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Capitalism and Disability: Selected Writings by Marta Russell
This book comprises a collection of groundbreaking writings by Marta Russell on the nature of disability and oppression under capitalism.
Spread out over many years and many different publications, the late author and activist Marta Russell wrote a number of groundbreaking and insightful essays on the nature of disability and oppression under capitalism. In this volume, Russell’s various essays are brought together in one place in order to provide a useful and expansive resource to those interested in better understanding the ways in which the modern phenomenon of disability is shaped by capitalist economic and social relations. The essays range in analysis from the theoretical to the topical, including but not limited to: the emergence of disability as a “human category” rooted in the rise of industrial capitalism and the transformation of the conditions of work, family, and society corresponding thereto; a critique of the shortcomings of a purely “civil rights approach” to addressing the persistence of disability oppression in the economic sphere, with a particular focus on the legacy of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; an examination of the changing position of disabled people within the overall system of capitalist production utilizing the Marxist economic concepts of the reserve army of the unemployed, the labor theory of value, and the exploitation of wage-labor; the effects of neoliberal capitalist policies on the living conditions and social position of disabled people as it pertains to welfare, income assistance, health care, and other social security programs; imperialism and war as a factor in the further oppression and immiseration of disabled people within the United States and globally; and the need to build unity against the divisive tendencies which hide the common economic interest shared between disabled people and the often highly-exploited direct care workers who provide services to the former.
Spread out over many years and many different publications, the late author and activist Marta Russell wrote a number of groundbreaking and insightful essays on the nature of disability and oppression under capitalism. In this volume, Russell’s various essays are brought together in one place in order to provide a useful and expansive resource to those interested in better understanding the ways in which the modern phenomenon of disability is shaped by capitalist economic and social relations. The essays range in analysis from the theoretical to the topical, including but not limited to: the emergence of disability as a “human category” rooted in the rise of industrial capitalism and the transformation of the conditions of work, family, and society corresponding thereto; a critique of the shortcomings of a purely “civil rights approach” to addressing the persistence of disability oppression in the economic sphere, with a particular focus on the legacy of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; an examination of the changing position of disabled people within the overall system of capitalist production utilizing the Marxist economic concepts of the reserve army of the unemployed, the labor theory of value, and the exploitation of wage-labor; the effects of neoliberal capitalist policies on the living conditions and social position of disabled people as it pertains to welfare, income assistance, health care, and other social security programs; imperialism and war as a factor in the further oppression and immiseration of disabled people within the United States and globally; and the need to build unity against the divisive tendencies which hide the common economic interest shared between disabled people and the often highly-exploited direct care workers who provide services to the former.
228 pages, Paperback
First published August 6, 2019
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About the author
Marta Russell
5 books23 followersMarta Russell (December 20, 1951 – December 15, 2013) was an American writer and disability rights activist. Her book, Beyond Ramps: Disability at the End of the Social Contract published in 1998 by Common Courage Press analyzes the relationship between disability, social Darwinism, and economic austerity under capitalism. Her political views, which she described as "left, not liberal," informed her writing on topics such as healthcare, the prison-industrial complex, physician-assisted suicide, poverty, ableism, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
September 18, 2022
cannot be pro disability rights w/o being anti-capitalist. the common conception of disability is defined thru a capitalist lens—to be disabled ultimately means to be unable to work. if you cannot work, be a “productive” member of society, then your value is worth less. ADA was basically a sham. these essays laid bare the inequities and oppressive nature of our current laws, economic system and national political motivations over the last 50 years or so. as long as we continue to value profit over human life, people with disabilities may always end up at the bottom of the barrel. essential read imo!!!!!
December 28, 2021
Capitalism and Disability is a collection of essays from late activist Marta Russell. The collection outlines six areas in which Russell writes about disability - the political economy, civil rights, incarceration, social security, crisis, and death. In each section is a selection of her essays which are picked out by Keith Rosenthal. While the essays range from being written from 1998 to 2005, Rosenthal feels that it’s still theoretically relevant and data from then is quite similar to data today, which is also saying something about the state of disability rights today.
