The Capitalist System – Taking the ‘Care’ out of the ‘Healthcare Service’

A recent report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) published on October 13th found ‘truly appalling and shocking’ low levels of care for the elderly during spot visits to hospitals throughout the UK. It described over half of all hospitals failing to meet basic standards for dignity and provision of nutrition to elderly patients while one in five had broken the law with respect to protecting the dignity and adequate feeding of older patients. Nurses were failing to check whether patients had eaten during meal-times and whether they had sufficient fluid intake with some hospital staff sometimes having to prescribe drinking water on medication charts to ‘ensure people get regular drinks.’ Call bells were being put out of reach, patients were ignored for hours at times, some were taken to the toilet in full view of others on the ward or left exposed, and incontinent patients were sometimes left in their own urine or faeces for over a hour.

The highly critical report also showed that staff did not treat patients with kindness and compassion, often talking to elderly patients in a condescending and dismissive way. Dame Jo Williams, the commission’s chair, said, ‘Too often our inspectors saw the delivery of care treated as a task that needed to be completed. Those responsible for the training and development of staff, particularly in nursing, need to look long and hard at why the focus has become the unit of work rather than the person who needs to be looked after.’

While the finding of this report has stirred up discussion as to the reasons for such shocking findings, no one can offer suitable reasons why a healthcare service which has been hailed as one of the best in the world, seemingly still cannot tackle the basic treatment of its patients. One reason offered was that the elderly are living much longer and therefore their ailments are ongoing for longer periods of time, leaving health professionals unsure of how to deal with longer periods of illness amongst patients.

The reality of such an excuse shows how when adequate reasons cannot be found, it seems perfectly excusable to blame the victims for living too long rather than address the real causes of the growth of a culture of neglect towards the most vulnerable within society. What is closer to the truth is that no matter how much money is invested and progress attributed to an institution as noble and altruistic as the health service, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It lives within a capitalist culture and society which is suffering from a perpetual empathy drought. Consequently the erosion of values such as care, compassion, and humanity, will naturally affect every aspect and institution within society, including the health service.

Capitalist societies are imbibed in a culture which sanctifies materialism, over that of human life. Capitalist values have reared generations who ascribe more importance on goods and services than they do on human dignity, and nurtured an individualistic mindset moulded upon the pursuit of self-interest rather than care and concern for the needs of others. Therefore it is no great surprise that within such an environment that sees everything in monetary terms, many have no time nor money for the elderly, viewing them as being of limited value to the economy and hence a burden to society rather than honouring them as a great asset to any community with respect to their wisdom and life experiences. Nor is it surprising that under a system that fails to appreciate the value of ‘profitless’ qualities such as respect, kindness, compassion, and patience, that the mistreatment and neglect of the elderly is endemic even within a hospital environment and that those who are sick and need looking after are simply one category in a long list of those suffering from an absence of compassion and attention.

Hence whether lack of government expenditure on healthcare, poor NHS or hospital leadership, or inadequate training of nurses to care for the elderly are cited as reasons for this appalling situation, they are all reflections of the same thing – capitalism’s complete failure to give importance to basic human needs that cannot be measured by the pound.

In stark contrast, Islam considers the value attached to human life and dignity as key to the progress of any civil society. Concepts such as compassion, kindness, dignity and respect for human life are firm tenets in Islam and are fundamentally unchangeable within an Islamic society. Furthermore, Islam’s view of the elderly is that they should be held with a status of respect and honour as according to the statement of the Prophet(peace be upon him), ‘He is not one of us who does not have mercy on young children, nor honour the elderly.’ It is crucially important that the values which permeate a society be ones which value human life and dignity above and beyond any material progress. This is one of the core reasons as to why so many are turning to Islam as an alternative to the Western capitalist liberal way of life, understanding that the true success of any way of life must lie with the value it attaches to human life. (By: Sultana Parvin)

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Tax doesn’t have to be Taxing

In September 2011 in a letter to the Financial Times twenty high-profile economists urged the UK government to drop the top 50% tax rate, which they say is doing “lasting damage” to the UK economy. In a speech in response to this letter, Chancellor George Osborne said recent economic data had led to short term forecasts being revised down over recent weeks – but pledged to stick to his budget deficit-cutting plans, of which this 50% income tax rate is a part.

