Book for review: v "Philosophy of Care - New Approaches to Vulnerability, Otherness and Therapy"
The book 'Doughnut Economics' opens with the story of Yuan Yang who, as a young economics student back in 2008, was challenging the outdated theory she was being taught. Last night she was elected as the first-ever MP for Earley & Woodley. Huge congratulations @YuanfenYang!
I gave Keir Starmer a copy of Doughnut Economics just 10 days before he became Labour Party Leader. So will the book make it onto his bookshelves in Number 10? More importantly: will policies for a regenerative & distributive UK become real under this government?...
https://x.com/KateRaworth/status/1809235013403136029
"'Big-picture thinkers'^, Raworth notes, have offered alternative visions, but they have been dismissed by the field of economics." p.102.
The NHS workforce is large. Even if diminished currently, when compared with previous staffing levels. With regard to economics there is a problem in the NHS. I've noted before how you are cocooned, as many health care workers in developed nations. The shelves are stocked, the just-in-time drugs supply: works. It is sign of uncertain-times that it is only recently that this has faulted, only recently we have witnessed a health system eroded by COVID of course, social, political, economic and ethical ... collapse. Consequently, I arrived at economics late. Virginia Held points to further reading. That might inform future posts on economics. Post-financial crisis, as Held reflects on Raworth, the economics curricula was challenged by students which I posted about:
Heterodoxy in Economics and Healthcare
I thought of human rights legislation and the ICC as an expression of ethics of care as a comprehensive morality (p.105), my first thought (scribble) was the SDGs. If all 17 were on-track what would the world's ethical quotient be?
Not unexpectedly, relationality also permeates this chapter and the book. If such 'relations' are tested personally, socially, economically and politically it is through the global migrations of care workers (p.115).
An 'O' level in Social and Economic History has proved a useful primer, early insights into society and the politics of poverty, social reform, prisons, nursing, hygiene, sanitation, and public health works. Chapter 6 "Welfare, Care and Human Economy in the Theory of Wilhelm Röpke" (social market economy) is a reminder of the ongoing struggle for a social and economic theory and associated philosophy. No care without economic theory - without economic stability and order (so welcome is the UK election).
I struggled with the text at times, I got the impression this was in translation but I may be wrong? Perhaps an 'A' level is a prerequisite for readers? There is mention of axioms and maths.
Given the history here, a plus: it made me feel younger. Again useful, informative reading; civitas humana (human city), economics is a moral science: "Economists - "should not accept the role of a machine in search of the highest profit, that economic theory assigned to him, but to assume his creative role with a higher purpose (Röpke 1996: 339)."
What would Röpke think of the server farms and bit-coin today: the energy and environmental costs? Especially, as the authors note that for Röpke: an unbridled focus on productivity as the ultimate purpose of the economy, dehumanizes an economy. p.125. In my notes I have 'sustainability'. While Hodges' model has the 'group' in the vertical axis. I've never considered in-depth overcrowding and massification. Fascinating overview of history on Röpke's thought and associated scholars, about the family, the State, education of children. We learn that Röpke was always in favour of the small ('small is beautiful'). Schumacher isn't referenced and there's another book no doubt on the search for a new economics. 6.5 points the way - 'Means of Economic Humanism': "the relationship between politics and economics, establishing a general framework for government action."* p.127. The conclusion concerns 'social care' no doubt more generally my ironic reading. This will be shared across the UK. Here, 'social care' is accustomed to finding itself in the long-grass these past 15 years.
Privileged, is utterly the wrong word - as I consider - again (i) working at Winwick Hospital. Braga reminds many former and still employed 'senior' mental health nurses of their institutionalised beginnings. I was able to witness:
- the closure of the asylums
- the expansion of community mental health nursing
- the as yet incomplete project that is 'care in the community'
- the panic of the director of nurse education lest students fall through the theory-practice gap
- the fear they may be 'lost' from their initial experiences as nursing assistants (as may happen now to many new starters in social care?)
virtue - personal ethics ideals PURPOSE care for self | particular - universal mathematics - logic mereology time space machine - PROCESS - mechanics |
care for others social care sector - community of PRACTICE family - VALUES children - VALUES CARE for EVERBODY | economics INSTITUTION politics POLICY social care POLICY |
^My emphasis - of course.
orcid.org/0000-0002-0192-8965