Health Communism

Hardcover, 240 pages

Published by Verso.

5 stars (2 reviews)

A searing analysis of health and illness under capitalism from hosts of the hit podcast “Death Panel”

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.

Written by co-hosts of the hit “Death Panel” podcast and longtime disability justice and healthcare activists Adler-Bolton and Vierkant, Health Communism first examines how capital has instrumentalized health, disability, madness, and illness to create a class seen as “surplus,” regarded as a fiscal and social burden. Demarcating the healthy from the surplus, the worker from the “unfit” to work, the authors argue, serves not only to undermine solidarity but to mark whole populations for extraction by the industries that have emerged to manage and contain this “surplus” population. Health Communism then looks …

2 editions

A Good Grounding in Universal Healthcare's Importance for Left Politics

4 stars

Like many political books, Health Communism can at times feel like it's preaching to the choir; much of the material and arguments being made I was familiar with before reading and agreed with immediately. I imagine the book would be eye-opening and engaging for someone who didn't already have the conviction that ensuring universal, democratically-accountable healthcare is available to everyone should be a goal to advance left politics. For me, I enjoyed the read but didn't have any wow moments.

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rated it

5 stars