Unprecedented economic and financial crisis reshapes thoughts on trust and integrity

Governing Board of the European Baha’i Business Forum (EBBF). 2009-06. “An Ethical Perspective on Today’s Economic Crisis: A statement from the European Baha’i Business Forum.”

“The world is passing through an economic and financial crisis unprecedented in modern times. Its global scope transcends the cyclical adjustments of national economies and the corrective instruments usually used by business and national governments. The general malaise and loss of confidence point to deeper issues and more fundamental flaws in the economic system, extending to a crisis of leadership and values. This unprecedented crisis, together with its accompanying social breakdown, reflects a profound error of conception about human nature itself. We are being shown that, unless the development of society finds a purpose beyond the mere amelioration of material conditions, it will fail to attain even this goal. That purpose must be sought in spiritual dimensions of life and motivation that transcend a constantly changing economic landscape and an artificially imposed division of human societies into “developed” and “developing”. The European Baha’i Business Forum recognizes in this situation an opportunity to reshape the fundamental concepts and structures that will not only lift us from this crisis but set us on a road towards a new set of institutions and behaviours which will enable humankind to prosper. As the present crisis is fundamentally one of trust and integrity, and therefore ethical in its foundation, its solution cannot be a mere institutional reorganization or some additional regulatory measures. It needs an ethical response at all levels: the individual, the corporation and the government and regulatory entities. There is no quick fix to this situation. Several principles must be considered while reshaping our thinking on institutions and the individuals that compose them. We need to replace the concept of self-centred materialism with that of service to humanity, competition with cooperation, corruption with ethical behaviour, sexism with gender balance, more authoritarian legislation with personal ethics, national regulation with international supervision, protectionism with world unity, and injustice with justice. EBBF promotes and welcomes engagement with the widest possible community to develop together the new framework. Given the importance of the business community in the world, we should draw on its special capabilities and resources, in collaboration with governments, international organizations and NGOs, to design the institutional framework and the guiding principles of the new economic system. We call on peoples from all businesses, countries, and walks of life to work together to build a new economic system based upon equity and justice (EBBF 2009-06).”

Who’s Who

“EBBF is a network of over 400 women and men, a community of people passionate about bringing ethical values, personal virtues and moral leadership into their workplaces. Its membership is diverse and crosses generations, borders, sectors and beliefs. It began in 1990 and is now present in over 60 countries. EBBF’s vision is to enhance the well-being and prosperity of humankind. It believes that positively influencing the world of business, starting from the inspiration of action by each of its members, is an important step in this direction (EBBF 2009-06).”

Notes

“EBBF promotes seven core values that it feels are of strategic importance in enhancing business performance: Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Sustainable Development, Partnership of Women and Men, A New Paradigm of Work, Consultation in Decision-Making, Values-Based Leadership (EBBF 2009-06).”

Webliography

Governing Board of the European Baha’i Business Forum (EBBF). 2009-06. “An Ethical Perspective on Today’s Economic Crisis: A statement from the European Baha’i Business Forum.” Chambery, France.

Grisham’s Social Issues Wrapped around a Novel

Will John Grisham’s legal drama The Appeal (2008) join other literary works like Upton Sinclair’s political fiction novel The Jungle (1906) and Rachel Carson’s literary broadside Silent Spring (1962) [1] in influencing changes in real world legislation? In his PhD dissertation Gordon (2008) argued that literary works such as those by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Karl Marx, Ralph Nader, Jonathan Swift, Upton and Carson, serve as legislative flash points and have had a demonstrable impact on the law.

Grisham’s writing is clearly popular fiction and he has enjoyed writing books with no redeeming social value like The Broker, but he now wants to tackle social issues (Grossman 2006.) He has fierce political convictions and admitted that, “Everything I’m thinking about writing now is about politics or social issues wrapped around a novel.” He admires the work of Truman Capote, John le Carré and John Steinbeck whom he would like to emulate. So is The Appeal also an appeal to reason [2]? 

John Grisham’s legal drama/legal thriller/crime novels deal with the power and influence of major US corporations in America and their potential for abusing the American legal system. Previous novels concluded with the victims being vindicated and giant corporations paying huge rewards for damages to personal health and to the environment. But in 2006 there was already a shift when he published his first book of nonfiction, a true-crime story entitled The Innocent Man.

The Appeal (2008) is the most openly political book he has written in which he probed the world of US judicial elections, a burning issue in the US (AF-P 2008). The debate over the best way for states to select judges is more than 160 years old. According to Wall Street Journal’s Levy, within days of the release of The Appeal, “critics of judicial elections began to connect it to examples of real-life corruption. Mr. Grisham himself says his story has “already happened” in West Virginia. Others have tried to link the book’s intrigue to next month’s Supreme Court election in Wisconsin, where a controversial judge is facing a strong challenge for re-election, helped in part by business groups. Mr. Grisham has plenty of allies in his crusade among liberal interest groups, who insist that judicial elections somehow represent a blight on the rule of law  (Levy 2008-03-20).”

In The Appeal fictional Wall Street financier Carl Trudeau, launched his appeal against plaintiffs from cancer county where his company had dumped toxins for years, to the Mississippi Supreme Court. Then he stacked the Court by funding an unknown to run against incumbent Court Justice Sheila McCarthy. Trudeau flooded media with ads designed to vilify Justice McCarthy as an extremely liberal judge who would protect criminals not citizens and would restrict gun ownership. Trudeau’s campaign allowed Fisk to win the election. Grisham in the telling of this fiction, practically laid out a formula for CEOs, corporate lawyers and politicians to overpower and ruin ordinary citizens while enjoying financial huge gains. The characters are highly stereotyped with lawyers and CEOs who are clearly the bad guys in this story. 

The mysterious, expensive consultant Barry Rinehart works quietly in the background using financing from from industries like energy, insurance, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, timber, all types of manufacturing as well as doctors, hospitals, nursing homes and banks, to target supreme court justices whose values differ from these special interest groups. He engineers the fixing of elections so the unfriendly judges lose to their own groomed judicial candidate. (31 states elect their appellate and supreme court judges while the remaining states appoint their courts.)  “To Grisham, that is the sad truth: No one’s justice will be served. While chilling, Grisham’s tale of modern legal machinations is also, unfortunately, timeless (Patrick 2008-01).”

 “Literature—even persuasively powerful literature—does not operate in a void: conditions must be ripe if it is to draw energy from the social milieu and thereby attain a kinetic force capable of influencing the law. This […] requires an alignment of narratives: the literary narrative with the larger cultural narrative within which it subsists (Gordon 2008:41).”

