Capitalism & disability Selected writings by Marta Russell
Book - 2019
"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 criti...que 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"--
- Subjects
- Published
-
Chicago, Illinois :
Haymarket Books
2019.
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Physical Description
- xi, 212 pages ; 24 cm
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN
- 9781608467198
9781608466863
- Introduction: Capitalism and the disability rights movement / Marta Russell and Ravi Malhotra
- Part one. The political economy of disability. Marxism and disability
- The new reserve army of labor?
- Disability and capitalist globalization
- A brief history of Wal-Mart and disability discrimination.
- Part two. Civil rights and retreats. Backlash and structural inequality
- What disability civil rights cannot do
- Supreme injustice: disability and the judiciary
- Handicapitalism makes its debut.
- Part three. Disability incarcerated. Disablement, prison, and historical segregation
- Stuck at the nursing home door.
- Part four. The Social Security complex. Targeting disability
- Between dependence and independence: rethinking a policy wasteland.
- Part five. Beyond ramps. "Crips against war"
- Disability and the war economy
- Un-natural disasters: reflections on Hurricane Katrina
- The affordable, accessible housing crisis
- The United States versus the world.
- Part six. Body politics: the missing link. Dollars and death: the questions of physician-assisted suicide
- Eugenics and the "sole possible economic order"
- Appendix: Current disability statistics.