The axis of modern-day slavery: Money, Power and control and its implication on 21st-century medical practice

Every individual’s life is a journey. Unlike other voyages with unpredictable haven, the human endeavor has a predictable beginning and end with the pandemonium in between. What happens in our lives is what we make off from the day we are born until death. We are selfish as individuals, secure in groups, confident when appraised and successful leading a group. We enjoy the profile we belong, as rewarding together with convenient, withal would struggle to support our individual uniqueness.

Human fascination with power and control is an instinctive trait, as aptitude and dominance is the inherent tool to keep humans ahead of the game. It renders them competitive. If sensed possibility of failure as solo, will form an alliance, yet then struggles to find a way to dominate the pack till the mission accomplished to please his inner try. When ethically obliged a person would take into account the group's intuition within the undertaking, yet, unsurprisingly and not early through the mission dominance must be secured irrespective of the collateral destruction. Still, most controversial selfishly is the prerogative of the humankind to entertain the profile he entertains, distinctively rejects criticism even if for the deserving cause, or a casual to be wrong. We as the unconditional constituency of humanity will have to voluntarily and personally stride to instruct ourselves to infringe such instincts, yet to find ourselves in the midst of distraction by those in the mainstream of our culture.

Not beyond the journey of soul some compete, take shortcuts and some take control of their environs through power, politics, and monopoly. Supremacy and grandiosity are a peculiar trait of many leaders, as we have seen at the passages of political biographies as well as present-day dogmatic headings.

The elements of power are many, but some universally delineated are the economic and political authorities with six major societal power influencers. The Power of Reward functions as the ability to offer prizes when others fulfill a wish; to the contrary coercive Power which obliges with the ability to deliver reprimands by the order of the leaders as the adverse consequences of a forbidden action; Referent Power, is where role models are the key element of leadership. As, a celebrity icon if elected, irrespective of his or her knowledge and ability carries significant weight on delivering a call to action, which in reality can be more dangerous than the sum of all the abusive individual potentials. The Power of Legitimacy is interesting where the control guaranteed by the positional authority of the leadership, hence is the central player in a system at risk of monopoly and favoritism. Expert Power as we contemplate as "Knowledge is power" is where skills or knowledge serves as the main source of power. Lastly, the Informational Power, the most transient of all powers is that once you give your information away, you give your power away. Thus, it’s different from other forms of power because it’s grounded in what you know about the content of a specific situation. To regain and/or prevent future loss of informational power leaders have traditionally used the means of eliminating the person or persons, something that is acquainted within today's prevailing scandals of politics and journalism.

Other forms of power are independently collaborative. But, in today’s societal environment, almost all potentialities serve the purpose of two uppermost power players, politic and economic powers.

The ordinance of power

To prevail, the agent of power ordains design of a mechanism by way of which he can regulate and guide the operation of the system to rewarding his zeal. To gain control one would stand in need to hold, and instrument the necessary exercise of power and authority within a society that allows for the administration of public resources and establishes procedures within that community. Whether political power over social tenet, or economic power by ensuring enough prolific resources at the grasp that give the capacity to make and enforce economic decisions, such as allocation of capitals and apportioning of properties and services, one should also keep in mind, for such a power to prevail (as historically proven), the centralization of clout is the key for its strategic dominance over the sovereignty of majority as minor individuals. It conventionally befalls in governments to what end the power of lawful authority is implemented by a de facto political executive to which federal states, local authorities, and smaller units are considered to be the subject. In a national framework, centralization occurs in the transfer of power to a typically sovereign “res publica”, where everyone has the urge to control, but few have the power to carry out. Still, the chosen wage their way to success, henceforth control.

Money is the catalyst of all powers! It can overcome the potentiality of the vacuum by way of tactical approach. Meaning, when one or more of the vertex elements of the power triangle is constrained, fiscal power would be able to compensate the deficit. Such a phenomenon is currently applied in the modern monopoly and kickback rituals today. As justified, money is the major recompense of all. Nonetheless, with an increasing level of political influence, one may need lesser bankrolling to secure power.

Axis of Contemporary slavery and its current general application

The axis of modern slavery is to bear to all aspect of our sociopolitical lives. Imagine the world we live in representing an over-inflated leaky “hot air balloon” floating in the air by the collective efforts of its occupants. By the same token, everyone as the constituents of the world we live in must contribute to keep our economy in constant motion, like the balloon to prevent it from shrinking. One would indeed expect the whole world contributing correspondingly to the struggle, but realistically neither convenient nor conceivable for everyone to contribute to the collective efforts of all and sundry. In such a scenario, not everyone in the chorus is able to sojourn to stride. What keeps everyone balanced is the societal interaction amid their personal journey, directly mitigated by the axis of economic, political and fiscal power’ where some would take the shortcut to part in less of the burden and thereby benefiting the most. On the extreme, by the modern drudgery, the principle of still is the ownership of the people, allowing individuals or entities under such leadership to own, buy and sell persons to sustain fiscal mission without the aptitude to pull out one-sidedly from arrangement and works without remuneration.

