What Is Socialist Medicine?

In: Monthly review: an independent socialist magazine, Band 38, Heft 3, S. 61-73

Abstract

The practice of medicine is examined from radical & orthodox socialist points of view. Medicine's contribution to the maintenance of health & the cure of disease is seen as a function of the need to reproduce the dominant power relations in society. The opposition of the medical profession to the redefinitions of homosexuality (from an illness to a health-neutral status) & abortion (from a solely medical to a social intervention) is illustrative of the bourgeoisie's domination of medicine. The history of this domination is traced, & it is concluded that the practice of medicine "should be based on a different technical & social DofL in which health & medical interventions are undertaken in collaborative rather than exploitative relations.". T. Berke