Russell asserts that you cannot fight for disability rights without being anti-capitalist, as these two ideologies are inherently incompatible. She centers her analysis around capitalistic ideals and explains how capitalism continues to oppress disabled people. First, she lays out how disability is continuously defined (with changes throughout the years) under capitalism, ie. through the lens of productivity. She maps out how the current economy depends on having a small subset of the population unemployed, to keep labor costs low. Because that is needed, capitalism then develops ways to control the unemployed population:
She then dives into areas of incarceration, social security, crisis, and death where disabled people are still being oppressed. Regarding incarceration, jails in some jurisdictions have become the primary treatment provider for people with mental illness and there is a disproportionate amount of disabled people in the system. This is shocking. She explains how prisons take away rights and care, as well as exacerbate existing disabilities or mental health issues.
In her essay Dollars and Death, she makes the case that there is a direct link between legalising physician-assisted suicide and efforts to reduce healthcare spending. At the same time assisted suicide is legalised, there were changes in policy that reduced funding, limited access to medicine, all in face of a persistent lack of addressing the lack of quality services that promote autonomy like nursing homes. It was horrible to read her analysis, which makes sense - in the face of a life lacking autonomy, care, facing homelessness, pain, and loss of dignity, is it then easier and cheaper to die? The latter is definitely true for some countries, which have not hidden their true intentions to legalise assisted suicide.
Capitalism uses social Darwinism - the concept that it's natural for the biologically unfit (or certain races) to be weeded out, such that we continue to 'purify' the population - to continue to resolve responsibility for creating an unequal system that leaves people to die. Ultimately, capitalism doesn’t not ‘naturally’ weed out people who are ‘good for nothings’ or ‘bad blood’. On the contrary, it concentrates power under the hands of our new feudal lords and continues to oppress marginalised groups.
Russell's voice is impassioned and shows a life worth of experience fighting for disability rights. I'd recommend it as a foundational text for everyone to start understanding disability rights.
Some quotes below:
“Income and wealth disparities are greater today than at any time since information was first collected in 1947. - Michael Parenti”
“Unwitting, the labor movement contributed to the ethics that propelled anti-humanistic eugenics. If work defines human worth and work is the central criterion for human validation, then the worker has their pride and the capitalist has their labor to exploit, two sides of the same paradigm.”
Russell asserts that you cannot fight for disability rights without being anti-capitalist, as these two ideologies are inherently incompatible. She centers her analysis around capitalistic ideals and explains how capitalism continues to oppress disabled people. First, she lays out how disability is continuously defined (with changes throughout the years) under capitalism, ie. through the lens of productivity. She maps out how the current economy depends on having a small subset of the population unemployed, to keep labor costs low. Because that is needed, capitalism then develops ways to control the unemployed population:
"As Christian Parenti explains in Lockdown America, capitalism, the creator of poverty, simultaneously needs and is threatened by the poor. In order to manage and contain its surplus populations and poorest cities, American capitalism has developed paramilitary forms of segregation, containment, and repression."
She then dives into areas of incarceration, social security, crisis, and death where disabled people are still being oppressed. Regarding incarceration, jails in some jurisdictions have become the primary treatment provider for people with mental illness and there is a disproportionate amount of disabled people in the system. This is shocking. She explains how prisons take away rights and care, as well as exacerbate existing disabilities or mental health issues.
In her essay Dollars and Death, she makes the case that there is a direct link between legalising physician-assisted suicide and efforts to reduce healthcare spending. At the same time assisted suicide is legalised, there were changes in policy that reduced funding, limited access to medicine, all in face of a persistent lack of addressing the lack of quality services that promote autonomy like nursing homes. It was horrible to read her analysis, which makes sense - in the face of a life lacking autonomy, care, facing homelessness, pain, and loss of dignity, is it then easier and cheaper to die? The latter is definitely true for some countries, which have not hidden their true intentions to legalise assisted suicide.
Capitalism uses social Darwinism - the concept that it's natural for the biologically unfit (or certain races) to be weeded out, such that we continue to 'purify' the population - to continue to resolve responsibility for creating an unequal system that leaves people to die. Ultimately, capitalism doesn’t not ‘naturally’ weed out people who are ‘good for nothings’ or ‘bad blood’. On the contrary, it concentrates power under the hands of our new feudal lords and continues to oppress marginalised groups.