Tagging

law and literature movement, dedicated interest groups, big-money politics, Amicus-Curia, Plaintiff’ Paradise, judicial hell holes, consumer-friendly, Cancer County, cancer cluster, pulpit for reform, real world politics, US legal system, vexatious corporate litigation, senior academic lawyers, appelate benches of the Federal Appeal Circuit and the Supreme Court, M$ anti-trust investigations, Anti-Trust suit compliance issue, proven complicity, meritless SCO litigation, Patent and Copyright systems, East Texas fiasco, legal corruption, amicus-curia briefs, Commerce and Justice, Economic Crisis, US corporate malfeasance, US corporate greed, US corporate lack of transparency, tort, Rylands rule, Fletcher v. Rylands, Johnstown Flood, 

Timeline of related events

1860 One of the wealthiest industrialists in England, John Rylands, a textile manufacturer, hired a contractor to dig a large ditch and create a reservoir to add water power for one of his mills. The reservoir collapsed into an abandoned coal-mining shaft which connected to Thomas Fletcher’s neighboring coal mines. The reservoir flood destroyed those mines. (Wiki, Shugerman 2008)

1865 Fletcher v. Rylands, 159 Eng. Rep. 737, 740. The dispute in Rylands concerned escape of water onto neighbouring land. Later cases in which the Rylands test was applied involved the escape of all manner of wastes and materials, extending outwards to a broad range of inherently dangerous activities considered essential to modern life. The Court found in favour of Fletcher and ordered Rylands to pay for all the property damage to the mine. The Court agreed that Rylands had a duty in maintaining the reservoir and of being liable for all harm caused by it with broad scope of liability. This case was a major development in modern law and has influenced many subsequent rulings. The changes in negligence law as a field of torts has in some jurisdictions incorporated the Rylands rule. (Wiki, Shugerman 2008)

1889-05-31 In the mountains east of Pittsburg, a dam holding back a 450-acre artificial recreational lake, one of the largest reservoirs in the world, collapsed unleashing 20 million tons of water into the valley below, completely destroying Johnstown and killing two thousand people. The elite members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, titans-of-industry including Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, and Henry Clay Frick (also called the Bosses Club) ignored the dam’s crumbling foundation, warnings of structural problems and leakage. It was one of the most deadly disasters in American history. The public focused its anger on the South Fork Club and its wealthy members, and the media called on the club members to compensate the Johnstown victims. Before the Flood, the court emphasized the “great public interest” of industry’s unfettered development, and dismissed the “mere personal [and] trifling inconveniences” that were caused by industrial damage, and which must “give way to the necessities of a great community.” (Shugerman 2008.)

1890s There was a rise of populists as critics of industry’s excess in the 1890s and ruling leaned towards Fletcher against Rylands (Shugerman 2008.)

1980s- US Supreme Court Judicial elections became increasingly nasty, noisy, and costly (Pozen 2008:265).

1981 John Grisham (born 1955) graduated from law school.

1988 The Willie Horton ad from the 1988 presidential race was considered to be offensive and race-bating.

1981-1991 John Grisham practiced law for nearly in Southaven, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation.

1983-1990 John Grisham served in the state House of Representatives.

1984-1987 Grisham wrote his first novel A Time to Kill (1987) in his spare time exploring the theme of what would have happened if the girl’s father in a real trial had actually murdered her assailants. “After four years of practicing I got this idea for what I thought was a very compelling courtroom drama – small town, the South, a racial conflict – all seen through the eyes of an attorney who was basically me. A guy who wanted to be a big trial lawyer. That was my dream. I wanted people to call me – people who could pay me for the big case (Grisham in Slater 2009-01-27).”

1991 John Grisham’s novel, The Firm, was one of the biggest hits of 1991, spending 47 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Grisham gave up law and concentrated on writing. All his books have been bestsellers and six have been made into movies. Grisham lives with his wife and two children in Mississippi and Virginia.

1993 “Investor and philanthropist George Soros in 1993 created OSI as a private operating and grantmaking foundation to support his foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Those foundations were established, starting in 1984, to help countries make the transition from communism. OSI has expanded the activities of the Soros foundations network to encompass the United States and more than 60 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Each Soros foundation relies on the expertise of boards composed of eminent citizens who determine individual agendas based on local priorities (OSI).”

1999  Tabarrok and Helland investigated “the forces that explain why trial awards differ across the United States. In 23 states judges are elected and in 10 they are elected via partisan elections. Elections have two important effects. First, defendants are often out‐of‐state nonvoters while plaintiffs are typically in‐state voters. [They] predicted, therefore, that elected judges will redistribute wealth from out‐of‐state businesses to in‐state plaintiffs. Second, the realities of campaign financing require judges to seek and accept campaign funding from trial lawyers, who uniformly are interested in larger awards. [They]  hypothesized that these two forces cause awards to be larger in states where the judiciary is elected rather than appointed. [They]  also hypothesized that the demand for redistribution will increase as poverty increases and, thus, that awards will be larger in states with greater poverty. Using a sample of over 7,000 cases across 48 of the 50 states, [they]  found significant evidence in support of these hypotheses ( Tabarrok and Helland 1999-04).”

1994-2000 “By most measures, Grisham was the most successful novelist of the 1990s, when he sold over 60 million books. For seven straight years, 1994-2000, he had the best-selling novel in the country (Grossman 2006 ).”

2004 Swift boating refers to smear tactics used during the US Presidential campaign against candidate John Kerry. Vietnam veterans who served on the US Navy’s swift boats mounted a smear campaign to oppose Kerry who was a swift boat commander in Vietnam but was later allegedly involved in antiwar activities. 

2005-02-18 President Bush signed the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. This pushed for by business and Republican leaders since President Bush took office in 2001. It targeted consumer-friendly “Plaintiff’ Paradise” courts also termed “judicial hell holes” by corporations being libeled in mutiple-state class action suits (like those in Madison and St. Clare in Illinois and Jefferson County, Texas accused of being pro-consumer). Texas. Those “judicial hell holes,” and others in Alabama and Mississippi, are the favorite venues for some in the plaintiffs’ bar because of consumer-friendly juries and elected judges who routinely certified national classes and apply their state law and/or the laws of other states. Such cases after 2005 ended up in federal court, where corporate defendants tend to do better (O’Brien 2005).

2007 US Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler was publicly reprimanded for a conflict-of-interest violation.

