I often see these words used interchangeably, though as I understand it there is a difference between the two ideologies, no?
I often see these words used interchangeably, though as I understand it there is a difference between the two ideologies, no?
I always ask myself “could this ideology produce a world class hospital” when thinking about if I agree with an ideology. Do you think a gift based communist economy could produce one? Not being snarky, I’m genuinely on the fence on one hand I say no but on the other hand, from an altruistic perspective a world class hospital is in everyone’s best interest so… maybe, yeah, it feels at least possible if you got a lot of other stuff right?
I think your approach for evaluating political economic systems is sound, and it’s worth pointing out that, despite decades of unimateral embargo from the us, Cuba has some of the best doctors in the world. They developed their own covid vaccine. From Wikipedia:
I think it makes a strong case that a political system oriented towards common good can overcome crippling material restrictions imposed by a hostile neighboring superpower to provide free, high quality, universal healthcare.
Future communism (as opposed to primitive communism, the mode of production of hunter-gatherer bands that preceded agriculture) is a completely theoretical mode of production that is theorized to come after socialism. Basically, the idea is that the state will eventually wither away. How exactly this occurs is a problem for later, but it doesn’t preclude any form of organization, just no state.
I’m not convinced a hospital is the best place to heal the sick. Indigenous health outcomes got a lot worse after colonisation, even when Indigenous people weren’t classed as fauna. A lot of Indigenous people get diagnosed with a serious illness, travel hundreds of kilometres to a hospital, and die there. Because at the hospital, they’re isolated from their family, their community, their home, their country. I grew up in white culture, and I still find hospitals to be isolating places as a patient. It’s gotta be way worse for someone who didn’t grow up in that kind of environment.
Instead, imagine a travelling doctor service where the doctor has hours to get to know you while they treat you, where you feel valued as a patient. The biopsychosocial benefits should be obvious. There’s just one problem: patient volume.
Fortunately, communism has some great solutions to the patient volume problem. For example:
Capitalism makes people sick in the name of profit, and then sells them the cure. In a communist system, doctors would have more time to treat their patients like people.
Ehh, you’re thinking too small minded to approach the topic of hospitals in a communist society.
There would be far more doctors because the biggest barrier to entry is the cost of years upon years of schooling. If anyone who wanted and was capable were able to simply go to school without taking on huge debt or needing help, far more would try.
On top of that, if there was no money incentive to go be a doctor in a big city, far more people would be good doctors near small towns.
You would absolutely NOT have to travel thousands of miles and be away from your family, unless you had a novel disease that literally only a select few knew how to treat. You’d also still be in much better spirits knowing treatment wouldn’t impoverish you.
Here in Canada you get HUGE pay bumps if you agree to go practice medicine in a rural community, yet rural communities are still chronically understaffed (granted, we dont exactly have a capitalist healthcare system, but the point still stands).
You talk about relocating to rurals.
I’m talking about people in rural areas being able to become doctors without massive risk and debt.
Of course people would be less inclined to relocate vs staying home.
It’s not that risky to become a doctor. It’s true that it requires going into a lot of debt but when you’re guaranteed a starting wage of 400k minimum once you graduate, then that’s not a major concern for most people. That said I do think more can and should be done to recruit people from rural areas, especially people from indigenous communities
I agree with most of that, but I think I still need to bring up the benefits of centralised health services. In simple cases, you don’t really need that, but in tricky cases you might. For example, if you need an MRI scan before surgery, you just can’t rely on travelling doctors. Those machines are expensive, so you’re only going to have those in large cities where they can be used more frequently.
Surgery also benefits from being a centralised service. You can’t expect a traveling surgeon to carry all the stuff you need for keeping the whole room clean. Besides, the room itself needs special equipment. A simple scalpel and a steady hand aren’t enough to make it work.
Yeah, that’s true. I think a communist system can make good hospitals, but I also wanted to talk about why a communist system would have fewer patients at hospitals in the first place. Which makes it easier to care for the patients who do need a hospital.
I agree a communist system could make good hospitals (in Canada, all health care is run by the government and private hospitals are illegal, so even though we aren’t communist our healthcare system in isolation more or less is). That said I still think you need a state for this. Do you still think you could make this with a culture of giving, like you mentioned earlier? Genuinely asking
Yeah, look at how many kind people go into nursing and overwork themselves for shit pay. People want to heal each other.