“Most dangerously, Social Darwinist conditioning has paved the way for decision-making classes to successfully put the spin on welfare that it is the failure of the individual - not the economic system that benefits the few at the expense of the many. The critical link is that the capitalist market economy produces a negative social outcome: by fixating on the accumulation of money it produces social casualties.”
Russell's voice is impassioned and shows a life worth of experience fighting for disability rights. I'd recommend it as a foundational text for everyone to start understanding disability rights.
Some quotes below:
“Income and wealth disparities are greater today than at any time since information was first collected in 1947. - Michael Parenti”
“Unwitting, the labor movement contributed to the ethics that propelled anti-humanistic eugenics. If work defines human worth and work is the central criterion for human validation, then the worker has their pride and the capitalist has their labor to exploit, two sides of the same paradigm.”
January 18, 2021
Impassioned and brimmed with invaluable analysis of the violence inflicted on disabled peoples by capitalism. A little difficult to get through, I will need to revisit this book to better comprehend the economics portions. Regardless, I IMPLORE everyone to become more cognizant of disability justice.
June 4, 2020
Really fantastic. Could have gone in more depth about how disability and racism are entwined. There was some discussion but less analysis on that aspect than I'd have liked. Still, highly recommend.
June 1, 2022
The first half of this book feels like a must read general primer on disability politics in the US, as well as a very useful, if slightly repetitive, introduction to Marxism. The back half is more about specific Bush-era policies, which is understandable given when these essays were written, but definitely lacks an analysis on the intersection of race and disability - the chapter on Hurricane Katrina is the most obvious.
January 29, 2020
This is very good as far as capitalism goes, but it tends to use race & civil rights as an analogy rather than really engaging the intersections of race and disability. I’d recommend reading in conjunction with Nirmala Erevelles, Sins Invalid, and Jasbir Puar for a more well-rounded look at disability justice.
February 17, 2020
This was a fascinating collection that really made me chew on questions about possibilities for solidarity and also how we frame possibilities for disabled people around work in particular. Russell was clear and accessible in her writing, even when explaining Marxist theory--I borderline understand Marx now! I think I would have liked a little more context around some of the later pieces; though I appreciated the titles and the sites of original publication at the end, I think having them accompany the pieces would have helped with some context (as a person who was 15 at the end of the Bush administration, and therefore too young to really remember a lot that was happening in the early 2000s, I needed just a touch more background on some of those policy decisions.)
Regardless, I think some of the essays are definitely good for teaching, even as editor Keith Rosenthal resisted them as being read outside of the larger collection (not that I think he opposes it exactly, just that the construction of the book he makes clear is deliberately meant to be read as a whole.) It's clear that Russell's thought on the place of disabled people as a permanent unemployed class is critical in examining the ADA's employment enactments, and serves as a jumping off point for larger questions (especially around international solidarity, which Russell does not address very clearly in these pieces but which I think is a natural next step to consider after reading her work.) I definitely recommend reading this, especially if you are unfamiliar with what life after the passage of the ADA is like, and how the Supreme Court really stripped down what was possible under that law in the name of protecting business (that chapter in particular was deeply enraging!)
Regardless, I think some of the essays are definitely good for teaching, even as editor Keith Rosenthal resisted them as being read outside of the larger collection (not that I think he opposes it exactly, just that the construction of the book he makes clear is deliberately meant to be read as a whole.) It's clear that Russell's thought on the place of disabled people as a permanent unemployed class is critical in examining the ADA's employment enactments, and serves as a jumping off point for larger questions (especially around international solidarity, which Russell does not address very clearly in these pieces but which I think is a natural next step to consider after reading her work.) I definitely recommend reading this, especially if you are unfamiliar with what life after the passage of the ADA is like, and how the Supreme Court really stripped down what was possible under that law in the name of protecting business (that chapter in particular was deeply enraging!)
November 29, 2020
An excellent, if slightly dated, introductory text.
April 12, 2020
Some really nice essays, written in a succinct and accessible writing style. I particularly enjoyed the (admittedly harrowing) chapter about euthanasia and its roots in social Darwinism. I appreciated Russell's clear conclusions on nuanced, complex issues.
