You are in the company
of
Roger Warren Evans
Roger Warren Evans
|
|
You are in the company
of
Roger Warren Evans |
|
| Part of www.LivePolitics.net < Back to Home Page |
|
|
item0027D 576,577 576 23 December 2002 The Great Toothpaste Conspiracy
"Market systems", then, are not the property of capitalism, or indeed of the trading sector. The distinctive feature of capitalism is that these trading profits become private property. What distinguishes capitalism is not the profits themselves, but their destination and onward use. They become "private profit", to be hoovered up by business-owners and shareholders everywhere. The power of private property, and of private property rights upheld by the Courts, is the driver of the capitalist system. Those with accumulated purchasing power (i.e. "capital") can use that power to seize control of any "profitable" activity, and hi-jack the proceeds for themselves. for the corporations point of view, that is what the PFI, and privatisation generally, is all about.These profits, in the trading sector, may be
very, very large. That
is where For toothpaste, like soap, has been one of leading products of world capitalism. My early childhood memories are of listening to Radio Luxembourg under the sheets at boarding-school, and the thrill of hearing the advertisements - "The time by my H Samuel's Ever-rite Watch..." - and (in French) "Le Colgate-Palmolive", with the third "l" forcefully enunciated, as in "Pal - moleev". Radio advertising for expensive watches was understandable, but I could never understand how the price of the lowly toothpaste could sustain such costs - which I presumed to be enormous. I now know. There are many products which have been established in price-brackets which pre-suppose massive promotional expenditure - cosmetics, certainly, but also much of the pharmaceutical industry. Tiny production costs are associated - by some form of immanent trade conspiracy - with astronomical selling-prices. How else can Sainsburys afford to sell this large tube of toothpaste for less than one-fifth of any branded comparable? Some will nod their heads and talk fallaciously about "strategic loss-leaders" - but that is nonsense - the unglamorous plain toothpaste would be useless as a loss-leader. No: the answer is that, without the paraphernalia of branding, and without development costs, and without the gentlemanly conspiracy that still permeates much of market capitalism, Sainsburys can still make a profit, selling at 44p. Sainsbury's, probably inadvertently, are the whistle-blowers, exposing the Great Toothpaste Conspiracy. The same conspiracy informs the entire pharmaceutical industry, including the international drugs giants. They maintain their grotesque profit margins by a global battery of deceit, half-truth, and collusion. That is the story behind the gigantic tussle of titans currently tearing the Doha Round apart, in the WTO negotiations over the price of AIDS drugs to the Third World.When you are next in any supermarket, take a closer look at all its whistle-blowing bargain price items. You will be very surprised indeed... What do you think? Drop me a line
577 30 December 2002 Managing Compensation I will be watching this year for signs that the Judges are seeking to constrain the compensation culture. You know me: I do not think that the process is inherently undesirable, but I do recognise that it should be brought under "social control", by the Courts themselves. This is not a matter for parliamentary intervention.Every day brings new examples of the promotion or containment of compensation options. A Dusseldorf Court in December rejected a compensation claim by a diabetes sufferer Hans-Josef Brinkman against a German subsidiary of the Mars Corporation. The overweight Brinkman claimed that Mars' products contributed to a 200lb weight-gain, because he had eaten "two Mars and one Snickers"-a-day, for several years. Now we've all heard that "a Mars a day helps you work, rest and play..", but the Brinkman claim was stopped in its tracks, by the Court. Another compensation claim was stopped in December, in quite different circumstances, when the English and Australian first-instance Courts reached different conclusions about passengers right-to-sue airlines for deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) suffered on long-haul flights. Let me explain. In the early days of air-travel, the "advanced nations" got together to create a special legal regime for civil airlines. That was the Warsaw Convention of 1929. It was feared that, unless the fledgling airline industry was given special protection, it would be snowed under by legal claims, preventing its development. The Warsaw Convention was enacted into English law by the Civil Aviation Act 1932. The Convention both excluded liability for certain damage (e.g. items falling from aircraft) and imposed limits on other claims. In particular, it held that airlines could be sued only for "accidents" arising from their operation, and not in other circumstances. When claims of DVT arose, the airlines took the preliminary legal point that the complaint did not relate to an "accident" - and therefore the claims could not even get started. It is on that preliminary point that the UK and Australian Courts differed, in December. The UK High Court ruled that the occurrence of DVT could not be called an "accident": it was simply a matter of medical condition peculiar to particular passengers. The Australian Court took the opposite view, and has allowed the claims to go forward to a full trial. The English ruling now goes to the Court of Appeal. What do I think? I think the English Court, sadly, is right. Sadly, because the case demonstrates the difficulty for Governments in seeking to intervene statutorily in the compensation process, particularly where corporate interests are being protected against private claims. Airlines ought to be exposed to legal action, in respect of the appalling placement of their Economy Class seating - they ought not to be protected by legislation. A third December case demonstrated a different aspect of the compensation culture, where I think the High Court made a mistake - not of liability, but of the right to sue, which is subtly different. This was the case of the Essex "wild child", a boy who was placed (with his sister) with a local couple "with a view to adoption". The Essex authorities failed to disclose to the couple that the boy had a horrific record of dysfunctional and destructive behaviour, and they the couple had the most awful time with him. It was common ground that the couple should have been given the full picture, and that the Essex authorities had been negligent. But the couple had gone on, even when the worst was known to them, to adopt both children. In my view, their decision to adopt could only be considered a waiver of their right to sue in respect of the authorities' earlier negligence. While I accept that compensation would have been due, if the couple had cancelled the whole arrangement and withdrawn, I cannot accept that damages are payable in the circumstances of this case.
In an earlier case, professional golfer Andrew Raitt sued the owner of an Alsatian dog Zomba that bit his finger, and claimed £6,000,000 damages, for the loss of his golfing career. The Judge Sir Ian Kennedy would have none of it - Yes, the owner should have controlled Zomba more effectively, and was legally liable for that omission - but the damages would be just £4,900. That should inhibit the compensation culture read the report. I know I will be accused of complacency, and professional special pleading, as a Barrister by trade. But I think that the Courts, in Dusseldorf, Paris and London, should be left to sort out these emerging questions of liability, as they arise. No good would come, from statutory intervention... Have you ever benefited from the compensation culture? Drop me a line
|
|
|
|
Created by GMID Design & Communication COPYRIGHT NOTICE
|
New