Anarchism as a possible answer to the paradigm of Disability
Why reject Capitalism and Statism?
An excellent answer to: Why are so many disabled people anarchists?
I found this answer on a reddit thread pertaining to the question and I thought it would be worth sharing.
“ Becoming disabled in my late 20s greatly accelerated my move towards radical leftism. As such I can speak to why ideologies like this appeal to disabled people, even if I can’t go into the nitty-gritty details.
Disability is explicitly incompatible with the capitalist system. The way it’s supposed to work is that you work for the means of survival, and then the meritocracy rewards those who work harder or in a more innovative way with luxuries and wealth. Those who refuse to work are left by the wayside; people who only do the bare minimum only recieve the bare minimum in return.
(This is bullshit, but that’s how it’s supposed to work)
The existence of disabled people is a massive problem for this system. What is society to do with people who are unable to work through no fault of their own? Leaving them (that is to say, us) to starve would clearly be barbaric, which is why only conservatives will countenance it, and even then they usually have enough shame not to say so directly.
The enlightened, progressive solution to this problem–the one that even those supposedly socialist European countries deploy–is to give disabled people the bare minimum they need to survive. Obviously we won’t leave them out on the streets, but giving them enough money to go on holidays or buy nice things, or even to live independantly on their own, well that would be unfair! People are supposed to earn those things. From the meritocracy. The reality is that once you become disabled, the things that are supposed to make life under a capitalist system worth living are placed beyond your reach.
To a mind not warped by neoliberal capitalism, this is clearly absurd and cruel. The only reason why this attitude would ever be seen as reasonable is because we live in a system that enshrines ruthless competition between people as a positive good, and in which all things are provided to others for profit.
I currently live in a country that has a generous and accessible benefits system compared to the US and UK, and even then my disability payments would not be enough for me to live on by themselves. The only reason I can live comfortably in my current situation is because of other factors, which are mostly down to luck and privilege. Had I been born in a different situation or if random events outside my control had played out differently, I would be far worse off than I am now, with no way to improve my circumstances.
Again: this is the humane, progressive solution to the “problem” of disability.
Anarchism isn’t the only ideology that pushes back against this–any anticapitalist worldview is addressing the root cause of oppression of the disabled–but I find the anarchist focus on grassroots mutual aid to be very positive. I am skeptical of the willingness of a communist state to treat disabled people better than capitalist governments currently do. Even if they did, I inherently dislike the idea that my quality of life and humanity are in the hands of a centralized authority with the power to discard them if it’s deemed to be necessary. “
The Example of ME
in US (where companies rule) the biggest problem in research is companies paying researchers to maje shitty studies showing their “treatment” work so capitalism earns more and more money off people constantly engaging in consumerism behaviour or trying new treatments
while in Europe, main problem with ME research is its dominated by a group of psychiatrists, who are heavily supported by the state, for example Wessely (the dude behind saying ME/CFS is psychological) was made a Knight, is l cv is on the board of directors of the NHS, and is head og the government’s science media center.
In europe, where government is stronger than companies biggest problem is government promoting this research that pretends ME is not real, so they dont have to pay benefits It tends to actually be a worse problen in europe than the US.
In the US the problem is more that doctors tend to diagnose you with something you don’t have and prescribe drugs that won’t help you (pharmaceuticals thanks).
In europe, where the government strongly controls the medical system, the government has promoted rules that minimise the costs of disability benefits and delegitimise disabling illness as “hysteria” or whatever, so that the government doesn’t have to pay as much disability benefits.
Take the UK for example, Sir Simon Wessely, who based his career on claiming ME (and now Long COVID) are all in the mind, which was disproven later on. Where is he now? He was knighted by the Queen, serves on the board of directors of the NHS, leads the government’s Science Media Center. Oh and he also earns massive commissions on being a consultant for disability insurance companies.
His famous quote, which is linked to him advising UK parliament in the 90s, is “[disability] Benefits will actually make these patients worse” (because he believed they were malingerers). A quote that probably led to hundreds of deaths of people with ME starving to death. So in a sense, capitalism and statism are both inherently oppressive to us.
But any better under anarchism?
Why? In an anarcho communist society, everything would be built on collaboration, so research, would work much like working on open source projects.
Everyone who wants can contribute. And a community decides how they allocate resources at a very small scale, so there’s no “Millions Missing” everyone who allocates resources knows about the boy on his sickbed next door
initiatives like qeois are already built on open source ideology,
anyone can publish, anyone can comment, its all free https://www.qeios.com
In a way, you can imaginr no tax, but also everything is tax.
In anarchism, theres no money or property, everything is owned by the community together and they decided collabatibely how resources are used
(of course, you “own” your toothbrush) but the concept of ownership of land or wealth doesnt exist
Conclusions
to be an anarchist is to chose to believe in the good in humanity, despite the unheard suffering all around us