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Assignment - Health and Illnes
Assignment - Health and Illnes
Department of Sociology
Illness
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INTRODUCTION
originated by Karl Marx which focuses on the struggle between capitalist and the
working class. Marx wrote that the power relationship between the capitalist and
workers were inherently exploitative and would inevitably create class conflict.
Marx most popular theory was historical materialism, arguing that history is
the result of material conditions, rather than ideas. Marxist theory has been used to
attempts to control the masses (as opposed to a desire for social order). Central
tenets of Marxist theory are the concepts of social inequality, the division of
resources, and the conflicts that exist between different socioeconomic levels of
the society.
dominance in capitalist society. The health system mirrors the society's class
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structure through control over health institutions, stratification of health workers,
that the problems of the health system reflect the problems of our larger society
Marxist theories of health and medicine grew from critiques of the works of others.
For a start, there were many medical theories of diseases in use during the mid-
19th century, with no particular theory dominant. It was a period well-prior to the
Thus Marx and Engels were arguing for a new theory of disease which was
radically different from those popular at the time: liberal theories, where disease
results from the ‘inherently weak’ bodies of the poor; medical theories, where
disease stems from a fixed, natural entity or pathogen; and the evolutionary
eventually eliminating the weaker races and ‘improving’ the human species (Marx
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MARXIST CONTRIBUTIONS TO HEALTH
purpose is profit making rather than provision of quality medical care. In a socialist
state where the government is responsible for the provisions services to the people,
the government will be more concerned with the number of people who will be
able to access drugs and medical care rather than the exploitative motive of profit
making of capitalism.
protects the capitalist economic system and the private sector. Medical ideology
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The role of power
Marxist theorist such as Navarro, in his analysis believes that the power
structures of any society cannot be separated from the nature of its health
care delivery system. The kind of people in power will determine the nature
Economy system
Marxist views the society as a capitalist society. It also sees health care as a
capitalist economy society, not everyone has equal access to health care
geared towards profit making. Investors in health care are more concerned
with the rate of sales and not the numbers of people who are able to access
Ideologies
context. Unlike other methods of analysis, this insists on recognizing the historical
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nature of current systems of healthcare, the way these have been produced through
struggle and conflict, and how they continue to change with such developments as
While other medical sociologists take the clinic and the patient-doctor relationship
industry. They seek to demonstrate the healthcare system as a site for commercial
transactions, a market place and a site for the production and consumption of
capitalist commodities. Marxists believes that the state's intervention in health care
generally protects the capitalist economic system and the private sector.
medical profession and its changing relationship with other occupations and the
nation state. Moreover, under a capitalist system, it is the elites and the middle
class that benefit most from healthcare services: capitalists make profit on the
hospitals), and managers, doctors, social workers, politicians and teachers make a
good living from selling their ‘expertise’ as professionals. From this perspective,
the central aim of capitalist medicine is profit, not the creation of good health
(Lawrence, 1994).
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Poverty, Poor Living Condition and Illness
Marx and Engels acknowledged the ‘stagnant pools’ and ‘putrefying vegetable and
animal substances’ that’ give off gases decidedly injurious to health and poison the
atmosphere’ of the working people’s quarters in the big cities (Engels, 1969). Yet
the lack of drainage, garbage collection, and poor design of the houses were
Like their contemporary (Florence & Rosenberg, 1992), Marx and Engels
obscuring the true nature of the problem and justifying a lack of political action to
prevent disease. Instead Marx and Engels argued that ill-health and disease is a
product of the way humans organize and act on their social world as they go about
The more prevalent view at the time, particularly among the elites, was that
poverty was the product of the weaknesses and inabilities of the poor themselves
They also took on Malthus as a representative of the bourgeoisie for his ‘Open
declaration of war on the proletariat’, for Malthus voiced the ideology of Social
Darwinism, proposing that the poverty and starvation of the working class are an
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Contemporary Marxian analysis has also focused on the buying and selling of
Over the past four decades, medical sociologists inspired by Marxian analysis have
been exploring the form of medicine developed under capitalism. The general
specific parts of the body – an organ, limb, the lymph system – thus separating the
‘social individual’ from the physical body, often leading to complaints from
patients about the loss of identity as they become ‘the cancer’ or ‘heart attack’, and
bought and sold, relationships between professionals and patients are purchased on
the market, and new ‘needs’ are continually created in the pursuit for
In recent decades, the commoditization process has been extended from the
commoditization of body part sand even body itself. In this process, people and
bodies are transformed from a human category into objects of economic desire.
Human organs, for example, form the basis of a world-wide trade in transplantable
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body parts, where commoditization has created two classes of people: organ buyers
and organ sellers. Research has indicated that the trade in body parts (where living
persons are used in clinical trials or research experiments), follows class lines. It
relies heavily on the use of poor and marginalized populations as subjects and
donors, while the profits and the benefits of the trade are expatriated to wealthy
In this process the body is reduced to a ‘source of raw material for saleable
products’ and yet the cruelties and inequalities of organ exchange and the
Conclusion
In conclusion, Marxist approach believes that the health system mirrors the
society's class structure through control over health institutions and that the
problems of the health system reflect the problems of our larger society. So also
poverty and poor living condition of masses as well as monetization of the health
care services have created two classes of people. . Moreover, under a capitalist
system, it is the elites and the middle class that benefit most from health services.
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References
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the Commercialization of Kidney Transplantation’ in Whiteford, L.
Fallacy of the Level Playing Field Lynne Rienner: Boulder, pp. 205-
232.
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