USA— Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders call for “Medicare for all.” This a capitalist reform that will continue racist, sexist anti-working-class healthcare rationing. It won’t end capitalist health care or capitalist relations of production that put profits above human life and wellbeing.
Medicine in capitalism is for profit. It can’t meet our needs. Millions—many of them children—die every year from lack of basic medicines that their families can’t afford. Capitalist profits drive research. Capitalism hides knowledge about health care from the masses. Often it just quickly patches someone up to get them back to work or to battle as soon as possible, without resolving the underlying problem.
The Russian and Chinese revolutions brought dramatic advances in the health of the masses. These leaps show a glimpse of what the masses mobilized for communism are capable of. However, they were limited and then reversed because these revolutions instituted socialism, not communism.
Barefoot Doctors: Mobilizing Communist Masses Can Guarantee Health of All
The masses in rural China had had no access to doctors. The Chinese communist party mobilized to train committed communist farmworkers to become doctors. They trained for several months in science, diagnosis and treatment. Then they returned to work in the fields alongside their comrades while treating their illnesses and teaching about health care. This cycle repeated over the years.
They were beloved and trusted by the masses because they worked alongside them.
However, there were two separate and unequal health systems in China: rural and urban.
The hospitals in the cities made some important changes. Patients and their families developed relationships with healthcare workers. They were involved in discussions about the cause and treatment of the problem. Especially in the 1960s during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) they were encouraged to speak freely in criticism/self-criticism meetings about the patient’s care with the hospital workers.
But because of the limitations of socialism, most accepted that healthcare workers were divided by status into doctors, nurses, orderlies, janitors. They still kept the hierarchy of capitalist medicine.
During this time, a mass political struggle raged. On one side (the Left) were those who wanted to move directly to communism, eliminating rank, privilege and money. Among them were veterans who had lived without money, wages or rank while in the revolutionary army.
On the other were those who wanted socialism, with money, wages, ranks—capitalism run by the state. This included the party leadership, which fought to maintain and expand the wage system and a market economy. They were able to violently defeat the Left because the Left had illusions in Mao that kept them from organizing their own mass party to fight directly for communism.
When the capitalist-roaders won control of China, they super-exploited the workers and reversed the masses’ gains. The barefoot doctor program ended. Hospitals became capitalist medical institutions where care is rationed and doctors give orders.
Today China is a capitalist and imperialist country. The rich get the best of everything and the working masses suffer. But the past achievements show that masses of workers—rural and urban—can quickly learn everything they need to fight for communism, treat disease and organize healthy lives.
Communism, Science and Health
Communism, unlike socialism, will completely eliminate money, the market, and exploitation. Collectives of our mass ICWP will replace the “cash nexus” of capitalism.
All science, including biology, medicine and dialectical materialism, will become the property of the masses—who will advance them. Children will start learning them from a young age—along with play and work. Theory and practice will go together—like the barefoot doctors.
There will be no lack of health care workers since many will be trained in detecting, treating, and curing diseases. Every production center will include workers with this knowledge and experience and the equipment needed to deal with emergencies.
We will share responsibility for everyone’s mental and physical health. Capitalism celebrates “rugged individualism.” Socialism promoted collective responsibility, but its material basis – wages and commodity production – undermined collectivist ethics.
In communism, collectives will organize all aspects of life and struggle to overcome all obstacles like racism and sexism. There won’t be bosses or the threat of being fired, being homeless or going hungry. There will therefore be less mental illness, and what there is will be treated based on comradely communist relationships.
In healthcare institutions everyone will help diagnose and treat disease as well as clean up. Everyone will learn and teach. Communism will unleash humankind’s vast potential.
We shouldn’t be diverted by socialist schemes. Reforms won’t stop the capitalists-imperialists’ drive for profits and war! For the health and life of the working class, we need to mobilize the masses for communism.