2007 Harvard Law School’s Shugerman’s paper entitled “The Twist of Long Terms: Disasters, Elected Judges, and American Tort Law” was selected for the Yale-Stanford Junior Faculty Forum and the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, New York University. “The received wisdom is that American judges rejected strict liability through the nineteenth and early twentieth century. To the contrary, a majority of state courts adopted Rylands v. Fletcher and strict liability for hazardous or unnatural activities after a series of flooding tragedies in the late nineteenth century. Federal judges and appointed state judges generally ignored or rejected Rylands, while elected state judges overwhelmingly adopted Rylands or a similar strict liability rule. In moving from fault to strict liability, these judges were essentially responding to increased public fears of industrial or man-made hazards. Elected courts were more populist: They were more likely to adopt strict liability than appointed courts. But surprisingly, state courts elected to longer terms were the most populist. Many of these judges never expected to face another election, but even without direct political pressure, they were the most responsive group of judges in adopting Rylands after the floods. This historical episode illuminates the differences between types of political influence on judges. Judicial elections generally may produce judges more sympathetic to public opinion and more responsive to recent events. Longer terms, shielding judges from opposing political pressure from industry favoring the fault rule, then allowed judges to follow those sympathies or new perceptions of public interest in favor of strict liability. The historical record suggests that judicial elections plus long terms shaped a more responsive bench. A shorthand for these effects are: filtering, role fidelity, and fear and favor. First, these elections created a populist filter: Elections seemed to have filtered out some elite jurists from major urban centers and filtered in more local lawyer-politicians, who would be more connected to public opinion. Second, borrowing from the language used by nineteenth-century advocates of judicial elections and by modern historians, I suggest that the elected judges’ “fidelity” to the people led them to perceive public opinion as an important factor in their decisions. Even with filtering and role fidelity, judges elected to short terms would still face the reality of “fear and favor,” due to special interests and partisan renomination politics. Elected judges with more job security could be more faithful to their role (hence, “role fidelity”) and could follow their own perception of public interest or public opinion, rather than industrial interests. The Article concludes with some priorities for judicial reform based upon this historical episode.”

2008-01 Grisham noted that there was a lot of truth in The Appeal. “As long as private money is allowed in judicial elections we will see competing interests fight for seats on the bench.” The Appeal was published in the midst of the presidential primaries making it all the more compelling (Memmott 2008).

2008 “In John Grisham’s new novel, Mississippi judges are bought, marketed and sold.  In a crowded courtroom, a jury delivers a multi-million-dollar verdict against a chemical company accused of tainting a town’s water supply with waste. The chemical company retaliates with an appeal, but in order to win, it rig the state Supreme Court. As judicial elections loom, the company hand picks an unsuspecting judge and manipulates him for the job. In The Appeal, Grisham provides a cautionary tale about judicial elections and political campaigns in general. Like the so-called “swift-boating” of political candidates in the last presidential election, Grisham’s characters resort to harsh smear tactics to defeat their opponents. Jacki Lyden spoke with Grisham about his novel, judicial politics and his personal political engagement. In a crowded courtroom in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town’s water supply, causing the worst “cancer cluster” in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it ( All Things Considered).”

2008-03-18 Citizen Action of Wisconsin, a progressive citizen advocacy group dedicated to bringing transparency to the electoral system, filed a compliant against Michael Gableman with the Wisconsin Judicial Commission claiming the little-known county judge from Burnett County in northwestern Wisconsin used attack ads that were “highly offensive and deliberately misleading” against Incumbent Justice Louis Butler claiming he found a “loophole” to free a convicted sex offender.” The ad placed a picture of a convicted rapist and Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler on the screen at the same time. Both are black. Butler handled the man’s appeal of his rape conviction when he worked as a public defender.

2008-04 “Challenger Michael Gableman defeated incumbent Justice Louis Butler to win a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in Tuesday’s election. The results mean that a sitting Supreme Court justice won’t return to the bench for the first time in 40 years. The interest in the race by special interests is troubling to some, including the unseated justice, WISC-TV reported. Third-party TV ads were a centerpiece of one of the most negative Supreme Court races in state history (Channel 3000).”

2008-10 “The Wisconsin Judicial Commission alleges Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman violated the code of judicial conduct, which prevents judicial candidates from knowingly misrepresenting facts about their opponent. Gableman’s campaign ran an ad in the Milwaukee area before the April election against Incumbent Justice Louis Butler claiming he found a “loophole” to free a convicted sex offender.” Gableman defeated incumbent Justice Louis Butler in the April election. At the time, Gableman was a little-known county judge from northwestern Wisconsin. Citizen Action of Wisconsin, a progressive citizen advocacy group dedicated to bringing transparency to the electoral system, filed the compliant with the Wisconsin Judicial Commission on March 18. One local government watchdog group said fallout from recent Supreme Court campaigns is cause for concern.Channel3000

2008 Soros’ Open Society Institute made donations to dozens of groups seeking to sway the judicial selection process in states from Illinois to North Carolina, as well as funding national groups like Justice at Stake. According to Levy of the right-wing Wall Street Journal Soros and Grisham prefer “merit selection” where in order to keep politics out of judicial appointments, an appellate judicial commission selects a slate of judges from which the governor must choose. Right-wing critics argue that judicial commissions can also become agents of politicization leaning towards to left. Levy cited a 2007 “Harvard study” supporting his own views on an elected judiciary. The 2007 Harvard study mentioned by Levy was actually a paper presented at a Junior Faculty Forum based entirely on a historical analysis of how judges in the 19th century responded to Rylands (1865-). Given the complexity of the 21st century surely there are better sources for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of merit selection versus elected judiciary. Grisham is merely drawing attention to potential areas of corruption and the lack of information available to civil society by using popular culture.

 

2008-12-08  US Federal authorities in New York arrested Marc S. Dreier in a $100 million fraud scheme, portraying his recent undertakings as a massive hedge fund fraud. The Yale graduate who 1996 founded the Dreier L.L.P. 250-lawyer firm in 2006 allegedly took advantage of the current financial crisis by selling phony debt to hungry hedge funds looking for deals. (Rashbaum and Kowan 2008-12-08). 

