Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto

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If it is birthed from complaint and fury, these emotions are funneled through a hope that things could be otherwise-most of all, an optimism for a new collective. I read a lot of theory and thinking books, which I know are a huge turn-off for many people, even as they insist on involving themselves in serious discussions of politics and social change without truly understanding the foundations of the institutions they rail against. Obviously* it's my own decision to rarely read political theory recreationally; however, my point is that the content of this book was enticing enough for someone like me, a lazier reader, to devour on my own accord (not just because it's on a syllabus).

In particular the claims around the political economy of health were generally not elaborated with a more in-depth analysis of the economy, which I think would have been really valuable-- I was sympathetic to these claims!

This reads a bit like a primer on a ton of other things I now want to read about - I just think that the ideas and theory here were just too much to for such a short book. They see the export of American-style private health provision and insurance through forced trade deals as a form of imperialism that undermines social-welfare systems globally. I'm def not done with it and will probably go back and try to dive deeper into what resonated with me, so glad to have the resource. My optimism was confirmed and then some, and rarely do I come across a book that has something new to teach every single person who picks it up, regardless of academic level or familiarity with the content.

This creative, wide-ranging book would be important under any circumstances since it helps readers understand widespread social processes that are genuinely violent in their operations yet often curiously bloodless in their ideological depictions. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Beatrice Adler-Bolton and her co-author Artie Vierkant claim in the last two chapters of "Health Communism" that they have dedicated thepr book to the Socialist Patients' Collective (SPK).Rooted in the contemporary reality of mass death and disability, it reworks our familiar, commonsense concepts of sickness and health, care and cure, labor and waste to show how capitalist biomedicine wrings every last drop of productive labor from us before discarding us into the trash heap of 'surplus population' to carelessly be picked over and plundered until our death. Even so, they do not view social welfare as necessarily good when it must operate under a capitalist framework that seeks to provide the greatest ‘value for money’ by dehumanising the poor. Personally, I enjoyed this overview of various health systems and how they can and cannot work without our current (American) structures.

i would often find myself excited to learn more about an idea only to have it explained by a list of jargon (bio-this, bio-that, etc) that did not progress the argument any further. Heath Communism is not "well-behaved": It is not interested in sober consideration, dry pontifications. In this fiery, theoretical tour de force, Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant offer an overview of life and death under capitalism and argue for a new global left politics aimed at severing the ties between capital and one of its primary tools: health. assertions like “health is a fantasy” and “the sick are the central class that can bring about the fall of capitalism” (both stated in the conclusion) are divorced from both reality and basic marxist thought.Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant bring us a galvanizing proposition: Unlike the rest of us, capital is not alive; it merely animates itself through our host bodies. Abandonment" is an unsurprising throughline of health capitalism though — the book also discusses "extractive abandonment," which I won't go into here. Aquest llibre reprèn el fonaments d'una crítica marxista a la salut/malaltia iniciada pel Col·lectiu Socialista de Pacients els anys 70s. The language can obscure the argument at times, making it difficult to concentrate on the links between capital and illness, and the need to create a revolution in society that would also make for a revolutionary change in how illness is identified and treated. This seamless book fills an urgent void in leftist theories of illness…the achievement of such a concise yet cogent framework (aided by the fact that the past years have only confirmed its conclusion) is a marvel.

To associate the medical extermination ideology "health" with the SPK is an attempt of total forgery of the SPK ( http://spkpfh.

People must embrace revolution - what else do most people have besides a hopelessly precarious life anyway? This theme, as well as mention of the actions and failures of American AIDS activist groups in the 1980s, is explored throughout, and the authors’ admiration for the SPK is clearly stated. This book shares the impressive truth that we are all surplus in the political economy of health, whether we are presently ‘healthy’ or ‘sick. The authors are deliberately and against their better judgement constructing an SPK that suits their ideological purposes, distorting and twisting it until they can force it into their false framework of ideas. This book is brilliant and awful, for it clearly shows the true roots of Capitalism's need for workers/labor to exist and thrive.