Inequality: The Root Source of Sickness

[Hannah Bell]

Studies show that social inequality affects the health of populations more than any other factor – more than diet, smoking, exercise and even more than access to medical care.2

Americans suffer the worst health in the industrialized world because they live in the most unequal society in the industrialized world.

Inequality is built into and generated by the capitalist system. Capital is created when employers pay workers less than the value of the goods and services they produce. The resulting profit, or capital, is used to extract more capital. As this process repeats over time, capital accumulates at the top of society and misery accumulates at the bottom.

The strategy of divide-and-rule generates even more inequality: between men and women, White and Black, national and foreign-born, straight and gay, etc.

As social inequality grows, the health of the entire population suffers, not just those on the bottom.3

How does inequality do so much damage?

Power = Health.

A 2008 study found widening differences in health between income levels in America. (Income level is often used to measure social status.) The nation’s poorest adults were nearly five times more likely to be in “poor or fair” health than the richest, and at every income level the wealthier group was healthier than the next lower one. This trend was seen in all racial groups.10 Michael Marmot, who studies the link between social status and health, explains,

“Your position in the hierarchy very much relates to how much control you have over your life…Sustained, chronic and long-term stress is linked to low control over life circumstances.” 11

Under capitalism, only a few people get to make the important decisions. The rest of us get no say over how work will be organized and how social resources will be used. We don’t get to decide if we will build more schools or more prisons, wage war or make peace...

Human beings cannot be healthy in class-divided societies. From birth to death, capitalism ranks people on a vertical scale, with those higher up being treated as more worthy than those lower down. The unequal relationship between bosses and workers is maintained by divide-and-rule policies that generate more inequalities based on gender, skin color, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, etc. These divisions rupture social bonds and generate sickness throughout the population.

Universal access to medical care would reduce some of this inequality. However, even the best medical system cannot eliminate the health-damaging effects of poverty, social discrimination, unsafe work, bad housing, poor schools and being denied the right to make decisions that affect our lives. To end these miseries, we must eliminate class divisions and all the other inequalities that follow.

Human sickness is a product of sick social relationships, and human health is a product of healthy social relationships. Replacing class divisions with a cooperative, socialist society would reduce the burden of disease and raise the level of health more than any other measure.

http://susanrosenthal.com/articles/america-in-crisis/inequality-the-root-source-of-sickness

[LARED]

1. I'd be willing to bet that

sitting around on our collective fat butts, and eating fast food until we bust our belts has a lot more to do with our poor health than capitalism does.

[Hannah Bell]

2. & i have the studies that will lose you that bet.

[LARED]

5. perhaps..

I would love to read some of them and judge for myself.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. Without Even Looking At The Data

I would bet my life that rich folk, on the whole, live longer and healthier lives than poor folks.

Respectfully, only a total cipher would question that proposition and it has nothing to do with my ideology.

[LARED]

8. I would not question that

I question whether social inequality is the cause of different levels of health. The article makes the claim that social inequality is caused by capitalism and that this is the root of poor health. I think it's a lot more complicated than that.
"
For instance American's poor health when compared to other industrialized countries (other "capitalist" countries mind you) may have more to do with lifestyle than the economic system we live within.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. Too Early In The Morning To Get Into That

I would just say the higher your income the more access you have to the health care system as well as recreational opportunities and a healthy diet.

[RC]

12. And what governs life style more than the economic strata you live in?

"For instance American's poor health when compared to other industrialized countries (other "capitalist" countries mind you) may have more to do with lifestyle than the economic system we live within."


"I question whether social inequality is the cause of different levels of health."
Study up on the history of the Blacks in this country, if you really believe that.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

16. bingo!

there's a point as obvious as a frying pan applied forcefully to the nose!

How is it possible to miss the fact that economic level is synonymous with lifestyle?

[Hannah Bell]

13. here's just one of the many bits of information that go into that conclusion.

in the us, we're told smoking is the most important cause of lung cancer.

let's compare lung cancer death rates/100,000 smokers in the developed world:

http://www.kidon.com/smoke/percentages3.htm


Men:

US = 307.7
Japan = 81.2

Women:

US = 157
France = 28.5


Let's compare smoking prevalence v. lung cancer death rates in the entire population:

US % male smokers over 15: 28.1%
LCD/100,000: 85.9

Japan % male smokers over 15: 59%
LCD/100,000: 47.9


Every other country in the developed world has lower lung cancer death rates/smoker than the US. The US is in fact an outlier -- as its medical care system is, & as its level of inequality is. You'll find, if you run the statistics on this data, that there's a rough correlation with various measures of inequality.

That's just one data point. The case for the effect of inequality on health is built on many.

[moc]

17. You are correct that it is more complicated than that...

The evidence that there are stark inequalities in health associated with income inequality is unequivocal. In terms of research which documents that association, I would recommend the following researchers: Richard Wilkinson, David Williams, Ichiro Kawachi, Carles Muntaner, Michael Marmot, and Lisa Berkman, among others. There's a very large body of peer-reviewed literature on the topic, but if you want to go to compilations of that work, I'd recommend the following books:

"The Health of Nations: Why Inequality is Harmful to Your Health" by Kawachi and Kennedy

"Social Determinants of Health" by Michael Marmot

"Society and Health" by Benjamin Amick

There was also an excellent multi-part series that PBS did called "Unnatural Causes". You can find out more at www.unnaturalcauses.org. It is periodically rebroadcast, or you can watch clips on the website. It also has many other resources as well.

What this research documents is that health is not solely the product of individual behavior but is also shaped by the context in which one lives. Health is not only shaped by individual resources. Basically, what this means is even after you adjust for differences in individual lifestyle and health behavior, there are inequalities in health between the rich and poor in society, and the gap between the rich and poor in terms of health status is greatest in countries which have a larger gap in income inequality between the rich and poor.

Of course, the big debate is why this is the case. How does social inequality translate into differences in physical and mental well-being? To say the debate is raging on this topic would be an understatement, but I think I like how one of the commentators on Unnatural Causes put it best. Basically, he asserts that social stratification will always exist in society, and that when we implement progressive policies such as universal health care, access to high quality low cost education, etc etc, then we compress that stratification to minimize the gap in health between the haves and the have-nots. We actually saw a compression in those gaps here in the U.S. in the 1960s resulting from the implementation of social reforms, but since the 1980s, as income inequalities have increased, so has the gap in the health status between the rich and poor in the U.S.

[troubledamerican]

18. No studies needed. Wealthy, enfranchised people don't survive on fast food.

LARED sounds like a right-wing talk-radio host.

[Starry Messenger]

3. Um.

Capitalism created the "fast food". McDonald's didn't just spring up from the weeds.

[LARED]

4. Well

capitalism created lots of things good and bad.

[Starry Messenger]

7. Not sure how that negates my point

:shrug:

[LARED]

9. I guess I viewed your point

as McDonalds was the cause of us sitting around on our butts, and getting fat and unheathly.

[Starry Messenger]

10. So...capitalism did have a hand in it

Right?

[Trillo]

14. If this is true,

"A 2008 study found widening differences in health between income levels in America. (Income level is often used to measure social status.) The nation’s poorest adults were nearly five times more likely to be in “poor or fair” health than the richest, and at every income level the wealthier group was healthier than the next lower one.

then it's no wonder why insurance always seems to have copays and deductibles, to ration the poor's health care relatively more than the less poor.

[LWolf]

15. K & R nt