2009-01 In a 2008 statewide survey entitled “Public Attitudes Regarding the Selection of Judges in the State of Washington” funded in part by Open Society Institute Professors Brody and Lovrich reported that,

“A little over 26% of respondents rated Washington’s current, non-partisan election method of judicial selection as good or very good, while 35% rated it bad or very bad; The largest areas of concern about the current method of selecting judges involved the lack of contested elections, the prominence of judges being appointed to the bench, and the lack of information available to voters to use in judicial elections; A little over 60% of respondents rated a commission system (merit system) of judicial selection to be good or very good, while roughly 16% rated such a selection system as bad or very bad; The aspects of the commission system viewed most positively were: (1) the use of a nominating commission as part of the appointment process; (2) the fact that retention elections provide voters with the opportunity to vote for or against all judges at regular intervals; (3) the fact that all judges may be held accountable by voters without the need for a person to run against a judge in a contested election; and (4) that judges always appear on election ballots at regular intervals; When asked to choose between the current system or a commission system of judicial selection, over 60% indicated a preference for adopting a commission system while about 23% preferred staying with the current system; Over 90% of respondents would support the development of a judicial performance evaluation program in Washington to provide information to voters about candidates in local and statewide judicial elections.”

2009-01-27 Wall Street Journal’s Dan Slater interviewed John Grisham to talk about his 22nd book. Grisham revealed that his favorite story was that of  Marc Dreier. “[I]t’s incredible. Pretending to be someone else? Taking over a conference room? I knew something was wrong when I read about his 120-foot yacht. When you’ve got a yacht that big you’re living like a billionaire. And you can’t do that as a New York lawyer. I don’t care how big your firm is.” Grisham explained that even as a writer of fiction that he could not improve on the real life stories of Dreier and Madoff. They have already been covered too much by the media. “The sushi restaurant (Dreier) owned? All the cars? The secretaries making $200,000 a year? It’s too much. When I see stuff like that my imagination just goes into overdrive (Grisham interviewed by Slater 2009-01-27).”

Notes
1. Randy Gordon’s PhD dissertation (2008) examined the impact of literary works on rehumanizing law and democracy. Gordon reiterated the argument that there “is a direct and demonstrable connection between publication of The Jungle and adoption” of the 1906 Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drugs Act (Gordon 2008:41). Historian James Harvey Young (1981) observed that two key political figures, James R. Garfield and Senator Alfred J. Beveridge presented President Theodore Roosevelt with Sinclair’s novel. Gordon also added that other landmark legislation in the meat packing industry book decades to be adopted. President, John F. Kennedy asked his Scientific Advisory Committee to investigate Carson’s claims and they largely vindicated Carson’s work (1963-05) particularly in the report’s condemnation of indiscriminate pesticide use and call for additional research into potential health (Gordon 2008:52).

2. Author and journalist Upton Sinclair’s influential novel entitled The Jungle (1906) about the corruption of the American meatpacking industry is an example of how fiction portrayed social reality and is an early example of is one of the finest examples of the “muckraking” tradition begun by journalists. In this novel Sinclair contrasted the lives of the “have-nots” and “haves” and deplored American “wage slavery”. Sinclair’s novel was first published in the left-wing newspaper The Appeal to Reason.

3. “Law is institutional normative order (MacCormick 2007).”

4. “The rhetoric of scientific objectivity, pressed too hard and taken too seriously, has led us to people like B.F. Skinner on the one hand and like Althusser on the other—two equally pointless fantasies, both produced by the attempt to be ‘scientific’ about our moral and political lives (Rorty 1996:573, 585).”

5. In his influential article on law’s autonomy by Judge Posner (1987) argued that law had been treated historically in practice and as a matter of training as if it were an autonomous discipline (Posner 1987:761 in Gordon 2008:17). 

6. The concept of “Narrative” as developed by Gordon’s in his literature review has a common thread of a “story,” a relational and temporal ordering of human events that culminates in “closure.” His sources include definitions of narrative as: “a story of events arranged in time sequence and offering some sort of meaning (Papke and McManus 1999:449)”; “the organization of material in a chronologically sequential order and the focusing of the content into a single coherent story . . . its arrangement is descriptive rather than analytical and . . . its central focus is on man not circumstances (Stone 1979:3)”; “first a ‘selective appropriation of past events and characters;’ second, a temporal ordering that presents these events with a beginning, a middle and an end; and third, an overarching structure that contextualizes these events as part of an opposition or struggle (97)”; “a recognizable discourse or operation . . . that . . . can be abstracted from [its] medium [of expression] . . . as in the plot summary (Clawson 1998)”; a story (99); “a metacode, a human universal on the basis of which transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality can be transmitted (100).”

 

Webliography and Bibliography

2008-01-27. “Grisham’s ‘Appeal’ Tackles Down-and-Dirty Politics. ” All Things Considered. 

Agence France-Presse. 2008-01-09 “Author John Grisham has no shortage of book ideas.” Madrid. 

Asimow, Michael. “Analyse This! John Grisham’s Lawyers from a Megafirm.” Picturing Justice. University of San Francisco. 

Brody, David; Lovrich, Nicholas. 2009-01. “Public Attitudes Regarding the Selection of Judges in the State of Washington: Results of a Statewide Survey 2008.” American Judicatur Society and Washington State Judicial Selection Coalition. 

98 Brooks, supra note 91, at 1.

Clawson, Mark A. 1998. “Telling Stories: Romance and Dissonance in Progressive Legal Narratives.” 22 Legal Studies F. 353, 364 (citing and partially quoting Ewick, Patricia; Silbey, Susan S. 1995. “Subversive Stories and Hegemonic Tales: Towards a Sociology of Narrative.” 29 Literature and Sociology Review. 197, 200.

Gordon, Randy. 2008. “Rehumanizing Law: a Narrative Theory of Law and Democracy.” Ph.D., Law. The University of Edinburgh. 2008.

Grossman, Lev. 2006-10-09. “Grisham’s New Pitch.” Time.

Levy, Collin. 2008-03-20. “Grisham’s Judicial Appeal.” Wall Street Journal. 

Hamilton, Kevin J. 2008-01-29. “New side to John Grisham: storytelling of substance.”  The Seattle Times. (Hamilton 2008)

MacCormick, Neil. 2007. Institutions of Law: an Essay in Legal Theory.

Memmott, Carl.  2008-01-28. “Grisham’s ‘Appeal’ rules harshly on bought election.” USA Today. 

O’Brien, Tim. 2005-03-21. “New Jersey No ‘Judicial Hell Hole’: State judiciary’s restraints may spare it full impact of Class Action Fairness Act.” New Jersey Law Journal. CLXXIX:12. 

Papke, David Ray; McManus, Kathleen H. 1999. “Narrative and the Appellate Opinion.” 23 Legal Studies. F. 449, 449.

Patrick, Bethanne. 2008-01. “Justice Denied.” Washington Post. 