One may argue the slavery is solely based on the virtue of direct trade of the person or human trafficking, but it would be too hypocritical to assume, given the nature of the consequences of the action, that the risk of homelessness and suffering or starving to death, if the modern slave attempts to escape from such system is unsubstantiated.

Historically, it has been the multitude of government's position to hold the ultimate control over the axis, but by the emergence of over growing modern corporate system such trend has become more or less a matter of formality than the rule. Partnerships between private corporations and government entities have evolved into a circumstance of necessity within the aptitude of power play.

As much as a legitimate need for the leadership position, yet Slavery is the totalitarian or feudalistic headship at the extreme of the spectrum. It requires control, power, and wealth. Authoritative leadership feeds on an inherent evil human trait called greed. But, like a derailed train, it will crash before it stops.

Modern day slavery and its application to the Healthcare and medical practice

Governments along with Insurance and pharmaceutical entities have captured the major pipelines of economic and political power lines within the healthcare industry. They have disrupted billions of dollars’ worth of the healthcare market and strategically aligned at the driver's seat of the deflating healthcare balloon, so have been successful in maintaining the control of the healthcare system. Their economic disposition within the healthcare industry situates the colossal corporations in a perfect orientate for the lobbying encouragement.

Entities, government or private and their respective leaderships have used innumerable forms of social powers such as Reward, Coercive, Referent, Legitimate, Expert, and Informational on regular basis to persuade individual citizens of their “sheepskin over wolf” missions.

To be clear, even though leadership is essential, indeed it would more so pertain to a person rather than an entity or a group of persons in an entity, requiring checks and balances, accountability, transparency in place for legitimate execution.

Some claim healthcare is broken, but in effect, is structured and rigidly built with the unilateral benefits to the Slavemasters of the 21st century.

“When economic power is centralized as an instrument of political power, it creates a degree of dependence. Hardly distinguishable from Slavery, thus let’s avoid politicizing our health and wellness based on the same concept”

We are living in a giant empty socioeconomic hot air balloon that is perpetually leaking. Billions of dollars in sweat and blood earnings of the modern citizens are being wasted away, serving the unsubstantiated business requirements of corporate monopoly and dollar figures of their annual spreadsheets.

Healthcare is indeed personal, and it has to be empowered intrinsically. There is a fundamental lack of leadership in our healthcare system. What makes up authentic patient care is within the context of personalized Healthcare where patient and physician independently work together to the individual’s care. A centralized system would only prevail under the conviction of the contentious ownership of the social values and people by an administration, something historically recognized under the socialist philosophy. Communism, collective population health and corporatism are no less totalitarian than the traditional version of common slavery, with one fundamental metamorphosis, wherein the latter; the master is within proximity of the slave, the state of affairs that ensures the health and wellbeing of its subservient. In the contrary, the modern slaves are remote and out of sight, hence deprived of the advantages of personal conscience.

Corporations own public data, control the way we live and have the tools to manipulate managing our goods, thoughts, and nowadays health. Through big data, economic as well as political empowerment, large entities have been able to conquer and apply the concept of the axis of modern-day slavery in healthcare where they have merely been able to control the “three major pipelines” of the centralized industry— Patient’s prescription drugs, Physician reimbursement, and the public governance.

Solution

The need for leadership is must, but not necessarily within the milieu of consolidated corporate bureaucracy. In a collective exploit, everyone contributes independently willingly and fairly to the best of their talent. Under such scenario transparency, individual accountability and high-level checks and balances in place are the requirements to make sure an environment devoid of favoritism, bribery, and legal kickback practices. Something that we as the contemporary slaves of the corporate world are yet to see in our lifetime unless we come to terms with the fact that no particular person or entity is knowledgeable and wise enough to rule the others beyond the tone of acting as the frontrunner to speak for everyone within their perimeter of preferences; known as “individual liberty”.

There is a prerequisite to decentralize healthcare system, Spread outpatient data to individual owners, depoliticize medicine, endow individuals, be it the patient or physician the same.

Set up full transparency along the chain of bureaucracy and operations, high-level culpability; reduce micromanagement and most of all give healthcare freedom to patients and physicians.