Morphogenesis and Human Flourishing pp 239-260

Part of the Social Morphogenesis book series (SOCMOR)

Eudaimonic Bubbles, Social Change and the NHS

Chapter
First Online:

Abstract

Eudaimonia is a term for a society in which we all flourish in our differences. The world we live in is far from that, even though, I argue, there are persistent tendencies pushing us in its direction. A fundamental question that arises is whether we can achieve a degree of flourishing along one set of axes at least, in the here and now. To this end I introduce the notion of eudiamonic bubbles, by which I mean relatively advantageous, if often precarious, conditions in which sub-communities can insulate themselves, relatively speaking, from specific sets of dehumanising or oppressive features characteristic of the wider community within which they are located, and which allow a degree of flourishing. I explore the conditions of their emergence and survival and illustrate using the case of the (English) National Health Service. I also identify systematic forces working continually to burst this particular bubble and question whether, even in the immediate future, the NHS, qua a eudaimonic bubble, can survive.

Keywords

Human flourishing Eudaimoic bubbles National Health Service Community awareness Critical ethical naturalism 

References

  1. Addison, P. (1975). The road to 1945: british politics and the second world war (pp. 178–181). London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
  2. Bevan, A. (1952). In place of fear. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
  3. Bloor, K., Harvey, E., & Maynard, A. (2005). NHS Management and Administration Staffing and Expenditure in a National and International Context, York University: unpublished paper (embargoed by the Department of Health).Google Scholar
  4. Browne, A. (2001). “Why the NHS is bad for us”, the Guardian, published online (and observed on 08/10/2015) at: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/oct/07/comment.comment
  5. Collier, A. (1999). Being and worth. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  6. Davis, J., & Tallis, R. (Eds.). (2013). How the NHS was betrayed – And how we can save it. London: Oneworld Publications.Google Scholar
  7. El-Gingihy, Y. (2015). How to dismantle the NHS in 10 easy steps. Alresford: Zero Books.Google Scholar
  8. Huitson, O. (2013). ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’ in Jacky Davis and Raymond Tallis (eds.) 2013, chapter 5.Google Scholar
  9. Katwala, S. (2013). “The NHS: even more cherished than the monarchy and the army”, New Statesman, Jan 14. The report by Katwala can (25/10/2015) be downloaded here: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/01/nhs-even-more-cherished-monarchy-and-army
  10. Lawson, N. (1992). The view from No 11: Memoirs of a tory radical. London: Bantam Press.Google Scholar
  11. Lawson, T. (1997). Economics and reality. London/New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Lawson, T. (2000). Evaluating trust, competition and co-operation. In Y. Shionoya & K. Yagi (Eds.), Competition, trust and co-operation – A comparative study. New York/Berlin/Tokyo: Springer.Google Scholar
  13. Lawson, T. (2003). Reorienting economics. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  14. Lawson, T. (2013). Ethical naturalism and forms of relativism. Society, 50, 570–575.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  15. Lawson, T. (2014). A speeding up of the rate of social change? power, technology, resistance, globalisation and the good society. In M. S. Archer (Ed.), Late modernity: Trajectories towards morph genic society. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
  16. Lawson, T. (2015). Critical ethical naturalism: An orientation to ethics. In S. Pratten (Ed.) (2015) pp. 359–387.Google Scholar
  17. Leys, C., & Player, S. (2011). The plot against the NHS. Pontypool: Merlyn Press.Google Scholar
  18. Paton, C. (2015). At what cost? Paying the price for the market in the English NHS, Published by the Centre for Health and Public Interest.Google Scholar
  19. Pollock, A. M., Price, D., & Roderick, P. (2012). Health and social care bill 2011: A legal basis for charging and providing fewer health services to people in England. British Medical Journal, 344, e1729. Published 08 March 2012. Downloaded from http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e1729, Oct 2015.
  20. Pratten, S. (Ed.). (2015). Social ontology and modern economics. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  21. Reynolds, L., & McKee, M. (2012). Opening the Oyster: the 2010-11 NHS Reforms in England. Clinical Medicine, 12(2), 128–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  22. Rosa, H. (2003). Social acceleration: Ethical and political consequences of a desynchronised high-speed society. Constellations, 10(1), 43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. Rosa, H., & Scheuerman, W. E. (Eds.). (2009). High speed society: Social acceleration power and modernity. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
  24. Stoll, L., & Bhutta, M. (2015). The contracting NHS: Can the NHS handle the outsourcing of clinical services? Published by the Centre for Health and the Public Interest, March.Google Scholar
  25. Timmins, N. (2001). The five giants: A biography of the welfare state, (revised edition). London: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
  26. Webster, C. (1988). The health services since the war. London: HMSO.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Faculty of EconomicsUniversity of CambridgeCambridgeUK

Personalised recommendations