Thursday, June 14, 2012

Corporatocracy And Pharmacy

Before you read any further, I know what you're thinking. You think that I must be crazy or some type of conspiracy theorist. I'm just too cynical. You know that corporations don't own the politicians or control our society. The American people are in charge of our country and the politicians work for us.

You know that there's no such thing as "corporatocracy". It's just a figment of my imagination.

But nonetheless, the State of Arizona has farmed out their prison pharmacist positions earlier this year to a private company (pdf) from the State of Pennsylvania, and at a higher cost than last year.

As such, there aren't any more "cushy" state jobs, with great benefits, left for pharmacists. Those type of positions have become obsolete. Pharmacists working for the prison system are now "at will" employees whose employment is subject to the whim of those private corporate contractors.

So, wondering how privatization was working out for prison pharmacists who've been on the job for years, I decided to ask a former Arizona State DOC pharmacist about how the changes affected him personally. He didn't seem too happy about it.

Luckily though, he agreed to share a portion of his recorded exit-interview with us for posterity.

2 comments:

  1. You should read Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt. In her book she coined the term - "Banality of Evil".

    Her thesis is that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal.

    She said Eichmann thought he bore no responsibility for his horrendous actions because was simply "doing his job".

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  2. In 2011, the CEO of the nation's 2nd largest for-profit prison firm got a $5.7 million compensation package. By the Numbers: The U.S.’s Growing For-Profit Detention Industry.

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