This pamphlet tackles the question: how do we get from A to B, capitalism to post-capitalism? It is critical reading to understand why: Capitalist-oriented industrial agriculture and its destruction of habitat are the upstream causes that led to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as other past and future pandemics of devastating, emerging viral pathogens; COVID-19 may trigger a collapse of the global capitalist system but it is not the cause; Health-care and public-health systems organized arou...

Since the appearance of WaitzkinOs The Second Sickness, a landmark book of the 1980s, American medicine has been dramatically transformed. WaitzkinOs earlier edition used qualitative research to take readers inside the Oblack boxO of medical decisionmaking. This new, fully updated and expanded edition retains the earlier edition's vivid approach and adds timely analysis of how managed care and other economic and social forces influence medical practice today.

The recent financial meltdown has brought notable changes to the global practice of health care changes that have often escaped the American news media. Although Western managed-care corporations previously had strengthened their influence abroad, now many countries are considering new approaches to health care for their citizens.The untold story of how corporations have influenced global health care and the impacts now in America as the system rapidly shifts is Dr. Waitzkin s subject in h...

Welfare for people in need always contains profound contradictions. Under capitalism, the welfare state reinforces exploitation and discrimination, yet working people have fought for welfare, which protects against the worst excesses of capitalism. Given the important benefits that welfare can provide, we need to consider the components of a post-capitalist welfare system, one that actually meets the needs of working people. A post-capitalist welfare system puts into practice the values of...

Welfare for a Humane Future by David Matthews and Howard Waitzkin critiques the capitalist welfare state, emphasizing its role in sustaining racial capitalism’s exploitative structures. The authors argue that welfare under capitalism reinforces racial and class divisions, as seen in historical policies like the New Deal, which excluded Black workers. They envision a post-capitalist welfare system rooted in communal values—love, solidarity, and participatory democracy—drawing inspiration fr...

Social medicine, starting two centuries ago, has shown that social conditions affect health and illness more than biology does, and social change affects the outcomes of health and illness more than health services do. Understanding and exposing sickness-generating structures in society helps us change them.This first book providing a critical introduction to social medicine sheds light on an increasingly important field. The authors draw on examples worldwide to show how principle...

Answering the question of how to get from A to B, capitalism to post-capitalism, is a task that we “audaciously” need to pursue now. This pamphlet is one among several others, intended to clarify our struggle 1) to bring down capitalism; and 2) to create a path toward eco-socialism.Those of us oppressed by capitalism engage in some peculiar forms of actions and inactions. In our actions, we take part in struggles to improve key problems generated by capitalism without confronting c...

This new collection turns a critical anthropological eye on the nature of health policy internationally. The authors reveal that in light of prevailing social inequalities, health policies may intend to protect public health, but in fact they often represent significant structural threats to the health and well being of the poor, ethnic minorities, women, and other subordinate groups. The volume focuses on the 'anthropology of policy,' which is concerned with the process of decision-making...

Since the early twentieth century, politically engaged and socially committed U.S. health professionals have worked in solidarity with progressive movements around the world. Often with roots in social medicine, political activism, and international socialism, these doctors, nurses, and other health workers became comrades who joined forces with people struggling for social justice, equity, and the right to health.Anne-Emanuelle Birn and Theodore M. Brown bring together a group of ...

Health care professionals, activists and scholars weigh in on how the U.S. can address the shortcomings of the "medical industrial complex" and extend affordable health care to all“I’ve still got my health so what do I care?” goes a lyric in an old Cole Porter song. Most of us, in fact, assume we can’t live full lives, or take on life’s challenges, without also assuming that we’re basically healthy and will be for the foreseeable future. But these days, our health ...