Posner, Richard A. 1987. “The Decline of Law and an Autonomous Discipline: 1962-1987.” 100 Harvard Law Review. 761. 

Pozen, David. 2008. “The Irony of Judicial Elections.” 108 Columbia Law Review.

Rashbaum, William K; Cowan, Alison Leigh. 2008-12-08. “Lawyer Is Accused in Massive Hedge Fund Fraud.” New York Times. 

Rorty, Richard. 1996. “Solidarity or Objectivity.” in Cahoone, Lawrence. Ed. 1996. From Modernism to Postmodernism. 573, 585.

Slater, Dan. 2009-01-27 A Law Blog Q&A With John Grisham. Wall Street Journal. 

Stone, Lawrence. 1979. “The Revival of Narrative: Reflections on a New Old History.” 85 Past and Present. 3, 3.

Shugerman, Jed H. 2008. “The Twist of Long Terms: Disasters, Elected Judges, and American Tort Law.” Harvard Law School.

 

Tabarrok, Alexander; Helland, Eric. 1999-04. “Court Politics: The Political Economy of Tort Awards.” The Journal of Law and Economics. The University of Chicago. Vol. 42. 

 

99 Van Dunne, supra note 92, at 463.

100 White, supra note 90, at 6.

Young, James Harvey. 1981-06.“The Long Struggle for the 1906 Law.” FDA Consumer.

Economics 101: Rewriting the Textbooks

Deborah Yedlin (2008-12-30) of the Calgary Herald’s Business section succinctly summarized the economic nightmare of 2008 in which the investment banking industry collapsed, Chicago school economics theories were debunked and their heroes dethroned, trusted risk management managers were vilified, and the axis of financial power shifted from the West to the East.

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Citations

“The consequences of the lack of regulation in the shadowy subprime housing market, and the ability of banks to get loans off their balance sheets and have investment banks repackage them as rated securities, allowed for the spreading risk. It was a practice that was supposed to ensure if something went bad, the damage would be contained because the exposure would be spread out. It was an axiom that was lent an even greater reliability because U. S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greens-pan was a believer in it. As many are now painfully aware, the dominos began to fall when two hedge funds at Bear Stearns collapsed in late 2007. This started the clock ticking on the 84-year-old investment bank, which proceeded to lose the confidence of investors and counterparties and was sold post-haste to JP Morgan Chase in March for $10 a share with the “help” of the U. S. Federal Reserve and its investment banking veteran, Hank Paulson (Yedlin 2008-12-30).”

“Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, in opining on the multi-billion fraud perpetrated by Bernard Madoff, suggested one of the reasons he was not discovered was because of society’s worship of the wealthy. Too many, he said, have drawn the conclusion that people who have made huge sums of money must be very smart and to question these individuals would be to insult them (Yedlin 2008-12-30).”

Webliography and Bibliography

Yedlin, Deborah. 2008-12-30. “Storybook year ends in economic nightmare.” Calgary Herald.

Long term social damage caused by downsizing

Displaced workers mysteriously drop out of civic, business, political, neighborhood groups, social and leisure activities, country clubs, sports teams and weekly gatherings with friends, Brand and Burgard (2008). UCLA-University of Michigan, Ann Arbor study researcher claims, “Everybody loses when people withdraw from society.”

However, membership in professional and political organizations did not decline in the study group. “Displacement seems to change their whole trajectory of participation (Brand 2008).”

“Even a single involuntary displacement has a lasting impact on a worker’s inclination to volunteer and participate in a whole range of social and community groups and organizations, found the study, which appears in the September issue of the international scholarly journal Social Forces.”

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“Social participation is important to participatory democracy, to healthy neighborhoods, and to effective schools (Putnam 2000). Individuals who participate may also be advantaged in the labor market: social and economic resources are embedded in social networks (Bourdieu 1983; Coleman 1988; Granovetter 1973),1 networks that may be formed through involvement in various social organizations and associations. Social participation is also associated with better physical and mental health and well-being, important outcomes in and of themselves, but also important for the labor market (Berkman 1995; Durkheim 1933; House 1981; House, Landis, and Umberson 1988). From the mid 1940s to the early 1970s, there was an unprecedented increase in social participation in the U.S. This trend coincided with unprecedented and widespread economic prosperity, marked by a low rate of unemployment and generally increasing real earnings. In recent decades, however, average rates of social participation have declined (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Brashears 2006; Putnam 2000). Likewise, the trend toward increasingly widespread economic prosperity in the U.S. has reversed (Brand and Burgard 2007-05:3).”

“[I]s the effect of job displacement on social participation mediated by post-displacement psychological distress and/or reduced feelings of social trust or reciprocity, above and beyond experiences of downward socioeconomic mobility? To address this question, we examine the potential mediating role of measures of depression, self-acceptance, and social reciprocity on the relationship between displacement and participation, net of downward social mobility (Brand and Burgard 2007-05:5).”

“Job displacement usually includes a sequence of stressful events from anticipation of job loss through the loss itself, to a spell of unemployment, to job search and training, to reemployment, often at reduced wages and status. Initial movement into unemployment is associated with a number of economic pressures, new patterns of interaction with family members, and personal assessment in relation to individual values and societal pressures (Pearlin et al. 1981). It is therefore not surprising that a significant association has been found between job displacement and psychological distress over the life course: Displaced workers report lower levels of self-acceptance, self-confidence, morale, and higher levels of depression and dissatisfaction with life (Burgard, Brand, and House 2007; Dooley, Fielding, and Levi 1996;Gallo et al. 2000; Kessler, Turner, and House 1989; Turner 1995; Warr and Jackson 1985) (Brand and Burgard 2007-05:5).”

“Expanding on Durkheim’s theory, Wilensky (1961) found that orderly careers, i.e. a succession of jobs related in function with elevations in status, free of unexpected periods of unemployment and disorderly shifts in jobs, occupations, and industries, were associated with strong attachment to one’s community and society (Brand and Burgard 2007-05:6).”

“[T]he “spillover” theory asserts that being employed in a job that encourages initiative, thought, and independence also indirectly encourages social participation (Kohn and Schooler 1982; Rain, Lane, and Steiner 1991; Staines 1980; Wilson and Musik 1997) (Brand and Burgard 2007-05:7).”