Shout-out to Haymarket for the free e-book!
Shout-out to Haymarket for the free e-book!
February 3, 2022
This was pretty informative. It was repetitive at times even with a lot of the repeated sections of text across essays taken out. But that’s the nature of an essay collection by someone who writes on the same topic.
I think now this book could be criticized for not being intersectional enough - but I think most of her writing is from the 80s and 90s, so that’s not shocking.
Takeaways:
1) Because capitalism insists on a certain level of unemployment, and people with disabilities are less likely to be employed because of the inconvenience/cost of accommodating them, people with disabilities are disproportionately represented in the unemployed. This is in the nature of capitalism itself.
2) Many ADA protections are ineffective or have been watered down (at least at the time she was writing). She finds anti-discrimination laws to be too weak to help.
3) Discrimination cases bring in this Catch 22 situation where the worker needs to be disabled enough to be accommodated but not so disabled that they can’t work. But they have to be too disabled to work in order to get aid while seeing their discrimination case through.
Quotes:
In contrast, we take the view that disability is a socially created category derived from labor relations, a product of the exploitative economic structure of capitalist society: one which creates (and then oppresses) the so-called disabled body as one of the conditions that allow the capitalist class to accumulate wealth.
If workers were provided with a federal social safety net that adequately protected them through unemployment, sickness, disability, and old age, then business would have less control over the workforce because labor would gain a stronger position from which to negotiate their conditions of employment, such as fair wages and safe working conditions.
If one is not disabled because one’s condition is “correctable” with medication, wheelchairs, prostheses, hearing aids, insulin, etc., how can one expect to receive a reasonable accommodation which depends on being defined as “disabled”? [referring to the watering down of ADA protections]
… it will be the unspoken argument for assisted suicide—cost containment—that will ensure the eventual passage of laws legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Are people who seek assisted suicide choosing death or being cornered into it by inadequate national disability policy, a lack of quality long-term and palliative care that, in their absence, makes life so unbearable that death seems preferable to life?
I think now this book could be criticized for not being intersectional enough - but I think most of her writing is from the 80s and 90s, so that’s not shocking.
Takeaways:
1) Because capitalism insists on a certain level of unemployment, and people with disabilities are less likely to be employed because of the inconvenience/cost of accommodating them, people with disabilities are disproportionately represented in the unemployed. This is in the nature of capitalism itself.
2) Many ADA protections are ineffective or have been watered down (at least at the time she was writing). She finds anti-discrimination laws to be too weak to help.
3) Discrimination cases bring in this Catch 22 situation where the worker needs to be disabled enough to be accommodated but not so disabled that they can’t work. But they have to be too disabled to work in order to get aid while seeing their discrimination case through.
Quotes:
In contrast, we take the view that disability is a socially created category derived from labor relations, a product of the exploitative economic structure of capitalist society: one which creates (and then oppresses) the so-called disabled body as one of the conditions that allow the capitalist class to accumulate wealth.
If workers were provided with a federal social safety net that adequately protected them through unemployment, sickness, disability, and old age, then business would have less control over the workforce because labor would gain a stronger position from which to negotiate their conditions of employment, such as fair wages and safe working conditions.
If one is not disabled because one’s condition is “correctable” with medication, wheelchairs, prostheses, hearing aids, insulin, etc., how can one expect to receive a reasonable accommodation which depends on being defined as “disabled”? [referring to the watering down of ADA protections]
… it will be the unspoken argument for assisted suicide—cost containment—that will ensure the eventual passage of laws legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Are people who seek assisted suicide choosing death or being cornered into it by inadequate national disability policy, a lack of quality long-term and palliative care that, in their absence, makes life so unbearable that death seems preferable to life?
November 16, 2025
excellent starter book for someone interested in how anti-capitalism and pro-disability rights go hand in hand.
"In contrast, we take the view that disability is a socially created category derived from labor relations, a product of the exploitative economic structure of capitalist society: one which creates (and then oppresses) the so called disabled body as one of the conditions that allow the capitalist class to accumulate wealth."
"Specifically, liberalism fails to expose either the way society is organized for the production of the material conditions of its existence or that the mode of production plays the chief casual role in determining oppressive social outcomes."
