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In an opinion post for the British Medical Journal, Distinguished Professor Nicholas Freudenberg says mounting evidence suggests key features of 21st century capitalism add to the global burden of disease and to health inequities within and among nations.
As we examine the cascade of health crises with which we are currently faced, we cannot ignore the role that capitalism plays, Freudenberg notes.
Corporate managed globalization spreads viruses, unhealthy products, and pollution across borders. Financialization leads to privatization of healthcare, reductions in worker compensation, and less attention to product safety and pollution controls. Corporate appropriation of science and technology leads to the use of discoveries in pharmaceuticals, food, and transportation not to improve wellbeing, but to increase profits.
“Changes in 21st century capitalism are a fundamental cause of the world’s most serious health problems,” Freudenberg said. “Public health professionals and researchers have an opportunity and obligation to chart the pathways by which capitalism harms health and to propose strategies to reduce these harms and adopt policies and programs that better support human and planetary health.”
Freudenberg is author of At What Cost: Modern Capitalism and the Future of Health (Oxford University Press, 2021), a new book that examines this question.
