Marx

Dashiell Winston March 29, 2010 Wren ISF 100A Health Care On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law a nearly $1 trillion health care overhaul that will for the first time make insurance coverage the right of every U.S. citizen. This is the biggest expansion of American government and the social welfare state since the implementation of Medicare in 1965. A few of Karl Marx’s theories and concepts such as alienation of labor, political economy, historical materialism, and ideology are quite relevant concerning this article. This historic bill could very well be interpreted as a shift from Capitalism to Socialism and as Karl Marx projects, eventually Communism. The process of “alienation of labor” as Marx describes in his Manuscripts of 1844 is a great example to help understand how the health insurance industry was working before the historic Health Care Bill was passed. Our health, that which enables us to work, also undergoes the same dialectic process of alienation as labor. The health insurance industry in America used to be allowed to only insure health care if it was considered productive. As a result, our health was being transformed into a commodity, which is then turned into a profit for those who control the health insurance industry. It is no longer our own, but instead the insurance companies that are profiting from owning our health care. Marx expresses his theory of alienation by stating, “the alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him...” (Tucker 72) Once we are unable to produce our health, we are no longer insurable and as a result, become alienated. Not only are we alienated from our health through insuring it, but we are also alienated from our very own bodies. Hopefully, the extensive measures being put into place by the government will prevent insurance companies from profiting on our health. Marx’s modern view of politics is also necessary to understanding this article. Now that the Democrats have successfully garnered the majority of the House, they can now focus on economic policies that will appeal to the dominant classes. The Democrats made concessions in order to save the capitalist system and to ensure their long term interests. Political conflict has been a major problem facing the passing of the Health Care Bill and has divided the working class on several social issues. By regulating the insurance industries, the government is simultaneously destroying competition. There will no longer be free market competition, but instead a public option that will compete with the private systems now in operation. Marx’s theories on the abolition of private property has taken a huge leap forward with the passing of the Health Care Reform Bill and could eventually usher in his vision of a classless society. In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Karl Marx writes about the “materialist conception of history” (Tucker 3). This theory is important to understand the Health Care Reform Bill and its significance. The alienation of the worker as well as class conflict and class consciousness are causes of this development and change in human history. Through health care reform, one of America’s fundamental social tenants has been restructured in order to create an even better political, economic, and social organization. As a result, changes to the economic base will lead to the transformation of the superstructure. The base will therefore condition class consciousness and the superstructure, which is being shaped by the material world. The health care reform has also turned into a fervent class struggle between the Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor. The Republicans have no interest in changing the existing health care and not a single member of the Republican House voted in favor of the health care reform. The rich use their political power and money to protect their riches, at the expense of society. The Democrats, on the other hand, believe the time is now to end the class struggle over health care. The poor working class is alienated by their position in society and is rooted in social relations of production. Marx knew this day would come where the poor, working class would rise above the capitalists who defraud them i.e. insurance companies. This could be an indicator of the shift towards Socialism that Marx believed would happen. Ideology is also a theory relevant to an understanding of this article. By "ideology", Marx meant ideas that reflect the interests of a particular class at a particular time in history, but which serve to rationalize, justify or conceal class power. In The German Ideology, Marx writes “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force” (Tucker 172). This set of ideas can be applied to the passing of the Health Care Bill. To attract the majority of American society, the ruling class represents its interest concerning health care as the common interest of all the members of society. As a result, it gives its ideas the form of universality and serves the dominant class by classifying or concealing. The ideology of a society is intrinsically important, because it confuses the alienated classes. As a result, it could create a false consciousness, such as commodity fetishism surrounding Health Care that helps the ruling class interests. The use of a Marxist perspective is an essential way of determining how deeply dysfunctional the US healthcare insurance system is today. What started off as a marginal problem, has grown into one of the most important questions of this country's future. After examining alienation, political economy, historical materialism and ideology, I attempted to draw a parallel between what happens with capitalism and what is happening with American health care.