"Liberalism presumes a free, rational, autonomous human can exist under capitalism, but oppression is a permanent factor of any class-based economic system. Marx saw capitalism as a block to workers' autonomy. Economic change, he deemed, was necessary for the full realization of each person's human potential. Marx's final goal, however, was not economic revolution, but human change."
"In contrast, we take the view that disability is a socially created category derived from labor relations, a product of the exploitative economic structure of capitalist society: one which creates (and then oppresses) the so called disabled body as one of the conditions that allow the capitalist class to accumulate wealth."
"Specifically, liberalism fails to expose either the way society is organized for the production of the material conditions of its existence or that the mode of production plays the chief casual role in determining oppressive social outcomes."
"Liberalism presumes a free, rational, autonomous human can exist under capitalism, but oppression is a permanent factor of any class-based economic system. Marx saw capitalism as a block to workers' autonomy. Economic change, he deemed, was necessary for the full realization of each person's human potential. Marx's final goal, however, was not economic revolution, but human change."
February 13, 2023
It’s difficult to put into words how much I love and recommend this book.
Russell’s writing is simultaneously incredibly understandable, thoughtful, and academically engaging. The analysis is compelling and concise, presenting a Marxist examination of disability, not as an isolated social issue nor one which merely ‘intersects’ with class but one which is grounded in historical transformations which excluded disabled people from wage labour. Russell uses this framework to break down the economic oppression of disabled people, institutionalization, hiring discrimination, eugenics, and genocide. I was familiar with disability studies prior to reading this book but this completely reshaped my perspective.
I also appreciated the structure of the book. The essays flow beautifully, moving into topics very clearly and cohesively. Of the paratext, I most appreciate the editor’s appendix, which updates the statistics used by Russell, across nearly two decades of essays, to accurately reflect the time at which the book was published.
Overall, I loved this book. One of the best pieces of contemporary theory that I’ve read. I cannot recommend Capitalism and Disability enough.
Russell’s writing is simultaneously incredibly understandable, thoughtful, and academically engaging. The analysis is compelling and concise, presenting a Marxist examination of disability, not as an isolated social issue nor one which merely ‘intersects’ with class but one which is grounded in historical transformations which excluded disabled people from wage labour. Russell uses this framework to break down the economic oppression of disabled people, institutionalization, hiring discrimination, eugenics, and genocide. I was familiar with disability studies prior to reading this book but this completely reshaped my perspective.
I also appreciated the structure of the book. The essays flow beautifully, moving into topics very clearly and cohesively. Of the paratext, I most appreciate the editor’s appendix, which updates the statistics used by Russell, across nearly two decades of essays, to accurately reflect the time at which the book was published.
Overall, I loved this book. One of the best pieces of contemporary theory that I’ve read. I cannot recommend Capitalism and Disability enough.
July 8, 2022
"Well-informed individuals...have come up to me on more than one occasion and said, 'I just don't see how you do it. I couldn't do it' - meaning, get on with my life 'in spite of' my disability. These people seem to think that they could not accept life with a disability and make projections about what they could or would not do if they were in my shoes, but this is often just a first take on a complex continuum of experience...Why don't these same people ask me, 'are disabled people getting the health care and services they need?' Don't they know money is being valued over people in the health care system? Don't they know people are still forced into nursing homes against their will? Don't they also know about the role of race and poverty discrimination in the health care system?"
If you are at all interested in disability rights and it's intersectionalities, this a great place to start.
If you are at all interested in disability rights and it's intersectionalities, this a great place to start.
March 3, 2021
A great starting point and absolute recommendation for my disabled friends. It’s a great read for anyone, but knowing reading this could really push advocacy in a much needed direction.
Disability advocacy talks so much about accessibility, acceptance, and inclusivity, but advocacy desperately needs a more honest and direct stance toward the system. This book is a great starting point for the theories surrounding anti-capitalist disability rhetoric, but I hope more work in this area will be done by advocates.
Disability advocacy talks so much about accessibility, acceptance, and inclusivity, but advocacy desperately needs a more honest and direct stance toward the system. This book is a great starting point for the theories surrounding anti-capitalist disability rhetoric, but I hope more work in this area will be done by advocates.