“[V]alues and attitudes towards oneself and one’s society may influence levels of social participation. Putnam (2000) argues that where positive social roles, social trust, and norms of reciprocity flourish, individuals participate socially. However, displacement may negatively alter individual attitudes and self-perception, and thus, reduce participation. Thus, the strain of insecure employment, actual displacement events, periods of unemployment, reemployment in jobs with lower earnings and/or lower quality, psychological distress, and the erosion of commitment to social reciprocity may all contribute to decreased levels of social participation among displaced workers (Brand and Burgard 2007-05:7).”

Webliography and Bibliography

Brand, Jennie, and Sarah Burgard. 2007-05. “Effects of Job Displacement on Social Participation: Findings over the Life Course of a Cohort of Joiners.” PSC Research Report No. 07-623. May 2007.

Abstract: “Career disorder and economic distress have been identified as potential causes of the observed decline in social participation in the U.S. We examine the causal effect of job displacement, a career disorder-producing event that is associated with subsequent socioeconomic and psychological decline, on social participation. Using more than 45 years of panel data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study and difference-in-differences regression estimation, we find significant and lasting negative effects of displacement on subsequent social participation for workers displaced during their prime earnings years, ages 35-53, while no effect for workers displaced in the years approaching retirement, ages 53-64. Results also suggest that socioeconomic and psychological decline resulting from job displacement do not explain the negative impact of job displacement on social participation (Brand and Burgard 2007-05).”

Brand, Jennie, and Sarah Burgard. 2008-09. “Effects of Job Displacement on Social Participation: Findings Over the Life Course of a Cohort of Joiners.” Social Forces, .

Burgard, Sarah, Jennie Brand, and James S. House. 2007. “Toward a Better Estimation of the Effect of Job Loss on Health.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 48: 369-384.

Price, Richard H., and Sarah Burgard. 2008. “The new employment contract and worker health in the United States.” In Making Americans healthier : social and economic policy as health policy. New York : Russell Sage.

Putnam, Robert D. 2001. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.

Public Release. 2008-09-01. “Bowling alone because the team got downsized.” Social Forces. Eureka Alert. Accessed September 2, 2008.

HDI (Human Development Index)

HDI (Human Development Index)

The HDI is comprised of three equally weighted sub-indices: a life expectancy index (based on life expectancy at birth), an education index (based on adult literacy, school enrollment and university enrollment), and a GDP index (based on GDP per capita in US dollars at purchasing power parity) (Leigh and Wolfers 2005).

The authors compare how subjective states such as happiness, satisfaction, with life which depend on qualia (folk psychology) can be used as datasets to decide the ranking of countries in terms of Human Development not just Economic Development. Different studies use different datasets. Eg, World Values Survey (Leigh and Wolfers 2005).

The GDP as economic measure was considered by some to be inadequate. Amartya Sen developed alternative indicators for measuring human development called the “capabilities approach” and the Human Development Index (HDI) . His work was honoured with the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1998. In his speech he noted that social choice relating social judgments and group decisions to the views and interests of the individuals who make up the society or the complex, heterogenous group we speak of when we say “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Selected Bibliography

Leigh, Andrew, Wolfers, Justin. 2005. Critique of Blanchflower and Oswald (2005) “Happiness and the Human Development Index: Australia Is Not a Paradox,” The Australian Economic Review, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 176–84. http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/~aleigh/pdf/CommentBlanchflowerOswald.pdf

Sen, Amartya. 1998. “The Possibility of Social Choice: Nobel Prize Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel.” The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences.  December 8, 1998. 

The authors compare how subjective states such as happiness, satisfaction, with life which depend on qualia (folk psychology) can be used as datasets to decide the ranking of countries in terms of Human Development not just Economic Development. Different studies use different datasets. Eg, World Values Survey

Hume vs Gore: 18th Century Values for a 21st Century Dilemma

Armchair science: Montreal philosophy prof Laberge (2007) calls Al Gore, the high priest of the missionary ecological movement and claims Gore has turned the issue of climate change into a moral imperative. He uses 18th c. Scottish Enlightenment philosopher Hume’s is-ought problem to prove that the statement “global warming is bad” is erroneous.

In the socio-historical context in which Hume was writing he was concerned with distinguishing vulgar reasoning from true philosophy. He argued that there were four sciences: logic, morals, criticism, and politics. He claimed that morals do not result from logical reason and judgment but from tastes, sentiments, feelings and passions.

Hume distinguishes also between a vulgar [thinker who uses only common language] who proposes a system of morality and a true philosopher, between the thinking of a peasant and a true artisan. Vulgar reasoning shifts from ‘is’ to ‘ought’ imperceptibly without giving a proper explanation or producing evidence.

Is Laberge suggesting that Gore is a vulgar thinker who has not provided enough evidence for his case? In the case of climate change the science is overwhelmingly clear.

And humans do have the moral sensitivities which are the basis for making ethical decisions. We also have reason and scientific tools that provide us with experience-based evidence that informs our moral choices. Even Hume describes a political will, a social covenant in which citizens consult and agree upon a common ‘moral’ action.  We are not conscious of most of our mundane, everyday moral choices. Failing to protect forests or watersheds is a moral choice. A couple of decades ago most of us were insensitive to the moral nature of our actions that were destructive to ecosystems. In complex ecological issues where so many political, economics, geography, social and cultural interests converge, we consider ethical dimensions. Science can provide tools for measuring forest regeneration and efficient technologies for implementation. But science itself is not invested with moral sensitivity. It is only through human moral sensitivities that value judgments can be made in regards to unintended risks or side effects. Once science has provided evidence of shared, heightened risks we move from mere truth claims to moral justification for action or inaction.

Notes:

Keywords: Hume, philosophy, epistemology, ecology, is-ought, meta-ethics,
Webliography

Markie, Peter. 2004. “Rationalism vs. Empiricism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Hume, David. 1739-40. “Footnote 13.”Treatise of Human Nature.

Laberge, Jean. 2007. “Le devoir de philo: le scepticisme de Hume contre les écolos.” Le Devoir. 19 mai.

 

US CEOs unconcerned about climate change, most Americans are

The uber wealthy are the most mobile, the least at-risk to the unintended and frightening by-products of their industries. Pricewaterhouse Coopers reports that 18 % of North American CEOs are not concerned about climate change, while most Americans, the UK and EU are. In Canada these CEO’s have increased their lobbying power over public policy.

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King of Canada: Tom d’Acquino CEO of CEO’s

January 9th, 2007

The Canadian business community has taken the most active interest in politics at the CEO level than any other business community in in the world (d’Acquino cited in Brownlee 2005: 9 Newman 1998:159-160). And this interest and influence has been on the rise in the last decades. Canada’s business community has had more influence on Canadian public policy in the years 1995-2005 then in any other period since 1900.

