Editorial

The Issue of Rights in a Modern Society

Do Canadians have a right to a first-class health care system? This is a question that did not even appear on the agenda of the recent first ministers meeting on fixing Canada’s ailing health care system. Instead, the only issues raised were questions of which level of government would contribute what proportion of the costs and how the rising costs of health care can be met without raising taxes. As a result, nothing was solved and the crisis of the Canadian health care system will continue to deepen and broaden, regardless of how much money may or may not be thrown at it.

There is no doubt that Canadians are receiving sub-standard levels of health care given the enormous wealth which is being produced by the economy. Cutbacks in funding for health care since the early 1990s are partially responsible for this situation, but there are other factors as well. The cost of prescription drugs has skyrocketed over the past 20 years, as have the salaries of doctors. Meanwhile, waiting lists for many medical procedures have grown and hallway medicine has become a chronic problem.

If Canada were a truly modern society, the right of its citizens and residents to the most advanced levels of medical care would be a central concern of all levels of government. From this starting point, every obstacle to achieving this goal would be tackled and overcome. If the price of pharmaceuticals was identified as an obstacle, then the pharmaceutical companies would be expropriated and the pharmaceutical industry would be re-organized to provide low-cost drugs to Canadians. If a shortage of doctors and other health care professionals was identified as an obstacle to providing Canadians with the level of health care to which they are entitled, then that problem would also be tackled and solved, primarily by training doctors who are genuinely concerned about the health of society.

Instead, we witness a debate in which everyone publicly professes concern for the well-being of Canadians, but behind closed doors they advance the interests of the big pharmaceutical companies, the medical supply companies, the American health care monopolies trying to break into the Canadian “market” and various other financial interests. Even within the various social organizations which advocate for improvements to Canada’s public health system, the most that is demanded is that the interests of people be put ahead of the interests of the monopolies that dominate the health care industry.

The point, however, is that Canadian society is not a truly modern society, because, while it pays lip service to various human rights and to the right of Canadians to health care, in practice it recognizes only the right of the capitalists to maximize their profits. A society which is based on the recognition of the rights of capital cannot possibly recognize the rights of its citizens. These rights are irreconcilable; either people have rights or capital has rights, but there can be no society in which the rights of both exist together, regardless of which is supposedly given preference.

Until this problem is addressed by Canadians, neither the problems of the health care system nor any other problem confronting people can be sorted out. These problems are actually caused by the fact that Canadian society is organized to serve the interests of the monopoly capitalists, which means that health care and other social services are also organized to serve the interests of the monopoly capitalists and not primarily to provide Canadians with a level of health care consistent with the needs of the population.

During the 1960s and 1970s the monopoly capitalists needed a constant supply of new construction projects and guaranteed markets for health-related products in order to maximize their profits. Therefore, governments increased spending on health and education. However, as more and more production is shifted to low-wage countries and more sophisticated ways have been developed to transfer money directly from government treasuries to the monopoly capitalists, the needs of the monopoly capitalists have changed. As a result, governments at all levels in Canada have adopted neo-liberal, anti-social policies that serve the new needs of monopoly capital. There is every indication that this trend will continue until such time as Canadians assert their human right to adequate health care by settling scores with monopoly capital.

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