March 21, 2023
A bit of an "academic laundry list" of examples pointing out how Capitalism fucks over disabled people. I did like how she chose the term "disabled people" over "people with disabilities". It might seem petty or purely semantics, but it actually gets right to her point that Capitalism qualifies people based on their ability/willingness to be exploited by it, and by using the term "disabled people" she highlights the fact that Capitalism forces the defining of people as "able" or disabled" because it has little to do (and little concern for) with any actual/specific disability, but merely about whether or not the person can work, and how much it will cost the Capitalist to employ them. Definitely a neglected aspect of Capitalist critique, and yet one that comes to rather obvious conclusions, and also provides no remedies. Not because the author lacks scholarship bona fides, but because there is in fact no remedy IN Capitalism. None. To fix the problem of how disabled people are treated in the economy we MUST eliminate Capitalism. If we don't destroy Capitalism, soon the term "disabled person" will pretty much include anyone who fights for better wages, more benefits, and improved working conditions.
November 26, 2025
Required reading for anyone working toward social justice or just trying to make sense of the political and social realities of capitalism. Always refreshing to return to the work of politically disabled writers because we are not afraid to break taboo and state plainly that capitalism is barbaric, the root of most suffering and injustice, and needs to go. Way too few on the left have disability justice on their radar and this is a great place to start learning why no movement is complete without (or divorced from) disabled people. Also makes a great companion piece to Health Communism by Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant. Holds up well for essays published 20-25 years ago (capitalism has obviously not gone anywhere and it's pretty helpful to see how little has changed, as an expression of the systematic nature of these realities). Anyway, highly recommend.
May 23, 2020
Poignant view of capitalism as it impacts people with disabilities. These essays are from the early 2000s, but I appreciate the reminder that the GOP has long been working to benefit the super rich and treating the poor and disabled with a “compassionate conservatism” that doesn’t even provide basic needs. The current occupant of the White House is distasteful as a human, but he is very effective at furthering long held goals of conservatives in America.
This book offered a vision of an America that meets basic needs for everyone and offered a compelling argument that this vision is not compatible with capitalism.
This book offered a vision of an America that meets basic needs for everyone and offered a compelling argument that this vision is not compatible with capitalism.
July 15, 2021
this was excellent, eye-opening, and very heavy. Russell synthesized social theory, economics, history, and disability policy in a way that I feel like I learned and now understand a lot.
February 7, 2022
excellent material analysis - pushed my thinking of disability justice in the context of the political economy
October 1, 2023
this took me a full year to finish
May 25, 2024
Eye opening.
Read
November 25, 2025DNF
I’m about a quarter of the way through, but I will return to it in the future for my research.
I’m about a quarter of the way through, but I will return to it in the future for my research.
December 12, 2022
as depressing as I imagined it would be!
January 19, 2023
This really took me 3 years to read because of my ADHD…
Really great collection of essays by a very passionate and dedicated disability activist. As a disabled person myself, it was incredibly illuminating as to the aspects of capitalism that prey on my “lack of labor” because I can’t work physical jobs. Missing a few citations here and there but most claims were verified with a quick google search. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand how the category of “disabled workers” is instrumental to the ruling class maintaining control.
Really great collection of essays by a very passionate and dedicated disability activist. As a disabled person myself, it was incredibly illuminating as to the aspects of capitalism that prey on my “lack of labor” because I can’t work physical jobs. Missing a few citations here and there but most claims were verified with a quick google search. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand how the category of “disabled workers” is instrumental to the ruling class maintaining control.
August 11, 2020
Pretty confronting - which is what makes it such a good read. The system is (and has been for a long time) broken. Loved the way Russell was able to highlight some of these glaring issues in a well laid out way.
October 27, 2021
"I'm very tired of being thankful for accessible toilets. If I have to be thankful for an accessible bathroom, when am I ever gonna be equal in the community?"
—Judith Heumann
We in the disabled community are still fighting for basic human rights in 2021. We still don't have the rights to life, liberty, or pursuit, and as always we are faced with trying to justify our right to exist over the deafening cries of the wealthy few who do. Writing in 2002, Mart Russell highlights the human rights disaster that exists for disabled people in the States while pointing out the ways in which capitalism produces the (still) prevailing ideology that we have no right to exist. This work says a lot that needed to be said about being disabled in a capitalist system, carrying on the critique that disability is defined in relation to the mode of production, but be warned that this topic is a dark one, the book does not shy from this.
