Marxism and Indigenous Liberation

Climate catastrophes have increased support for Indigenous land and water defenders, whose mutually beneficial relationship with the environment makes a lot more sense than the slash, poison, and burn disaster of capitalism. How can non-Indigenous people best support Indigenous struggles? What is the relationship between workers’ struggles for socialism and Indigenous struggles for sovereignty? Does marxism have anything useful to contribute?

This work addresses the contribution of Indigenous struggles to marxist theory, why ‘managerial’ marxism cannot end Indigenous oppression, and how the revolutionary marxist principle of self-determination links the struggles of Indigenous peoples with those of the global working class.

The Social Sources of Sickness; What I Learned From 50 Years in Medicine

There are no ‘social determinants of health’ under capitalism. Nothing about this society generates health for people or their environments. Inequality, racism, sexism – these social sources of sickness helped to build the wealth of nations, and they continue to be used to build and maintain that wealth, despite the tremendous suffering that results.

Animal Rights or Human Responsibilities?

Animal advocates are concerned with human responsibilities towards animals. In contrast, animal liberationists pit animal rights against human needs. Despite their good intentions, animal liberationists undermine efforts to create a humane socialist society that can protect both people and animals.

Engels and the WHO Report

Engels was the first to connect a broad number of medical and social problems to the way that society is organized.

This fictional interview explores what Engels might think of the World Health Organization’s annual report.

The Lessons of Chile: 1970-1973

The mass movement for democracy in Chile marked a high point in the global struggles of the 1960s. The crushing of Chile’s rebellion marked the beginning of a global capitalist offensive against the working class.

“The health sector in any society mirrors the rest of society,”

— Vincente Navarro

Mental Illness or Social Sickness?

The ruling class developed modern medicine to diagnose and treat individuals, not their social conditions.

Medical ideology is based on the assumption that individuals malfunction for reasons that have nothing to do with the social world. The physician treats the injured worker, not the unsafe workplace that injured her.

‘Mental illness’ presents a special problem for the capitalist class. The fact that oppressive social conditions generate mental distress is so obvious that a psychiatric industry is required to convince us otherwise.

While psychiatry presents itself as a branch of medicine that diagnoses and treats mental distress in the same way that other branches of medicine diagnose and treat physical illness, this claim does not hold up under scrutiny. Psychiatry developed to meet capitalism’s need for social control and psychiatrists’ need for paying customers.

Retaining Members in Socialist Organization

The greatest challenge facing social-change organizations is learning how not to split.

Splitting signals a failure to cooperate among those who want the same thing, and repeated splitting is immensely discouraging. Unless the problem is handled politically, members will mistakenly conclude that it is impossible for people to work towards a common goal, and they will drop out.

Had we learned how not to split back in the 1970s, the socialist left would be many times larger today. Since our primary goal is to grow, we need to understand what we are doing wrong, and what we can do differently.