or in dire need of amplification by safety
and health regulation that is totally ignored or lacking. This is based
on English society, but the same is certainly true in the US, where
safety and qulity of food and medicine regs need drastic updating (not
to mention enforcement), and as in England, some new public dangers
need to be considered:  The right to life, a place to live, the right
to healthcare, decent wages, and the right not to have ones savings,
pensions, and insurance just yanked out from under people who bought
into the system in all innocence and trust. -NY Transfer]

sent by tsimonds- activ-l

The Guardian - Dec 9, 2007
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_shariatmadari/2007/12/danger_money.html

Danger: Money

Over-zealous health and safety regulations are a hangover from an
industrial age, what we need now is protection from rising inequality

by David Shariatmadari

Health and safety gets a horribly bad press. And for a moment this week
I felt a pang of fellow feeling for the hordes who fume about
restrictions on their freedom. My local underground station will be
exit-only for much of the day until the end of next year. The reason?
Because a lift is being refurbished. There are stairs and one other
working lift, but the fire brigade have advised that it would be too
risky to allow the public to enter during rush hour.

I happen to think it's a bit of an overreaction on the part of the fire
service (it's a quiet, out of the way station) but I'm no green-ink
letter writer. However, a week after the health and safety executive
published its annual performance report, it got me thinking - does the
burgeoning structure of health protection address the most important
risks to our welfare?

The thing people forget about health and safety legislation is that it's
primarily aimed at employers - making sure people don't get injured or
killed at work. And it's entirely appropriate that Britain should have
one of the most rigorous workplace safety regimes. It was, after all,
the first industrialised nation, and the first place where the horrors
of unregulated labour - phossy jaw, conditions in textile mills - came
to light. Today, when much of this heavy industry has disappeared,
people who work in sectors like construction, transport, even catering,
rely on the government imposing tough rules on their bosses.

Any law, when applied overzealously, becomes an ass - though it's worth
remembering that the most outrageous examples are often a case of an
organisation wanting to protect itself from opportunistic legal action.
There's a small danger in "health and safety gone mad", but I think the
press reaction shows that we're not about roll over and let these rules
take over our lives.

The real problem lies not in restrictions on our freedom, but in too
much of an emphasis - in what is after all a post-industrial age - on
bodily safety at the expense of wellbeing more generally.

For most people, the risk of being crushed by heavy machinery or exposed
to a dangerous chemical is far smaller than the risk that they will be
priced out of the local housing market, encouraged to take on huge
debts, or simply forced to exist side by side with people earning 20 or
30 times as much than them. In the age of heavy industry, harm could
result from conditions in factories or the materials used to make
things. Today, when most people work the service sector, it is the
machinery of advanced capitalism - and how it generates inequality -
that presents the most widespread threat to public health.

This risk is not something abstract. In fact, the consequences for our
wellbeing of the economic system have been measured. It's known that
inequality has an effect on mental health. A 1997 report by the Joseph
Rowntree foundation links mortality to social disadvantage. A survey
released only last week showed that status is a key predictor of
longevity, and wealth and status are closely correlated.

One answer to this problem is to do nothing, because things have always
been like this. Throughout history, inequality has been a part of life.
The difference in power, status and wealth between the aristocrats and
the proletariat in 18th century France, for example, was huge. But in
fact, society is far less equable today than it was even in the 1950s.
Since then, and particularly since structural changes to the economy in
the 1980s, inequality has increased massively.

Another answer might be to look at what can be done to mitigate the
negative effects of our system - in just the same way that health and
safety laws were introduced to protect us from bosses who put their
employees in physical danger. There has to be an effort to rein in the
City, perhaps by limiting bonuses or increasing taxes for the highest
earners. It's difficult to imagine Gordon Brown, or any future Labour
leader taking these steps, which is a depressing thought.

I think it's right that the government emphasises safety at work and in
public places. But it's galling that virtually nothing concrete is being
done to address aspects of the economic system that also present real,
quantifiable dangers. I want to be safe as I use the tube, but who's
going to protect me from the banks and insurance houses, the private
equity people and the hedge fund managers?