Shout-out to Adrestia's Revolt for reading this and many other works on their YouTube channel.
Note: It is noteworthy that this book came prior to the boom in at-home disability care, and this context should be held in mind when the author speaks about this model of care as something liberatory. It did not quite work out that way, but this does not detract from the quality of the book on the whole.
—Judith Heumann
We in the disabled community are still fighting for basic human rights in 2021. We still don't have the rights to life, liberty, or pursuit, and as always we are faced with trying to justify our right to exist over the deafening cries of the wealthy few who do. Writing in 2002, Mart Russell highlights the human rights disaster that exists for disabled people in the States while pointing out the ways in which capitalism produces the (still) prevailing ideology that we have no right to exist. This work says a lot that needed to be said about being disabled in a capitalist system, carrying on the critique that disability is defined in relation to the mode of production, but be warned that this topic is a dark one, the book does not shy from this.
Shout-out to Adrestia's Revolt for reading this and many other works on their YouTube channel.
Note: It is noteworthy that this book came prior to the boom in at-home disability care, and this context should be held in mind when the author speaks about this model of care as something liberatory. It did not quite work out that way, but this does not detract from the quality of the book on the whole.
February 9, 2022
Second time through. Russell is not the flashiest or most dazzling writer and her presentation is fairly schematic and dry. That aside, her schemas pertaining to disability and labor are presented in an extremely clear way (and repeated multiple times) and they still hold true. She had a few, very important points to make and she makes them clearly: the disabled as a category are produced by the circulation and concentration of capital and are maintained as such because they are systematically necessary for the functioning of capitalism, which degrades, excludes, profits off of, or destroys them according to the needs of the market.
August 23, 2020
This book is fantastic.
It's simply a collection of essays by Marta Russell, but they are all amazing. Despite being out of date in terms of numbers, the concepts are still very well alive because we are still arguing about the rights of disabled people in a society where some governments are decreasing access to healthcare while places like the US continually put forward politicians that refuse to acknowledge a universal healthcare option is possible.
I felt a lot of these essays.
It's simply a collection of essays by Marta Russell, but they are all amazing. Despite being out of date in terms of numbers, the concepts are still very well alive because we are still arguing about the rights of disabled people in a society where some governments are decreasing access to healthcare while places like the US continually put forward politicians that refuse to acknowledge a universal healthcare option is possible.
I felt a lot of these essays.
February 5, 2021
This was so good! An in-depth look at some things I already knew and an eye-opener for a few more concepts! It took quite a while to read because it can be heavy and heartbreaking at times, but it was good to have my instincts about capitalism as it relates to disability reaffirmed from an academic and statistical standpoint.
My favourite quotes were:
"disability is a socially created category derived from labor relations, a product of the exploitative economic structure of capitalist society"
"By focusing on curing so-called abnormalities and segregating those who could not be cured into the administrative category of “disabled,” medicine cooperated in shoving less exploitable workers out of the mainstream workforce."
"Discrimination can be ameliorated, but not eliminated, by changing attitudes. Only a system of material production that takes into account the human consequences of its development can eliminate discrimination against disabled persons."
"Capitalism set up production dynamics that devalued less exploitable or non -exploitable bodies, and Social Darwinism theorized their disposability. If it was natural that disabled persons were not to survive, then the capitalist class was off the hook to design a more equitable economic system"
"If workers were provided with a federal social safety net that adequately protected them through unemployment, sickness, disability, and old age, then business would have less control over the workforce because labor would gain a stronger position from which to negotiate their conditions of employment, such as fair wages and safe working conditions."
"What is the purpose of an economy— to support market-driven profits or to sustain social bonds and encourage human participation? Is it acceptable to reduce the productive activities of persons to commodity wage labor? Is the capacity to produce for profit an acceptable measure of human worth? Is it defensible to hold in contempt bodies that do not produce the way the capitalist class demands, leaving disabled persons to struggle on low wages or meager benefit checks or to be institutionalized?"
