Re: re: a Delphi worker on Delphi
Carrol Cox wrote:
Or at the state level. Or any other level.
My argument is that this can be won only under radically changed political conditions, and that the change necessary would not be a smooth line but a jump. Hence there will never be a time when it is (a) possible to win single payer at the state (or national) level but (b) not possible to win a national health service.
I’ve not been able to dream up a good metaphor for this, but try the following.
You are 10 feet underwater. You need either to get to the surface or find a breathing tube 10 ft long which will allow you to breathe at 10 ft under. But all the breathing tubes are not only on land, they are a quarter of a mile away from the shore. Hence the power to get a breathing tube is also the power to get out of the water into the air. Single payer is like that breathing tube. It is as far out of our reach as is a national health service.
More exotica out of the Cox theory of history. Don’t bother fighting for single-payer - it’s hopeless. Of course there’s no possibility the fight itself might change political conditions. We just have to wait until That Magic Moment, the transformative jump, arrives.
I was just thinking earlier that one of the things I like about the Working Families Party’s approach these days is that they’ve been organizing around specific issues that can make a real difference in actual lives - raising the minimum wage, reducing drug sentences. At the same time, these campaigns build institutions and consciousness. I think they’re moving toward a state single-payerish scheme. Should they give up?
Doug