We had, in the New Zealand of a generation ago, a system based on high-wage full
employment sustained by the general observance of an unwritten but well-understood
contract between workers, employers and the state. It was indeed a market economy,
but one in which trust and forbearance, based on empathy and sympathy, did not just
temper the excesses of the market but actually allowed them to function with a
remarkable lack of fuss, in terms of all those monitoring, managing, guarding and
accounting activities required to excess in a more opportunistic society. It was
extremely efficient in terms of exchange efficiency....if supposedly lacking in ...
allocative efficiency - the promised fruits of the more market reforms. (Hazledine,
p217, my italics).
In developing countries, a study of four poor urban communities in Zambia, Hungary,
Ecuador and the Philippines during economic adjustments of the 1980s showed the
importance of COOP relations among and within households for supporting poor households
during crisis and providing the basis for community organisations. But the “economic crisis
has... eroded trust and cooperation in a number of important respects”. These included a
decline in participation in community-based organisations, especially by women; an increase
in youth gangs; and increase in crime; lack of mobility especially at night; and a decline in
attendance at night schools. Moser argued that there was a “rupture of a social contract
carefully negotiated over the years” (quotes from Moser, 1996, p 64-5, cited in White and
Robinson 1998).
Medical reforms in the neo-liberal era
The move towards market reforms has had strong effects on the health sector in many
countries. User charges have been widely introduced, often improving the quality of health
administration - plus those workers in other industries in transaction occupations’ plus
unemployed transactions’workers. The methodology adopted by Hazledine folows that of
Wallis and North, 1986.
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