Look at what we stand for and look at what all the governments, all the major parties . . . have done, and what they want to do. They have adopted the agendas we’ve been fighting for the in the past few decades (cited in Brownlee 2005: 12 Newman 1998:151).

Tom D’Acquino should know as he is the CEO of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

While the average North American is becoming increasingly concerned by climate change, a recent report by Pricewaterhouse Coopers has found that fewer than a fifth – 18 per cent – of North American chief executives are concerned about climate change putting them increasingly out of step with their colleagues in Europe and Asia Pacific.

This a current list of the Chief Executive Officers of the Officers of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives:

• Dominic D’Alessandro, Vice Chair Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) and President and CEO Manulife Financial

• Thomas d’Aquino, Chief Executive Officer and President of Canadian Council of Chief Executives
• Paul Desmarais. Jr. Vice Chair President of Canadian Council of Chief Executives and Chairman and C0-Chief Executive Officer of Power Corporation of Canada
• Richard L. George, Honorary Chair Canadian Council of Chief Executives and President and CEO of Suncor Energy Inc.
• Jacques Lamarre, Vice Chair of Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) and President and CEO SNC-Lavalin Group, Inc.
• Gordon M. Nixon, Chair of Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) and President and CEO of Royal Bank of Canada
• Hartley T. Richardson Vice Chair of Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) and President and CEO of James Richardson and Sons, Ltd.
• Annette Verschuren Vice Chair of Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) and President of The Home Depot Canada

For more see: King of Canada: Tom d’Acquino CEO of CEO’s

Wars and tax cuts for wealthy make US the world’s largest debtor $3trillion

Geopolitics of Oil, Money and Militarism: George W. Bush pledged $350 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy over a period of 10 years. The invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have cost $250 billion so far. According to a Financial Times report, foreign investors: China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea own c. 53% of all US Treasury bills.

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Geopolitics of Oil, Money and Militarism
The US is the world’s largest debtor ($3 trillion in 2005) due to tax cuts and wars during the presidency of George W. Bush who pledged $350 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy over a period of 10 years. The invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have cost $250 billion so far, with another $6 billion added each month (Dillon 2006:2). According to a Financial Times report, foreign investors such as China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea own about 53% of all US Treasury bills and over half of these overseas holdings be-long to central banks (Dillon 2006:2 citing Financial Times 2005/08/16).

A timeline of geopolitics of oil, money and militarism

Late 1980s tranquility before the crises of the 1990s.

2005 According to a Financial Times report, foreign investors such as China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea own about 53% of all US Treasury bills and over half of these overseas holdings be-long to central banks (Dillon 2006:2 citing Financial Times 2005/08/16).

2006 “The US is the world’s largest debtor. Its external debt, measured in terms of its “net international investment position”, approached $3 trillion at the end of 2005. The US debt is comparable in size to the total debt of all developing countries which reached $2.6 trillion at the end of 2004 as measured by the World Bank (Dillon 2006:1).”

2006 “Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warily compares the apparent calm on global financial markets [in February 2006] to the tranquility that preceded the crises of the 1990s. Today, the imbalances that threaten global financial stability are rooted in the USA’s burgeoning debt (Dillon 2006:1).”

Selected bibliography and webliography

Dillon, John. 2006. “Will US debt lead to a financial crisis?” Kairos. No. 2 February. KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives unites eleven churches and religious institutions in work for social justice in Canada and around the globe.

Debate: Does Global Inequality Fade as Global Economy Grows? Hong Kong tops

Sala-i-Martin, Xavier. 2006.”Global Inequality Fades as the Global Economy Grows.” 2007 Index of Economic Freedom.

The report of 13th annual Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom 2007 was cited in the January 23, 2007 online version of The Economist under Business This Week. Economic Freedom of 161 countries is measured and ranked from 0 to 100 with 0 demarcating countries with the least freedom. The index designed for public policymakers and investors uses ten variables, such as tax rates, ability to do business, property rights, corruption, labour freedom and property rights. Some countries such as Iraq were excluded from the survey. Using a new formula this year liberty worldwide is on the rise compared to the entire period investigated (c.1995-2006) although slightly less in 2006(60.6%) as compared to 2005 figures. What is problematic about this index is the way in which market liberalism is confounded with a more inclusive concept of liberty.
This annual index cites Adam Smith‘s The Wealth of Nations in 1776 as its foundational theoretical framework and measures ten variables, such as the ability to do business, property rights, corruption and labour freedom. The average score (0 equals repressed, 100 equals free) was 60.6%, down slightly from last year but the second-highest since the survey began. North Korea remained rooted at the bottom (several countries, including Iraq, were not ranked).

According to Index of Economic Freedom 2007 Hong Kong, United States, Britain, Chile, Japan, Germany, Israel and Thailand are the best countries in the world to do business. North Korea, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Russia, China, Turkey, Brazil and Italy are the worst places for free market trade.

Since the 18th century Smith’s theories have been used to explain capitalism asa means of promulgating peace since war interrupts trade between nations. In a recent article (2006) in Le monde diplomatique,sociologist Professor Alain Bihr, reveals how this concept of capitalism and freedom of the market as generator of peace, embedded in concepts of classical liberal economy, forgets the nature of production (Bihr 2006 citing Smith 1904 [1776]). Smith’s theories continue to inform investigations of the study of liberal thought and the history of capitalism, such as the Index of Economic Freedom.

Adam Smith’s arguments are used as a rebuttal to the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report (1999) which decries the widening gap between the poorest and richest countries. In 1997 the upper quintile controlled 74 times the income of the lowest quintile, whereas in 1960 the figure was 30 times the income. (The extremes of wealth and poverty in Canada are discussed in )

What is too often ignored in liberal market theories is Adam Smith’s final concluding chapter in which he clearly indicates what must be done with surplus wealth in order to prevent the extremes of wealth and poverty. There is a responsibility on the part of the super rich to not simply accumulate their wealth as is the case of the ultra rich but to redistribute their wealth with an eye to hospitality.

When neither commerce nor manufactures furnish anything for which the owner can exchange the greater part of those materials which are over and above his own consumption, he can do nothing with the surplus but feed and clothe nearly as many people as it will feed and clothe. A hospitality in which there is no luxury, and a liberality in which there is no ostentation, occasion, in this situation of things, the principal expences of the rich and the great. But these, I have likewise endeavoured to show in the same book, are expences by which people are not very apt to ruin themselves. There is not, perhaps, any selfish pleasure so frivolous of which the pursuit has not sometimes ruined even sensible men. A passion for cock-fighting has ruined many. But the instances, I believe, are not very numerous of people who have been ruined by a hospitality or liberality of this kind, though the hospitality of luxury and the liberality of ostentation have ruined many (Smith 1902 [1776]: V.3.1).