Fiscal policy is used by governments around the world to influence the level of aggregate spending in the economy, although this method has lost influence as a policy lever. During the 1970s and 1980’s this was the main method used to ensure an economy didn’t overheat. In the era of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan using taxes to control an economy gave way to monetarism i.e. the use of interest rates and money supply to keep inflation down.

Taxation is the most important source of revenues for modern governments, typically accounting for 90% or more of their income. The remainder of government revenue comes from borrowing. Countries differ considerably in the amount of taxes they collect.

A simple example to understand this is in the UK one would be liable for Income tax and national insurance contributions which brings the tax burden to 31% on the UK average salary of £26,000. Add to this consumption taxes, local government taxes, road taxes and other indirect taxes such as VAT, then the tax burden rises close to the 50% mark. This means in the UK half of the average wage is paid to the Government on a combination of direct and indirect taxes.

The level of taxation in any nation will affect people’s behaviour, including their choices in working, saving, and investing. Taxation in the UK has created a number of problems in wealth distribution where the burden falls heavily upon the poor with the rich utilising tax loopholes and tax havens.

The fundamental problem here is the fact that government through legislation can invent taxes overnight. When the British government implemented a system of local poll taxes in 1990, citizens considered the tax so unfair that they held demonstrations—some violent—around the country. The extreme unpopularity of the tax contributed to the downfall of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Her successor, John Major, repealed the tax in 1991.

As there is no fixed blueprint for revenues for Western government they can introduce taxes and spend where they want. Whilst the current strategy to reduce the deficit was in large part due to the bailouts needed due to the financial crisis created by banks, the British government has imposed extra taxation on society and let the bankers off the hook. This process is perfectly legal as the government can create taxes and decide where is spends what it raises. This is why big business has for the last decade seen its taxes falling as it has been able to influence government decisions through funding political election campaigns.

Islam and Taxes

Islam has a completely different taxation philosophy. Rather than taxing income the Islamic fiscal policy focuses taxation on wealth. Islamic taxes on wealth broadly focus on unused monies, land and benefits. Islam has an array of taxes related to the production of land and the utilisation of land. Islamic taxation consists of very low taxes and hence does not burden the Ummah. This means that individuals are more likely to invest their wealth without being afraid of high taxes and will be motivated to work harder to reap the rewards for themselves and their families.

The low taxes allow more private enterprise and entrepreneurship by removing barriers for entry. Islamic fiscal policy does not tax individual incomes or company profits.

Islam has fixed the permanent revenues and as a result it only has a handful of taxes. Due to this the taxation system is not a mind boggling process as seen in the West where ones income, spending and death are taxed.

An Islamic tax regime also administers the state properties, as Islam has obliged the collective ownership of public properties. These are goods and services which if not made available to the public would make it almost impossible to live. These include roads, bridges etc., utilities like electricity, water as well as natural resources such as oil, gas, coal. The state would charge a small fee for their administration and use the monies received from exports to fund expenditure.

Aside from this Islam has permitted the state to tax wealth above what is needed for normal living in order to meet the costs of government expenditure in cases where revenues are not sufficient to meet expenditures. How this is only in exceptional circumstances. This means that in Islam only a set number of taxes can be raised thus restricting what is deducted form citizens, An Islamic ruler (Khaleef) cannot just invent taxes!

In contrast to the West, the Islamic system does not contain a vast number of differing taxes. The Islamic system is very simple and hence fraud via loopholes will be very difficult. Compliance is high while compliance costs are negligible. The rate of Nisaab – tax free amount – is high and rises with peoples’ standard of living which effectively means the poor rightly pay no tax at all.

Applying this to the UK economy based on the average UK salary of £26,000, the tax burden through British taxation falls at over 50% with the average person in the country losing between £11,000-13,000 to taxation. In Islam as there is no tax on income this (£11,000-£13,000) is additional spending or saving in the economy – amounting to £340bn-£400bn per annum with 31m tax payers in the UK– boosting growth and employment. Islam’s wealth tax (Zakat) at a mere 2.5% falls on savings and other excess properties if they amount to at least about £1,000 held over the course of a year. This means that the average person can save or spend more in a year and is only taxed on his excess wealth above a minimum which ensure the poor avoid tax altogether. (Ends)

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