With all the wonderful knowledge at our disposal, with all the efforts of the National Health Service, and again with all our doctors, dentists, specialists, hospitals and facilities for teaching health and preventing disease—it would appear on the surface that there should be no such thing as ill-health. But what do we find? Sickness is everywhere, and disease rather than health is the order of the day. Can it be that this problem under capitalism has something in common with other factors which are likewise conditioned or controlled by capitalism?
There are the means for producing an abundance of food in the world, and according to a recent issue of “Time” it is costing America over a million dollars a day to store food which they can’t sell, yet there are millions of workers facing starvation in Asia. There is abundance of raw materials for the purpose of building houses, yet there is a shortage of houses. There is an abundance of resources in the world capable of giving leisure and happiness beyond our wildest dreams, if only it was used intelligently. Yet there is poverty, want, misery, insecurity and everything that would appear to indicate an absence of wealth rather than an abundance of it.
But surely critics will say, the workers can’t be worse off under capitalism from a health aspect. With all the modern sanitation methods, doctors, radio propaganda, school instruction in matters of health and hygiene, and factory cleanliness, and a literate race who should know how to look after itself.
Under feudalism, the health of the people was appalling, chiefly because of filth and lack of rudimentary sanitary knowledge. Capitalism has provided this knowledge, but in addition brought with it other factors which affect the health of the worker. Since the time when children and women were not allowed to work in coal mines, about 150 years ago, there has been a steady improvement in the health of the worker measured in terms of extension of life. But what about the pressure under which so many thousands of workers have to spend their days? What about the sweat shops in the East End of London where even if the worker doesn’t work so long in hours as previously, has nevertheless to keep up a pace with machines which work ever faster. Sewing, cutting, sawing, planing, chiseling, spraying, nailing, packing, etc. And again, there is the enormous amount of van driving which has to be done along streets ever more congested and at speeds which would have frightened our ancestors. Hurrying to work, hurrying all the time at work, hurrying over meals—and the result is, sooner or later, a breakdown in some part of the digestive or nervous system. All this is made very much worse by the precariousness of living and lack of any real economic security.
Then there is the quality of our foods. More adulterated than ever before, for there is profit in food adulteration. More coloured and refined than ever, for the same reason. Is it a wonder that digestive complaints rapidly increase? With all our hospitals packed and a long waiting list for beds, the National health service goes on, but does the health of the people steadily improve?
The plague and cholera have disappeared so far as England is concerned, but their place has been taken by new diseases like neurasthenia and those which arrive later in life. It is an undeniable fact that we live longer (or linger longer) as insurance figures for expectation of life have shewn.
All workers are not engaged in industry and therefore don't suffer directly from the effects of industrialisation. But all workers have to eat food, and so do their wives and children. Food makes blood, builds muscles, nerves and gives health and vigour; but only if it is of the right kind. Poor food lacks essentials for preventing disease, helps to clog the system and lays the foundation for ill-health which can easily and totally incapacitate an individual. Food is consequently an enormous factor in the health of any and every community, yet the control of our food is in private hands and the food services run for profit.
Capitalism is a factor which contributes to ill-health because there are profits to be pursued, and incentives which make the capitalist's role in society ignore the health requirements of the majority. Although health is said to be the first wealth—from the capitalist’s standpoint, profit is the first wealth, in fact the only one they think of. Consequently until the working class can organise the production of food for use, it will always be tampered with by the capitalist for his own ends.
Horace Jarvis
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