In a future world individuals may well be entrusted with doing this voluntarily. But we are far from this state of equilibrium where the market balances itself. The Index of Economic Freedom cannot therefore be relied upon as a stand-alone tool measuring freedom. Concepts of hospitality and liberty need to be measured with the more sophisticated critical tools of the 21st century not with limited readings of brilliant texts of the 17the century.

In 2001 Peter Robinson invited Bruce Bartlett, Senior Fellow, National Center for Policy Analysis and Peter Orszag, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution to debate questions concerning income inequality such as:

“How much does the gap between rich and poor matter? In 1979, for every dollar the poorest fifth of the American population earned, the richest fifth earned nine. By 1997, that gap had increased to fifteen to one. Is this growing income inequality a serious problem? Is the size of the gap between rich and poor less important than the poor’s absolute level of income? In other words, should we focus on reducing the income gap or on fighting poverty?” See the transcript or listen to the multimedia of Robinson, Peter. 2001. “Rich Man, Poor Man: Income Inequality.” Uncommon Knowledge. Filmed July 18, 2001 hosted by the Hoover Institution and funded by John M. Olin Foundation and the Starr Foundation, all pro-business think tanks.

Footnotes

While Canada now has a $4.8 trillion net worth, the lower quintile of the population have seen their net worth diminish while the net worth of the Ultra rich has increased.

Selected webliography

Bihr, Alain. 2006.“Aux origines du capitalisme: L’erreur fondamentale d’Adam Smith.” Le monde diplomatique online.November.
Flynn-Burhoe. 2007. “Rich Man Poor Man: Hospitality, Liberty and Measuring the Measurements.” Google Docs and Spreadsheets. January 24, 2007.

Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom 2007.

Robinson, Peter. 2001. “Rich Man, Poor Man: Income Inequality.” Uncommon Knowledge. Filmed July 18, 2001 hosted by the Hoover Institution.

Sala-i-Martin, Xavier. 2006.”Global Inequality Fades as the Global Economy Grows.” 2007 Index of Economic Freedom.

Smith, Adam. 1776. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., ed. Edwin Cannan,1904. Fifth edition. complete online version

OECD and Health Care: Canada’s $4.8 trillion national net worth

Canada’s health care system is similar to most members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The only OECD members who do not have a public health system on par with other members are the USA and Mexico. In spite of that the United States continues to pay a higher percentage of its GNP to its health care system than Canada [1].

Canadians view its medicare system as “a moral enterprise, not a business venture (Romanow 2002:21)” and they overwhelmingly support the tenets of the Canada Health Act which states that need not money determines access to health care. “Canada’s Medicare system since its inception in 1966 has become one of the “most fully socialized health care systems.” In the 1960s medical systems in Canada and the US were similar. Medicare was a$100 billion enterprise in 2002, one of our Canada’s’s largest expenditures (Romanow2002:20). However, this amounts to a smaller percentage of Canada’s national net worth which was $4.8 trillion as of December 2006 (StatisticsCanada 2006) than that of in 1992. Commissioner Ray Romanow’s mandate in 2001 was to “review medicare and engage Canadians in a national dialogue on its future”(Romanow 2002:6). This was accomplished through an 18-month investigation resulting in a report that was evidence-based and values-driven making recommendations to strengthen and improve medicare’s quality and sustainability making it more truly national, more comprehensive, responsive and accountable (Romanow2002:6).” In the 1970s pharmaceutical costs accounted for a small percentage of total medicare costs. By 2002 they were among the highest costs in the systemand they continue to rise. The report did not confirm claims that user fees, medical savings accounts, de-listing services, greater privatization, a parallelprivate system, as proposed by the leaner goverment lobbyists, were the cure for the medicare system (Romanow2002:21).

More surgeries, treatments and tests are being performed, but demands often outstrip their ability to deliver the necessary services on a timely basis. As a participant in the Commission’s “Policy Dialogue on Access”at Dalhousie University put it, long waiting times are not caused by the system performing fewer diagnostic and surgical procedures but because medical advances now allow us to deliver more of these services and to a wider range of people (Romanow 2002:192)

Public and private sector care providers (including fee-for-service doctors) have been part of our health care system since the inception of medicare in Canada.

Whereas in the 1970s medicare costs consisted mainly of physican fees and hospital expenditures (Romanow2002), currently the cost of pharmaceutical expenditures is the most rapidly increasing part of medicare (Lexchin 2007). In his recent Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report Lexchin (2007) reveals how the cost of pharmaceuticals accounted for $18.5 billion in 2004 and $20.6 billion in 2005. Spending on physicians was c. $18 billion in 2005. It is crucial to note that shareholders in pharmaceuticals enjoyed substantially greater returns than shareholders (20.1% in 2003; 23.5% in 1996) in other forms of manufacturing (10.8% in 2003 and 12.2 % in 1996) in Canada.[2] Canada, Mexico and the United States do not have as comprehensive public plans for pharmaceuticals as do other OECD countries where the greatest expenditures on pharmaceuticals come from the public purse. OECD governments have more control over amounts spent on pharmaceuticals.

A List of Acronyms

CCPACanadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

CIHI Canadian Institute for Health Information

OECD Organisation for EconomicCo-operation and Development

PMPRB Patented Medicine Prices Review Board a part of Health Canada, sets an upper limit on how much companies can charge
for new patented medications.

Footnotes

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[1] The US spent more on administrative costs. They also spent more per person $2548 (US) compared to $1886 (US) in Canada. See http://www3.who.int/whosis/core/core_select_process.cfm

[2] Given that pension plans returns are based on the strength of investment portfolios we find ourselves in 2006 with a moral dilemma. How do we ensure the future of pension plans with a healthy investment portfolio while calling for ethical management of that same portfolio?

Selected Bibliography

Lexchin, Joel. 2007.”CanadianDrug Prices and Expenditures: Some statistical observations and policyimplications.” Ottawa, ON:CanadianCentre for Policy Alternatives. ISBN 978-0-88627-520-4.

OECD health data 2004.

Romanow, Ray. 2002.Buildingon Values: The Future of Health Care in Canada –Final Report. ISBN0-662-33043-9.