"inequality is a product of differential power, rather than differential skill"
"Anti-discrimination laws cannot bridge the systemic employment gap, and individual rights cannot reach the root of the parity predicament created by the economic structure."
"economic suffering, low wages and poverty are not the result of individual moral failings or a pathological “dependency” nor a decline in the Protestant work ethic, but rather, are built in to the structure of modern capitalism"
"There is no “equal opportunity” when the most important economic decisions about investment, choice of technology, work processes, and the organization of work itself are in the hands of a tiny elite of corporate owners"
"Unless disabled people see ourselves as active creators of equality (which means undoing capitalism, which can never be made equitable) we will be doomed to be tools of the owning class, and our people, like other oppressed groups, will remain impoverished."
"we must call for a drastic social and economic restructuring of the organization of work. We must create a social order based on equality, an order that does not punish those who cannot work, that does not make “work” the defining measure of our worth, and that offers counter values to the prevailing productionism which only oppresses us all."
"Some of the wealthiest people in this country are “dependent” upon corporate subsidies. Middle-class homeowners are “dependent” upon mortgage interest rates being tax -deductible. Why not view disability supports as part of the same largess, rather than framing them negatively as leading to dependency, paternalism, or “welfare”?"
"If democracy is the practice of promoting social equality where more people participate in governance, then capitalism with its economic tendency to concentrate wealth works against that equality, because wealth and ownership reside in fewer and fewer hands...There can be no democracy without economic democracy."
My favourite quotes were:
"disability is a socially created category derived from labor relations, a product of the exploitative economic structure of capitalist society"
"By focusing on curing so-called abnormalities and segregating those who could not be cured into the administrative category of “disabled,” medicine cooperated in shoving less exploitable workers out of the mainstream workforce."
"Discrimination can be ameliorated, but not eliminated, by changing attitudes. Only a system of material production that takes into account the human consequences of its development can eliminate discrimination against disabled persons."
"Capitalism set up production dynamics that devalued less exploitable or non -exploitable bodies, and Social Darwinism theorized their disposability. If it was natural that disabled persons were not to survive, then the capitalist class was off the hook to design a more equitable economic system"
"If workers were provided with a federal social safety net that adequately protected them through unemployment, sickness, disability, and old age, then business would have less control over the workforce because labor would gain a stronger position from which to negotiate their conditions of employment, such as fair wages and safe working conditions."
"What is the purpose of an economy— to support market-driven profits or to sustain social bonds and encourage human participation? Is it acceptable to reduce the productive activities of persons to commodity wage labor? Is the capacity to produce for profit an acceptable measure of human worth? Is it defensible to hold in contempt bodies that do not produce the way the capitalist class demands, leaving disabled persons to struggle on low wages or meager benefit checks or to be institutionalized?"
"inequality is a product of differential power, rather than differential skill"
"Anti-discrimination laws cannot bridge the systemic employment gap, and individual rights cannot reach the root of the parity predicament created by the economic structure."
"economic suffering, low wages and poverty are not the result of individual moral failings or a pathological “dependency” nor a decline in the Protestant work ethic, but rather, are built in to the structure of modern capitalism"
"There is no “equal opportunity” when the most important economic decisions about investment, choice of technology, work processes, and the organization of work itself are in the hands of a tiny elite of corporate owners"
"Unless disabled people see ourselves as active creators of equality (which means undoing capitalism, which can never be made equitable) we will be doomed to be tools of the owning class, and our people, like other oppressed groups, will remain impoverished."
"we must call for a drastic social and economic restructuring of the organization of work. We must create a social order based on equality, an order that does not punish those who cannot work, that does not make “work” the defining measure of our worth, and that offers counter values to the prevailing productionism which only oppresses us all."
"Some of the wealthiest people in this country are “dependent” upon corporate subsidies. Middle-class homeowners are “dependent” upon mortgage interest rates being tax -deductible. Why not view disability supports as part of the same largess, rather than framing them negatively as leading to dependency, paternalism, or “welfare”?"
"If democracy is the practice of promoting social equality where more people participate in governance, then capitalism with its economic tendency to concentrate wealth works against that equality, because wealth and ownership reside in fewer and fewer hands...There can be no democracy without economic democracy."
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